Dragon Warrior Run

ShinerCCC

Edit history:

ShinerCCC: 2009-12-27 01:56:10 am

2009-12-27 01:37:03 am

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

I just checked, Axe Knight gives 54 not 64. Still, the consensus on GameFAQs seems to be that he's the best way to level up. Also Darkwing, the infinite gold glitch definitely works, I really should read Ryan8bit's explanation of why it works. By the way, if you guys want to thank Ryan8bit for this stuff, just go listen to his amazing music on Dwelling of Duels. >_>

It looks like you can sell the Dragon's Scale and keep the benefit. Awesome. That reminds me, I forgot to factor in kickbacks when farming for gold. You'll get 30 gold back for your Club, 35 back for your Leather Armor, 45 back from your Small Shield, 750 back from your Broad Sword, and 400 back from your Large Shield.

Magic Armor heals 1 HP every 4 steps, oops.

Looks like it takes 16,000 Experience to reach Level 17, where you learn Healmore, considered the bare minimum for victory...but we might need more on top of that for this run to be successful...
Once you're level 16, your TNL is always 4000. Hmm, consistent level-up growth.

According to a territory map on GameFAQs, the 5 Cantlin enemies on Rimuldar island are Starwyvern, Magiwyvern, Knight, Demon Knight and Werewolf. Those are all pretty brutal except for Knight.

I'm not sure if the restoring power of the Magic Armor, and its magic/breath resistance of 33%, is really and truly necessary when Erdrick's Armor can be had as soon as something like level 12. It's a lot less gold to spend pulling from that damn chest. Full Plate is only 3000, Magic Armor is 7700. Even when you're just grinding in Rimuldar, you'll save yourself a few meager points of damage against only Warlocks, then you can spend up to 4700 on the inn if things hurt that much worse.

Interesting quote from GameFAQs:

Quote from The Admiral:

I agree with you on name choice, but I don't really see how any analysis of starting equipment can result in hours of game time. The game is relatively quick through level 14 regardless of your equipment. The real time consumption occurs between levels 15-30 when the game is an absolute grind. Most decent players will have the best equipment by that point regardless of other purchase decisions, so I fail to see how "hours" of time could ever have been lost.

Just checked the name guide. Unfortunately, the pairs of good stat growths are for Str+HP, Str+Agi, Agi+MP or HP+MP. Having good AGI is completely out of the question because it takes 2 points of Agi to gain 1 point of defense, where as Str to Attack is 1:1. Having an extra 10 MP gives one Healmore or two Hurtmores, which is actually like having an extra 85 HP to bring along. I guess growth D, the HP+MP one, would be second best but would merit another test first I think. A name of f, v, L, or ( will work for that. Choosing the blank for your name gives you the worst possible starting stats with A growth; the only drawback is 3 less points of Str and Agi than ! gets. My next test run of this game better be on emulator, and I need to track how many times my one-letter name gets printed, and see how many frames it saves...looking at the damage range formula, having 3 less str won't make much difference at all, especially since I want to gamble on the 1/16 chance of hitting the Dragonlord with Hurtmore to kill him. Wait, he has 130 HP, I'd have to hit him with it 3 times...

In any case, ! is still a great name because you start with the highest possible stats, 6 STR and 6 AGI, and those are your best growths as well.

...I got infinite gold and still had all my junk at level 14?! What a ripoff. ;_;
Reading the board, I am surprised to find a game where GameFAQs posters are ACTUALLY INFORMED FOR ONCE. Good players WANT to play this game quickly, because they've already triumphed over the epic bildungsroman that is Dragon Warrior, they're very familiar with the money curve.

One more big time-saver, I need to run this game on a PRG0 version of the game instead of my PRG1. Behold, text!

Quote:

PRG 0, HP Damage = 1:

The Slime attacks!
Thy Hit decreased by 1.

PRG 1, HP Damage = 1:

The Slime attacks!
Thy Hit Point decreased by 1.

PRG 0, HP Damage > 1:

The Slime attacks!
Thy Hits decreased by 2.

PRG 1, HP Damage > 1:

The Slime attacks!
Thy Hit Points decreased by 2.

I am totally shocked Dragon Quest even took off in Japan. Apparently all the sprites constantly faced forward, and there was no battery saving, there were passwords. I don't think I'll sleep well tonight.

I'm nowhere near done perusing the GameFAQs board, I don't feel like reading anymore, I'm on page 5 (in 50 posts per page view) of the old disassembly topic. I have another copy of the game lying around, I'm going to go check if it's PRG0.

Darkwing I also have to duel you at Tetris Attack some time.

EDIT: I am some kind of super turbo moron. You only need to grab a single chest in the Mountain Cave, then die, then when you come back to life you can grab the Stones of Sunlight and grab all 4 chests in the treasury, then the last one will be seemingly bottomless. But seeing "Harp Knight" is just way too precious...

I just checked, Axe Knight gives 54 not 64. Still, the consensus on GameFAQs seems to be that he's the best way to level up. Also Darkwing, the infinite gold glitch definitely works, I really should read Ryan8bit's explanation of why it works. By the way, if you guys want to thank Ryan8bit for this stuff, just go listen to his amazing music on Dwelling of Duels. >_>

It looks like you can sell the Dragon's Scale and keep the benefit. Awesome. That reminds me, I forgot to factor in kickbacks when farming for gold. You'll get 30 gold back for your Club, 35 back for your Leather Armor, 45 back from your Small Shield, 750 back from your Broad Sword, and 400 back from your Large Shield.

Magic Armor heals 1 HP every 4 steps, oops.

Looks like it takes 16,000 Experience to reach Level 17, where you learn Healmore, considered the bare minimum for victory...but we might need more on top of that for this run to be successful...
Once you're level 16, your TNL is always 4000. Hmm, consistent level-up growth.

According to a territory map on GameFAQs, the 5 Cantlin enemies on Rimuldar island are Starwyvern, Magiwyvern, Knight, Demon Knight and Werewolf. Those are all pretty brutal except for Knight.

I'm not sure if the restoring power of the Magic Armor, and its magic/breath resistance of 33%, is really and truly necessary when Erdrick's Armor can be had as soon as something like level 12. It's a lot less gold to spend pulling from that damn chest. Full Plate is only 3000, Magic Armor is 7700. Even when you're just grinding in Rimuldar, you'll save yourself a few meager points of damage against only Warlocks, then you can spend up to 4700 on the inn if things hurt that much worse.

Interesting quote from GameFAQs:
[quote="The Admiral"]I agree with you on name choice, but I don't really see how any analysis of starting equipment can result in hours of game time. The game is relatively quick through level 14 regardless of your equipment. The real time consumption occurs between levels 15-30 when the game is an absolute grind. Most decent players will have the best equipment by that point regardless of other purchase decisions, so I fail to see how "hours" of time could ever have been lost.[/quote]

Just checked the name guide. Unfortunately, the pairs of good stat growths are for Str+HP, Str+Agi, Agi+MP or HP+MP. Having good AGI is completely out of the question because it takes 2 points of Agi to gain 1 point of defense, where as Str to Attack is 1:1. Having an extra 10 MP gives one Healmore or two Hurtmores, which is actually like having an extra 85 HP to bring along. I guess growth D, the HP+MP one, would be second best but would merit another test first I think. A name of f, v, L, or ( will work for that. Choosing the blank for your name gives you the worst possible starting stats with A growth; the only drawback is 3 less points of Str and Agi than ! gets. My next test run of this game better be on emulator, and I need to track how many times my one-letter name gets printed, and see how many frames it saves...looking at the damage range formula, having 3 less str won't make much difference at all, especially since I want to gamble on the 1/16 chance of hitting the Dragonlord with Hurtmore to kill him. Wait, he has 130 HP, I'd have to hit him with it 3 times...

In any case, ! is still a great name because you start with the highest possible stats, 6 STR and 6 AGI, and those are your best growths as well.

...I got infinite gold and still had all my junk at level 14?! What a ripoff. ;_;
Reading the board, I am surprised to find a game where GameFAQs posters are ACTUALLY INFORMED FOR ONCE. Good players WANT to play this game quickly, because they've already triumphed over the epic bildungsroman that is Dragon Warrior, they're very familiar with the money curve.

One more big time-saver, I need to run this game on a PRG0 version of the game instead of my PRG1. Behold, text!
[quote]PRG 0, HP Damage = 1:

The Slime attacks!
Thy Hit decreased by 1.

PRG 1, HP Damage = 1:

The Slime attacks!
Thy Hit Point decreased by 1.

PRG 0, HP Damage > 1:

The Slime attacks!
Thy Hits decreased by 2.

PRG 1, HP Damage > 1:

The Slime attacks!
Thy Hit Points decreased by 2.[/quote]

I am totally shocked Dragon Quest even took off in Japan. Apparently all the sprites constantly faced forward, and there was no battery saving, there were [b]passwords[/b]. I don't think I'll sleep well tonight.

I'm nowhere near done perusing the GameFAQs board, I don't feel like reading anymore, I'm on page 5 (in 50 posts per page view) of the old disassembly topic. I have another copy of the game lying around, I'm going to go check if it's PRG0.

Darkwing I also have to duel you at Tetris Attack some time.

EDIT: I am some kind of super turbo moron. You only need to grab a single chest in the Mountain Cave, then die, then when you come back to life you can grab the Stones of Sunlight and grab all 4 chests in the treasury, then the last one will be seemingly bottomless. But seeing "Harp Knight" is just way too precious...

Darkwing Duck

2009-12-27 02:23:11 am

Highly Evolved

Quote from ShinerCCC:

Darkwing I also have to duel you at Tetris Attack some time.

lol, okay. I must warn you, though, the last time I played Tetris Attack vs. was against a friend who has somewhat of a competency of the game and we were playing just to pass time. He got REALLY excited when he won his one round to my fifty. I mean rounds, not matches. Besides, Panel de Pon and its clones really aren't that fun vs. since high level play is mostly clearing. Hmm...I could amuse myself and find a random person to play in Planet Puzzle League.

Anyway, to be somewhat on topic, I don't think after my first playthrough as a kid I've ever bought Magic Armor. I've always gone for the armor at like level 11 or so. I'd die a lot, then finally succeed and subsequently breeze through the next three or four levels.

Are you planning to SS or segment?

ShinerCCC

2009-12-27 02:33:15 am

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

Well, if I was actually going to do the run, I'm afraid I'd have to segment a little bit. I think it would be done in about 10 to 15 segments or less though. The main issue is running to Rimuldar or Cantlin without dying so you don't drop the giant bags of money. Oh, and actually killing the Dragonlord too. I remember I had to grind to level 22 or 23 to kill the Neverborn in Dragoon X Omega but I'm pretty sure the final dungeon is much much more hairy so that probably had a lot to do with it. Maybe I should examine the DXO ending on Youtube to see if the Neverborn has more HP. Other than that there would be no problem with SS.

successful RTA would be truly amazing though...maybe over live stream one day. Actually I'm sure the Japanese have it down pat on Ultima Garden somewhere. Gotta go summon up my friend who can hopefully read the stuff. I can only read the letter "ro". It's a box.

Darkwing Duck

2009-12-27 02:39:13 am

Highly Evolved

I don't think it'll be more than ten. My DW III run is 12 segments and it's 5:15. I don't think Dragon Warrior is going to be that long. Give us an idea of what the segments would be.

Edit: WHOA! RTA on Ultimagarden is 8 hours plus.

ShinerCCC

2009-12-27 04:25:45 pm

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

Fewer segments is certainly ideal because it takes forever to drag your glacier legs up the stairs just to save. Um, here's my guess of how it would go...

Segment 1
Get junk, sell Torch, get Leather Armor. Grind up to Level 4, get a Shield and D-Scale, save.

Segment 2
Farming in the Hills of Hubris up to level 5. Save.

Segment 3
The run to Rimuldar to buy two keys is attempted. If successful, save once you wake up after being dead on arrival.

Segment 4
The run to the Mountain Cave, and infinite gold looting. How much, I'm not sure yet, I just posted a topic on GameFAQs asking for help because I'm confident they actually know what they're talking about over there.

Segment 5
Starcraft campaign-ish suicide run to Rimuldar. If I make it, grind for hours without dying, this may be easier said than done. Stop at level 11 I guess.

Segment 6
Go to Kol for Fairy Flute, use a pair of Wings to return. Another Starcraft run to Cantlin, hopefully Golem doesn't rape me. Buy a Silver Shield, use 400 kickback to buy Wings and Herbs I guess. Wings faster than dying? Hmm.

Segment 7
~~MOAR GRINDAN~~ No, it's a run for Erdrick's Armor. Level 12 should be barely good enough to kill the Axe Knight.

[wait, segments 7 and 6 should be reversed. with Erdrick's Armor, you can get Erdrick's Token after buying the Silver Shield, then use a conveniently placed dickhole hardass enemy to get back to Tantegel]

Segment 8
Garin's Tomb. ~~Die to escape~~. No, Erdrick's Armor keeps you alive like the Jaws of Super-Life, with gummi bears. Use Outside and Return to leave.

Segment 9
~~MOAR GRINDAN~~ Cashing in Silver Harp, then making Rainbow Drop. Starcraft run to Erdrick's Sword. Much more easily said than done.

Segment 10+ (repeatable)
MOAR GRINDAN VIA AXE KNIGHT, PROBABLY UP TO LEVEL 19

Segment 11
GO KILL DAGRON, RAPE HIS LUSCIOUS THORAX WITH HURTMORE
http://dod.vgmix.com/past/nov07/ZZalt-Cacomistle-DW-Stupid-DoD.mp3
(I hear this in my head every time I turn the game on)

Fewer segments is certainly ideal because it takes forever to drag your glacier legs up the stairs just to save. Um, here's my guess of how it would go...

Segment 1
Get junk, sell Torch, get Leather Armor. Grind up to Level 4, get a Shield and D-Scale, save.

Segment 2
Farming in the Hills of Hubris up to level 5. Save.

Segment 3
The run to Rimuldar to buy two keys is attempted. If successful, save once you wake up after being dead on arrival.

Segment 4
The run to the Mountain Cave, and infinite gold looting. How much, I'm not sure yet, I just posted a topic on GameFAQs asking for help because I'm confident they actually know what they're talking about over there.

Segment 5
Starcraft campaign-ish suicide run to Rimuldar. If I make it, grind for hours without dying, this may be easier said than done. Stop at level 11 I guess.

Segment 6
Go to Kol for Fairy Flute, use a pair of Wings to return. Another Starcraft run to Cantlin, hopefully Golem doesn't rape me. Buy a Silver Shield, use 400 kickback to buy Wings and Herbs I guess. Wings faster than dying? Hmm.

Segment 7
[s]MOAR GRINDAN[/s] No, it's a run for Erdrick's Armor. Level 12 should be barely good enough to kill the Axe Knight.

[wait, segments 7 and 6 should be reversed. with Erdrick's Armor, you can get Erdrick's Token after buying the Silver Shield, then use a conveniently placed dickhole hardass enemy to get back to Tantegel]

Segment 8
Garin's Tomb. [s]Die to escape[/s]. No, Erdrick's Armor keeps you alive like the Jaws of Super-Life, with gummi bears. Use Outside and Return to leave.

Segment 9
[s]MOAR GRINDAN[/s] Cashing in Silver Harp, then making Rainbow Drop. Starcraft run to Erdrick's Sword. Much more easily said than done.

Segment 10+ (repeatable)
MOAR GRINDAN VIA AXE KNIGHT, PROBABLY UP TO LEVEL 19

Segment 11
GO KILL DAGRON, RAPE HIS LUSCIOUS THORAX WITH HURTMORE
http://dod.vgmix.com/past/nov07/ZZalt-Cacomistle-DW-Stupid-DoD.mp3
(I hear this in my head every time I turn the game on)

ShinerCCC

Edit history:

ShinerCCC: 2009-12-28 11:45:35 pm

2009-12-28 11:38:52 pm

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

Um, I just tested grinding on the Axe Knight at level 14 and it doesn't really work. At all.

BUT

Grinding in Hauksness is awesome anyway. Starwyverns and Wizards can be Stopspelled but they're still kind of inconsistent to kill, but Green Dragons seem to go down evenly and easily. They have 46 exp, the Axe Knight is at least 2 times harder to kill and only gives 8 points more? It's obvious the real treasure is the other critters wandering around. And after one fight with them, walk outside and patrol the desert with easier enemies, your Magic Armor will heal you but at the same time the high encounter rate (desert is 1 in 8 chance of encounter) still ensures you're racking up experience pretty quickly. Seems pretty fast to me, I got about 700 exp on one such run. I really need a stopwatch so I can speedrun properly >_<

also tried testing out the beginning with other names. I think the Club is worth getting even if you're not !, with the Bamboo Pole sometimes it takes 3 turns to kill a Slime, ugh. Club guarantees 2 hit kills with a rare 1-hit kill, but I'm pretty sure ! was 1-shotting every slime at level 2 or 3. Ryan8bit says B growth (agi+HP emphasis) is the best shot at killing the Dragonlord at level 18, that's the name Z, but I'm pretty shocked at that. Agility barely does anything, every 4 points of defense you get reduces your damage by about 1.

For some reason the blank name reduces some prompts by 2 letters instead of 1, but I think taking a huge hit to strength and agility at the start, along with having A growth, might not be the best.

Um, I just tested grinding on the Axe Knight at level 14 and it doesn't really work. At all.

BUT

Grinding in Hauksness is awesome anyway. Starwyverns and Wizards can be Stopspelled but they're still kind of inconsistent to kill, but Green Dragons seem to go down evenly and easily. They have 46 exp, the Axe Knight is at least 2 times harder to kill and only gives 8 points more? It's obvious the real treasure is the other critters wandering around. And after one fight with them, walk outside and patrol the desert with easier enemies, your Magic Armor will heal you but at the same time the high encounter rate (desert is 1 in 8 chance of encounter) still ensures you're racking up experience pretty quickly. Seems pretty fast to me, I got about 700 exp on one such run. I really need a stopwatch so I can speedrun properly >_<

also tried testing out the beginning with other names. I think the Club is worth getting even if you're not !, with the Bamboo Pole sometimes it takes 3 turns to kill a Slime, ugh. Club guarantees 2 hit kills with a rare 1-hit kill, but I'm pretty sure ! was 1-shotting every slime at level 2 or 3. Ryan8bit says B growth (agi+HP emphasis) is the best shot at killing the Dragonlord at level 18, that's the name Z, but I'm pretty shocked at that. Agility barely does anything, every 4 points of defense you get reduces your damage by about 1.

For some reason the blank name reduces some prompts by 2 letters instead of 1, but I think taking a huge hit to strength and agility at the start, along with having A growth, might not be the best.

Darkwing Duck

2009-12-29 01:31:49 am

Highly Evolved

Wait, won't you have Erdrick's armor for that leveling since you'll have defeated the Axe Knight at least once?

Ryan8bit

2009-12-29 02:03:58 pm

Oh hai. I registered here to give some feedback on your ideas.

Quote from ShinerCCC:

Drakees will cause significantly higher damage, and the reward is only a single extra point of Experience. Don't bother.

Except that presents a problem. Zone 0 (or the grids nearest the castle with red slimes and slimes) has significantly reduced encounter rates. Basically the best encounter rate you can get is 1/32 in the forest or hills north of Tantegel. Since you can get 1/8 chance in the hills southwest of Tantegel (not in the southernmost strip), you can get encounters 4 times faster. This more than makes up for the fact that you'll take more damage and possibly have to take an extra inn trip. I've tested this with my simulator and the results always show that you're better off starting in zone 1 than zone 0, even at level 1.

Quote:

Ghosts should be beatable too so I guess you could wander north too, but there's a high overhead cost of running back to the castle and spamming Heal, probably not worth it.

It's not that much further away than zone 1, and from preliminary tests, my simulator says it may be worth it. However, once you get to level 4 is when you're capable of casting hurt, so it may be better to just stick around there.

Quote:

I LOL'd when it said the chest contained the "Harp Knight". That was a great WTF moment. I'll have to read Ryan8bit's GameFAQs thread to try and guess why that happened.

I'm not positive since I don't really focus on the text in the game, but just from doing a simple examination, it seems like it's just taking the last values that were in memory for text. The game circumvents making the sound, making the chest disappear, and probably storing the text of what's actually inside. I'm guessing you got the silver harp and then fought a wraith knight, but I can't be sure.

Quote:

Don't you just put Golem to sleep and forget about it?" HELL NO. He can attack the turn he wakes up and it's usually for 40+ damage, and your max HP is 63.

Always put the Golem to sleep. Even if he wakes up and gets an attack, you always get at least one attack in. He will never wake up right away negating your turn.

Quote:

Given that every fight in Dragon Warrior is a complete slugfest, both sides wearing each other down more or less equally, a high defense goes much farther than a few more points of damage.

Maybe later in the game, and especially once your defense gets to be equal to the enemy's strength because then they do significantly less damage. But in the early part of the game, I think weapons are a better buy.

Quote:

This is also a suitable level to grave-rob Garin too.

I haven't done any sims on this yet, but I would imagine you could go whenever it's most convenient in the later levels. So if you happen to be nearby Tantegel, that might be a good time to do it.

Quote from ShinerCCC:

Ryan8bit says B growth (agi+HP emphasis) is the best shot at killing the Dragonlord at level 18, that's the name Z, but I'm pretty shocked at that. Agility barely does anything, every 4 points of defense you get reduces your damage by about 1.

No, it's not agility and HP, it's strength and HP. It is the best with basic strategy, which is just fighting and casting healmore when your HP <= the Dragonlord's max damage.

Strength outweighs almost everything. Agility is half as useful as strength. MP will at best get you only one or two more attacks. HP gives you enough of a buffer to withstand more attacks, and it maximizes the range of the healmore spell. There is no strength and MP combo, so strength and HP is the best.

Oh hai.  I registered here to give some feedback on your ideas.

[quote="ShinerCCC"]
Drakees will cause significantly higher damage, and the reward is only a single extra point of Experience. Don't bother.[/quote]

Except that presents a problem.  Zone 0 (or the grids nearest the castle with red slimes and slimes) has significantly reduced encounter rates.  Basically the best encounter rate you can get is 1/32 in the forest or hills north of Tantegel.  Since you can get 1/8 chance in the hills southwest of Tantegel (not in the southernmost strip), you can get encounters 4 times faster.  This more than makes up for the fact that you'll take more damage and possibly have to take an extra inn trip.  I've tested this with my simulator and the results always show that you're better off starting in zone 1 than zone 0, even at level 1.

[quote]Ghosts should be beatable too so I guess you could wander north too, but there's a high overhead cost of running back to the castle and spamming Heal, probably not worth it.[/quote]

It's not that much further away than zone 1, and from preliminary tests, my simulator says it may be worth it.  However, once you get to level 4 is when you're capable of casting hurt, so it may be better to just stick around there.

[quote]I LOL'd when it said the chest contained the "Harp Knight". That was a great WTF moment. I'll have to read Ryan8bit's GameFAQs thread to try and guess why that happened.[/quote]

I'm not positive since I don't really focus on the text in the game, but just from doing a simple examination, it seems like it's just taking the last values that were in memory for text.  The game circumvents making the sound, making the chest disappear, and probably storing the text of what's actually inside.  I'm guessing you got the silver harp and then fought a wraith knight, but I can't be sure.

[quote]Don't you just put Golem to sleep and forget about it?" HELL NO. He can attack the turn he wakes up and it's usually for 40+ damage, and your max HP is 63.[/quote]

Always put the Golem to sleep.  Even if he wakes up and gets an attack, you always get at least one attack in.  He will never wake up right away negating your turn.

[quote]Given that every fight in Dragon Warrior is a complete slugfest, both sides wearing each other down more or less equally, a high defense goes much farther than a few more points of damage.[/quote]

Maybe later in the game, and especially once your defense gets to be equal to the enemy's strength because then they do significantly less damage.  But in the early part of the game, I think weapons are a better buy.

[quote]This is also a suitable level to grave-rob Garin too.[/quote]

I haven't done any sims on this yet, but I would imagine you could go whenever it's most convenient in the later levels.  So if you happen to be nearby Tantegel, that might be a good time to do it.

[quote="ShinerCCC"]
Ryan8bit says B growth (agi+HP emphasis) is the best shot at killing the Dragonlord at level 18, that's the name Z, but I'm pretty shocked at that. Agility barely does anything, every 4 points of defense you get reduces your damage by about 1.[/quote]

No, it's not agility and HP, it's strength and HP.  It is the best with basic strategy, which is just fighting and casting healmore when your HP <= the Dragonlord's max damage.

Strength outweighs almost everything.  Agility is half as useful as strength.  MP will at best get you only one or two more attacks.  HP gives you enough of a buffer to withstand more attacks, and it maximizes the range of the healmore spell.  There is no strength and MP combo, so strength and HP is the best.

ShinerCCC

2009-12-29 11:55:36 pm

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

Quote:

I'm guessing you got the silver harp and then fought a wraith knight, but I can't be sure.

Nope, I was level 5 when I grabbed the stones, so I had zero prior experience with either of those things. I guess the game was using garbage pointers or something. According to the text dump on GameFAQs, the words are stored separately to save space, it's not "Silver Harp" it's "Silver" + "Harp". Similarly, that's how they can make "Silver" + "Shield". I think Knight comes after Harp and they're way near the bottom, if that helps.

Thanks for the tip about zone 0, I was wondering why it was taking so long to get into fights.

I was always putting Golem to sleep, I was just clearing up a misconception I used to have where you could sleeplock Golem to death, but Dragon Warrior doesn't work that way.

It looks like e, u, K or ( is the name to choose. Sad, because I wanted to make side jokes about ! from ITG2 and Bang Shishigami from BlazBlue. He starts with 6 strength, so Club+float gold for Leather Armor is the best start. Either that or getting the Dragon Scale right away instead, it only costs 10 gold and the 2 defense might help protect from Slimes more.

I just checked, I think the real reason I found Dragoon X Omega so hard is because the name 'Nika' is remainder 0, which gives the worst possible stats >_>

If I somehow fight nothing but 200 Wolflords to level from 5 to 12, that gives more than enough cash to buy a Silver Shield. But that won't happen so I'll try to level up to 11 or 12 and see if that leaves strictly enough money. If I'm 310 short I can trade to a Small Shield in Breconnary. Maybe I could even sell my Magic Keys.

Grinding to level 5 is necessary for money, unless you skip Small Shield. It's only another 4 defense anyway. The 90 gold is better spent on 3 Herbs to make the journey to Rimuldar in segment 3 more bearable. Speaking of that, I think the Fairy Flute grab should be mixed into there instead.

The regenerating properties of Magic Armor and its Warlock-Hurt resistance may make the extra few minutes spent pulling the gold from the infinite chest may pay off. But for the next test I'll try Full Plate instead. Time to do another early game test run I guess!

[quote]I'm guessing you got the silver harp and then fought a wraith knight, but I can't be sure.[/quote]

Nope, I was level 5 when I grabbed the stones, so I had zero prior experience with either of those things. I guess the game was using garbage pointers or something. According to the text dump on GameFAQs, the words are stored separately to save space, it's not "Silver Harp" it's "Silver" + "Harp". Similarly, that's how they can make "Silver" + "Shield". I think Knight comes after Harp and they're way near the bottom, if that helps.

Thanks for the tip about zone 0, I was wondering why it was taking so long to get into fights.

I was always putting Golem to sleep, I was just clearing up a misconception I used to have where you could sleeplock Golem to death, but Dragon Warrior doesn't work that way.

It looks like e, u, K or ( is the name to choose. Sad, because I wanted to make side jokes about ! from ITG2 and Bang Shishigami from BlazBlue. He starts with 6 strength, so Club+float gold for Leather Armor is the best start. Either that or getting the Dragon Scale right away instead, it only costs 10 gold and the 2 defense might help protect from Slimes more.

I just checked, I think the real reason I found Dragoon X Omega so hard is because the name 'Nika' is remainder 0, which gives the worst possible stats >_>

If I somehow fight nothing but 200 Wolflords to level from 5 to 12, that gives more than enough cash to buy a Silver Shield. But that won't happen so I'll try to level up to 11 or 12 and see if that leaves strictly enough money. If I'm 310 short I can trade to a Small Shield in Breconnary. Maybe I could even sell my Magic Keys.

Grinding to level 5 is necessary for money, unless you skip Small Shield. It's only another 4 defense anyway. The 90 gold is better spent on 3 Herbs to make the journey to Rimuldar in segment 3 more bearable. Speaking of that, I think the Fairy Flute grab should be mixed into there instead.

The regenerating properties of Magic Armor and its Warlock-Hurt resistance may make the extra few minutes spent pulling the gold from the infinite chest may pay off. But for the next test I'll try Full Plate instead. Time to do another early game test run I guess!

Ryan8bit

2009-12-30 08:55:51 am

Quote from ShinerCCC:

It looks like e, u, K or ( is the name to choose.

Ok, I'm just going to simplify here:
Growth type A is long term HP and MP.
Growth type B is long term strength and HP.
Growth type C is long term agility and MP.
Growth type D is long term strength and agility.

e, u, K, and ( are all growth type C, which is awful. You want d, t, J, or Z if you want the best odds against the Dragon Warrior.

I really wish akira slime would just fix the FAQ.

ShinerCCC

2009-12-30 11:26:52 am

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

I dunno, the name u gave me 6 strength and 16 HP to start with.

I played for about 3 hours last night for a semi-casual test run.

In 13 minutes I was level 4, even though I (inevitably) died at level 2 (cheaper than using the inn) and again at level 4, lost 45 gold. Skipped the small shield and made it to Rimuldar at level 4. Activated the glitch right before level 5 as well. This time, the Stones of Sunlight were an 'Axe Ghost'. I guess it's a pair of random/garbage pointers.

The rate for collecting gold seems a little more than 250 per minute. I pulled 7000 from the chest (couldn't remember what Full Plate cost), died once when I got there and lost 1000, died again and lost 600, which turned out to be about equivalent to just pulling the 5300 I needed. After grinding for nearly 2 hours, I went from level 5 to level 12. But I only have about 10500 gold. I noticed when I got to Hauksness Wyverns were easy, so maybe I could have moved to the southern bridge of Rimuldar at level 11! I think the solution is to grind to level 13 because the Axe Knight is an invincible megafool, I hate that guy. He can do 31 damage in a swing sometimes, and I got really lucky with sleep usage and an excellent move for 37 and he STILL LIVED. I don't know how much luckier I can get, so he's basically invincible at level 12 or until I get the Silver Shield. Oh right, here's a more conclusive tactical report regarding how to grind in the Rimuldar region (with Full Plate instead of Magic Armor. The healing would have helped the most in terms of reducing the number of trips to the inn but I don't know if it would pay for the extra 18 minutes it would take getting more infinite gold for it)

Stick to the sandbar leading to town until you're level 9. When you reach that level, move to the southern hills, but not over the bridge, there is a large quantity of Wolflords there. At level 10, Wolflords go from doing a dangerous 8-13 damage to 1-6 because you get a good boost of agility (+9). But that might be enough for Wyverns as well...according to Ryan's data, Wolflords have 34 attack and Wyverns have 40, if the hex is little endian anyway, I think the NES is weird about that stuff.

Skeleton:
Just smack this guy around a bit.

Wolf:
Use Sleep, although you have the good defensive damage formula he still does 0 to 6. When your max HP is only 34, the difference between 1 and 6 damage suddenly becomes very, very important. Hurt might do slightly more damage to this guy but the real best way to fight him is to use Sleep, he's extremely vulnerable to it (1/16 chance of missing) and the 2 MP will save you from tons of damage anyway.

Warlock:
Just run. By the time these guys are a sure fight, you'll be moving to the next area anyway. With Magic Armor they'd be much more manageable but it's faster to run away anyway since if you fall asleep the fight takes way longer for a subpar reward anyway. That said, Sleep has a 3/16 chance of missing if you want to turn the tables on them.

Metal Scorpion:
Use Hurt 2 or 3 times until you reach level 8 or so, then your sword is just as good. These guys are a great deal for exp btw. You can occasionally one-shot these guys around level 10 or 11.

Wraith:
I seemed to be on an amazing streak with these guys, I would usually successfully whack them to death without a second thought, or put them to sleep if I suspected trickery (only 9/16 chance of that working, huh), or used Stopspell to shut off their Heal. At level 12 you can consistently pound them into dust in 2 hits usually. Nowhere near as awesome as Wolflords but probably still worth fighting.

Goldmans:
run.

Wolflord:
Here's the real delicious meat of grinding. The time just flies by if you rely on this guy to level up. Until you reach a decent level, the best approach is to use Sleep, it has a 12/16 chance of working, and it helps a lot before level 10 because it takes 3 or 4 hits to kill them. At level 11 or 12 you start 2-shotting them a bit.

Wyvern:
This guy becomes a weakling at level 12 for sure, possibly at level 11, so if I switch to grinding from him I will not only gain levels faster but also get more gold to show for it. The new actual objective seems to be reaching 14800 gold, LV13 may also happen as a result. It looks like there's a big stat boost at level 13, and learning Return should be helpful too, so it makes sense to get there before reaching Cantlin.

I used 2 Herbs during the entire affair.

Garin's Tomb enemies were easy except for the Wraith Knight, definitely run from him.

So I think the route is going to change like this: in segment 5 grind to level 13, then use the Wings and save. Segment 6, raid Garin's Tomb, cast Outside, use the Inn, get Erdrick's Armor, fight Golem, get Silver Shield, get Erdrick's Token, use Return, save. Yeah, that's a lot to get lucky on but I think it can be done, getting the Silver Harp isn't that tough at all, even in the dark. All this accomplished with several mistakes in 3 hours. That would mark the halfway point of the run I guess...

as an interesting side note, it looks like you have a 1/16 chance of connecting with Stopspell against a Droll. um...

I dunno, the name u gave me 6 strength and 16 HP to start with.

I played for about 3 hours last night for a semi-casual test run.

In 13 minutes I was level 4, even though I (inevitably) died at level 2 (cheaper than using the inn) and again at level 4, lost 45 gold. Skipped the small shield and made it to Rimuldar at level 4. Activated the glitch right before level 5 as well. This time, the Stones of Sunlight were an 'Axe Ghost'. I guess it's a pair of random/garbage pointers.

The rate for collecting gold seems a little more than 250 per minute. I pulled 7000 from the chest (couldn't remember what Full Plate cost), died once when I got there and lost 1000, died again and lost 600, which turned out to be about equivalent to just pulling the 5300 I needed. After grinding for nearly 2 hours, I went from level 5 to level 12. But I only have about 10500 gold. I noticed when I got to Hauksness Wyverns were easy, so maybe I could have moved to the southern bridge of Rimuldar at level 11! I think the solution is to grind to level 13 because the Axe Knight is an invincible megafool, I hate that guy. He can do 31 damage in a swing sometimes, and I got really lucky with sleep usage and an excellent move for 37 and he STILL LIVED. I don't know how much luckier I can get, so he's basically invincible at level 12 or until I get the Silver Shield. Oh right, here's a more conclusive tactical report regarding how to grind in the Rimuldar region (with Full Plate instead of Magic Armor. The healing would have helped the most in terms of reducing the number of trips to the inn but I don't know if it would pay for the extra [b]18 minutes[/b] it would take getting more infinite gold for it)

Stick to the sandbar leading to town until you're level 9. When you reach that level, move to the southern hills, but not over the bridge, there is a large quantity of Wolflords there. At level 10, Wolflords go from doing a dangerous 8-13 damage to 1-6 because you get a good boost of agility (+9). But that might be enough for Wyverns as well...according to Ryan's data, Wolflords have 34 attack and Wyverns have 40, if the hex is little endian anyway, I think the NES is weird about that stuff.

Skeleton:
Just smack this guy around a bit.

Wolf:
Use Sleep, although you have the good defensive damage formula he still does 0 to 6. When your max HP is only 34, the difference between 1 and 6 damage suddenly becomes very, very important. Hurt might do slightly more damage to this guy but the real best way to fight him is to use Sleep, he's extremely vulnerable to it (1/16 chance of missing) and the 2 MP will save you from tons of damage anyway.

Warlock:
Just run. By the time these guys are a sure fight, you'll be moving to the next area anyway. With Magic Armor they'd be much more manageable but it's faster to run away anyway since if you fall asleep the fight takes way longer for a subpar reward anyway. That said, Sleep has a 3/16 chance of missing if you want to turn the tables on them.

Metal Scorpion:
Use Hurt 2 or 3 times until you reach level 8 or so, then your sword is just as good. These guys are a great deal for exp btw. You can occasionally one-shot these guys around level 10 or 11.

Wraith:
I seemed to be on an amazing streak with these guys, I would usually successfully whack them to death without a second thought, or put them to sleep if I suspected trickery (only 9/16 chance of that working, huh), or used Stopspell to shut off their Heal. At level 12 you can consistently pound them into dust in 2 hits usually. Nowhere near as awesome as Wolflords but probably still worth fighting.

Goldmans:
run.

Wolflord:
Here's the real delicious meat of grinding. The time just flies by if you rely on this guy to level up. Until you reach a decent level, the best approach is to use Sleep, it has a 12/16 chance of working, and it helps a lot before level 10 because it takes 3 or 4 hits to kill them. At level 11 or 12 you start 2-shotting them a bit.

Wyvern:
This guy becomes a weakling at level 12 for sure, possibly at level 11, so if I switch to grinding from him I will not only gain levels faster but also get more gold to show for it. The new actual objective seems to be reaching 14800 gold, LV13 may also happen as a result. It looks like there's a big stat boost at level 13, and learning Return should be helpful too, so it makes sense to get there before reaching Cantlin.

I used 2 Herbs during the entire affair.

Garin's Tomb enemies were easy except for the Wraith Knight, definitely run from him.

So I think the route is going to change like this: in segment 5 grind to level 13, then use the Wings and save. Segment 6, raid Garin's Tomb, cast Outside, use the Inn, get Erdrick's Armor, fight Golem, get Silver Shield, get Erdrick's Token, use Return, save. Yeah, that's a lot to get lucky on but I think it can be done, getting the Silver Harp isn't that tough at all, even in the dark. All this accomplished with several mistakes in 3 hours. That would mark the halfway point of the run I guess...

as an interesting side note, it looks like you have a 1/16 chance of connecting with Stopspell against a Droll. um...

Ryan8bit

2009-12-30 12:11:17 pm

Quote from ShinerCCC:

I dunno, the name u gave me 6 strength and 16 HP to start with.

Which ROM are you using? Make certain it's not a hacked one, as I know some of those distribute and may change these results. I'm not sure which PRG the one I have is, but the results are consistent with the FAQ (minus the stat growth types being wrong). So if you pick a name like "d", it should give you 4 str and 15 hp.

EDIT: Oh, I see where the confusion is (haha, I thought when you said "u" you meant me...). "u" gives you short term strength and hp, but once you start getting to level 9 or so, the tides turn and you will gain more agility and MP, and less strength and HP. Basically they reverse.

Quote:

according to Ryan's data, Wolflords have 34 attack and Wyverns have 40, if the hex is little endian anyway, I think the NES is weird about that stuff.

I think you multiplied wrong.

Wolflords: 0x32 (50)
Wyverns: 0x38 (56)

Quote:

as an interesting side note, it looks like you have a 1/16 chance of connecting with Stopspell against a Droll. um...

Actually, it's 1/8. All the enemies that have F as their stopspell resist are 1/16. So you can technically stop the spell of a slime. I'm not sure why the Droll's is different.

[quote="ShinerCCC"]
I dunno, the name u gave me 6 strength and 16 HP to start with.[/quote]

Which ROM are you using?  Make certain it's not a hacked one, as I know some of those distribute and may change these results.  I'm not sure which PRG the one I have is, but the results are consistent with the FAQ (minus the stat growth types being wrong).  So if you pick a name like "d", it should give you 4 str and 15 hp.

EDIT:  Oh, I see where the confusion is (haha, I thought when you said "u" you meant me...).  "u" gives you short term strength and hp, but once you start getting to level 9 or so, the tides turn and you will gain more agility and MP, and less strength and HP.  Basically they reverse.

[quote]according to Ryan's data, Wolflords have 34 attack and Wyverns have 40, if the hex is little endian anyway, I think the NES is weird about that stuff.[/quote]

I think you multiplied wrong.

Wolflords: 0x32 (50)
Wyverns: 0x38 (56)

[quote]
as an interesting side note, it looks like you have a 1/16 chance of connecting with Stopspell against a Droll. um...
[/quote]

Actually, it's 1/8.  All the enemies that have F as their stopspell resist are 1/16.  So you can technically stop the spell of a slime.  I'm not sure why the Droll's is different.

ShinerCCC

2009-12-31 08:51:03 am

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

Oh, so you were right all along...according to akira slime's FAQ the stat growths that are 'good' just stay high the entire time. 'Z' is growth B but apparently the table explaining how the growths go in that FAQ is wrong. I saw a corrected one on the GameFAQs board but I don't remember where it is, can you post it here for me again?

I'm playing on an actual cartridge, a Canadian one (because the 'Your Journey Blah Blah' is also written in French), it's PRG1 (battle text says 'Thy Hit Points' instead of 'Thy Hits'), I have another copy of the game that's American but also PRG1. But since I have the wrong name, it looks like I have to do yet another test run...I'll be back to school soon and I'll be able to do this on emulator where I can either frameskip or just hack a battery save *_*

I forgot one detail about the infinite gold trick. For best technique, after you open the chest, let go of the control pad, then press a direction to make the prompt disappear. Then, you can press the A button to bring up the menu again a bit faster. At the speed I'm going I can almost get 8 chest pulls in 8 measures of music. The hardest part is going from Talk down to Take.

okay I'm going to find the topic about this game on the TASVideos boards

Oh, so you were right all along...according to akira slime's FAQ the stat growths that are 'good' just stay high the entire time. 'Z' is growth B but apparently the table explaining how the growths go in that FAQ is wrong. I saw a corrected one on the GameFAQs board but I don't remember where it is, can you post it here for me again?

I'm playing on an actual cartridge, a Canadian one (because the 'Your Journey Blah Blah' is also written in French), it's PRG1 (battle text says 'Thy Hit Points' instead of 'Thy Hits'), I have another copy of the game that's American but also PRG1. But since I have the wrong name, it looks like I have to do yet another test run...I'll be back to school soon and I'll be able to do this on emulator where I can either frameskip or just hack a battery save *_*

I forgot one detail about the infinite gold trick. For best technique, after you open the chest, let go of the control pad, then press a direction to make the prompt disappear. Then, you can press the A button to bring up the menu again a bit faster. At the speed I'm going I can almost get 8 chest pulls in 8 measures of music. The hardest part is going from Talk down to Take.

okay I'm going to find the topic about this game on the TASVideos boards

Ryan8bit

2009-12-31 02:28:41 pm

He got all the stats right for the remainder, it's just "step 3" that's wrong. The table should instead look like this:

growth Str Agi HP MP
----------------------
A 2 2 1 1
B 1 2 1 2
C 2 1 2 1
D 1 1 2 2

You can tell the growths just by looking at your stats, though. If your remainder is 12-15, and you have 4 strength, you will have long term strength. If it is 6, it is short term. If you have 4 agility, it's long term agility. If it's 6, it's short term. If you have 15 HP, it's long term HP. If it's 16, it's short term.

So basically it's just the opposite of what you start with, which makes sense in a way.

Darkwing Duck

2009-12-31 05:33:39 pm

Highly Evolved

lol, I just played around a bit and with the glitch, instead of the Stones of Sunlight I got the oh so important Small Shield.

Darkwing Duck

2010-01-05 02:51:17 pm

Highly Evolved

I've read up on the RTA report on Ultima Garden, or read up as best I could using Google translate this time, plus I've been doing some independent thinking of this game.

What I believe is that the game's speedrun breaks down into three parts. Part one is the beginning until the infinite gold glitch. Part 2 is the gold until all equipment is gathered, and three is killing the Dragon Lord. I determine that by the goal the player has in that part.

The first part the player is preparing himself/herself to survive long enough to perform the money trick. The second part is the player maxing equipment. The final one being Erdrick's sword. The last part is the endgame.

Going through a bit, I was able to get to Cantlin easily at 12. I beat the Axe Knight first try at level 12 with just the Silver Shield, Full Plate, and Broad Sword. It took just two tries to make it to the Sword at level 13, and the first try seemed to be quite unlucky as I ran into three Axe Knight's in a row, all getting a preemptive strike. The last one finally sleep locked me.

What I've noticed on Ultima Garden is that the guy cycles through all the equipment, something I think unnecessary even if one wasn't going to do the money glitch. Ryan8bit says that the Leather Armor can probably be skipped, but it may be necessary to have that in order to survive the sprint to Rimuldar. I think I had to be level 5 to get enough gold to make it to Rimuldar with enough for keys, so I think that should be the mark.

After that, what kind of money should we be looking for? Enough for Broad Sword and large Shield for sure, and probably enough for the Full Plate. That's 5300 right there. After that, all you need to buy afterward is the Silver Shield at 14800. Now here's what happened in my game. I could not survive the Rimuldar area because I didn't take enough gold to buy the Full Plate, so I had to go after skeletons near Kol awhile to get enough for the plate. I worry that Level 7 is almost required in Rimuldar so that you can sleep wolves. How else do you survive otherwise?

The other thing that I'm unsure of is the road to 14800. I was only about 1000 short in Kol of the Full Plate, and I was near level 13 when I got to 14800. However, I did fight all Goldman and even at 12, Wyverns were not worth the extra 4 exp and 20 gold. I would still only three or four hit kill them and they were hitting from 8-12 still.

As I said, I got to Cantlin easily. I had to use most of my herbs against Golem, but he went down first try. Got the Shield. Bought up to 6 herbs, died, made a bee line to the Armor. Stopspell worked first shot, and as I read, with the Silver Shield, an herb use cancels out a high end Axe Knight attack. I got a bit lucky at first then unlucky as he attacked five straight times after using sleep I think three times. I was able to be hit twice after my last herb and had like 12 HP when he went down, but it was on the first try, although I did die to a Starwyvern before I got to the Armor tile.

I then went to the grave which with the Armor is ridiculously easy. Wraith Knights can heal cycle you, which is annoying, but they still went down. I got the harp and did a bit of grinding there, to see how it went. I don't think it's as good as the Wyvern, Wolflord, Wraith, Goldman combo. EXP wise, you have run, 17, 20, 20 (Wolflord twice), 24 vs. 18, 20, 20, 22, 28. However, Specters can sleep lock you. Druinlords and Wraith Knights have heal, and Droll Magi have high defense and were almost always a three hit kill.

I also got really lucky on the way to get the emblem and killed two metal slimes. Still really unreliable.

With the Sword, Hauksness should be doable, although I wonder about the MP issue. I wonder if the Wyvern, Rogue Scorpion, Wraith Knight, Knight, Run Knight is a better place to grind until you can kill the Axe Knight over and over.

I've read up on the RTA report on Ultima Garden, or read up as best I could using Google translate this time, plus I've been doing some independent thinking of this game.

What I believe is that the game's speedrun breaks down into three parts.  Part one is the beginning until the infinite gold glitch.  Part 2 is the gold until all equipment is gathered, and three is killing the Dragon Lord. I determine that by the goal the player has in that part.

The first part the player is preparing himself/herself to survive long enough to perform the money trick.  The second part is the player maxing equipment.  The final one being Erdrick's sword.  The last part is the endgame.

Going through a bit, I was able to get to Cantlin easily at 12.  I beat the Axe Knight first try at level 12 with just the Silver Shield, Full Plate, and Broad Sword.  It took just two tries to make it to the Sword at level 13, and the first try seemed to be quite unlucky as I ran into three Axe Knight's in a row, all getting a preemptive strike.  The last one finally sleep locked me.

What I've noticed on Ultima Garden is that the guy cycles through all the equipment, something I think unnecessary even if one wasn't going to do the money glitch.  Ryan8bit says that the Leather Armor can probably be skipped, but it may be necessary to have that in order to survive the sprint to Rimuldar.  I think I had to be level 5 to get enough gold to make it to Rimuldar with enough for keys, so I think that should be the mark.

After that, what kind of money should we be looking for?  Enough for Broad Sword and large Shield for sure, and probably enough for the Full Plate.  That's 5300 right there.  After that, all you need to buy afterward is the Silver Shield at 14800.  Now here's what happened in my game.  I could not survive the Rimuldar area because I didn't take enough gold to buy the Full Plate, so I had to go after skeletons near Kol awhile to get enough for the plate.  I worry that Level 7 is almost required in Rimuldar so that you can sleep wolves.  How else do you survive otherwise?

The other thing that I'm unsure of is the road to 14800.  I was only about 1000 short in Kol of the Full Plate, and I was near level 13 when I got to 14800.  However, I did fight all Goldman and even at 12, Wyverns were not worth the extra 4 exp and 20 gold.  I would still only three or four hit kill them and they were hitting from 8-12 still.

As I said, I got to Cantlin easily.  I had to use most of my herbs against Golem, but he went down first try.  Got the Shield.  Bought up to 6 herbs, died, made a bee line to the Armor.  Stopspell worked first shot, and as I read, with the Silver Shield, an herb use cancels out a high end Axe Knight attack.  I got a bit lucky at first then unlucky as he attacked five straight times after using sleep I think three times.  I was able to be hit twice after my last herb and had like 12 HP when he went down, but it was on the first try, although I did die to a Starwyvern before I got to the Armor tile.

I then went to the grave which with the Armor is ridiculously easy.  Wraith Knights can heal cycle you, which is annoying, but they still went down.  I got the harp and did a bit of grinding there, to see how it went.  I don't think it's as good as the Wyvern, Wolflord, Wraith, Goldman combo.  EXP wise, you have run, 17, 20, 20 (Wolflord twice), 24 vs. 18, 20, 20, 22, 28.  However, Specters can sleep lock you.  Druinlords and Wraith Knights have heal, and Droll Magi have high defense and were almost always a three hit kill.

I also got really lucky on the way to get the emblem and killed two metal slimes.  Still really unreliable.

With the Sword, Hauksness should be doable, although I wonder about the MP issue.  I wonder if the Wyvern, Rogue Scorpion, Wraith Knight, Knight, Run Knight is a better place to grind until you can kill the Axe Knight over and over.

ShinerCCC

2010-01-06 03:50:08 am

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

That is indeed the ovearching structure of this speedrun: drink Powerthirst to get to level 5, activate gold glitch, get gear/grind, grind exp for Dragonlord.

The run to Erdrick's Sword isn't really hard, it's just all luck. Try not to get caught by Stonemans or Axe Knights. Some extra agility would help in a single-segment setting just to make it less likely to get surprised and more likely to escape.

Yes, you definitely bring 5225 to Rimuldar, and that much gold only takes about 21 minutes to farm. You do get some starting capital after dying though, and you can also stop at about 5200 because of monsters you fight on the way there. I'm accounting for the 45 gold kickback on a Small Shield and 30 kickback on the Club, assuming you start with Club/Clothes/Dragon Scale. Also remember to grab the Torch in the Mountain Cave before dying, you need one extra torch for Charlock, for the final run. You can use Radiant when searching for the sword, you won't need every single MP.

The Axe Knight is that much easier with a Silver Shield? I wonder if LV 12 + SS is easier than LV 13 + Large Shield. It would be a pain to walk over there a second time though, my plan was to kill the Axe Knight and have Erdrick's Armor make Golem easier, rather than killing Golem with difficulty and having the Silver Shield make the Axe Knight easier, simply because Hauksness is on the way. Then after that, you can scoop up Erdrick's Token, warp home after buying Herbs and Fairy Water and end that segment.

That's strange, I think at level 12 you should be able to take hits from Wyverns...wait, I think that was with the name u, not Z. u gets better Agility and at level 11 he gets a boost of +9, which translates into 4 more Defense, which translates into OMG I AM FIGHTING WYVERNS AT LEVEL 11. That might just save enough time that he might be the star player of the speedrun...saving several minutes by switching to Wyverns sooner would pay off if the Dragonlord takes only 1 minute longer to kill.

I'm pretty sure the Axe Knight is too hard to kill before Level 19 (blast him with Hurtmore) but the speedrun will be trying to kill the Dragonlord at level 18, maybe even 17. If 17 is possible, even if very unlikely, it's worth trying the segment 4000 times rather than adding 4000 minutes of grinding. When Quixim and I go over that one with our live commentary, we've agreed to the drinking game of taking a shot every time the Dragonlord kills me. Hopefully we won't die of alcohol poisoning.

I'm hoping Ryan8bit's simulator can give us a solid result on what's really the best grinding from levels 14 to 17. The Metal Slime zone can be sustained for a long time with Erdrick's Armor but I was patrolling on the grass...the hills would be a different story. Or you could stick to the desert and replace Metal Slimes with Rogue Scorpion, a pretty easy megafool.

Ryan8bit, why is Growth B better than Growth A? An extra Healmore translates into another 2 or 3 rounds with the Dragonlord. Does the lower strength mean you really do that much less damage? Then again, those extra rounds also mean the fight takes longer...and lower strength would also suck for the Axe Knight segment...

I have a Game Genie here, I can use a Game Genie code to replace Slime with Dragonlord to test how the fight could possibly go at full strength. Characters on my cart are as follows:

!, level 14, best gear possible
Z, level 10, Rimuldar gear
u, level 12, Rimuldar gear, can't beat %&!$in Axe Knight, but only has 10k gold anyway so he's going to grind to level 13

That is indeed the ovearching structure of this speedrun: drink Powerthirst to get to level 5, activate gold glitch, get gear/grind, grind exp for Dragonlord.

The run to Erdrick's Sword isn't really hard, it's just all luck. Try not to get caught by Stonemans or Axe Knights. Some extra agility would help in a single-segment setting just to make it less likely to get surprised and more likely to escape.

Yes, you definitely bring 5225 to Rimuldar, and that much gold only takes about 21 minutes to farm. You do get some starting capital after dying though, and you can also stop at about 5200 because of monsters you fight on the way there. I'm accounting for the 45 gold kickback on a Small Shield and 30 kickback on the Club, assuming you start with Club/Clothes/Dragon Scale. Also remember to grab the Torch in the Mountain Cave before dying, you need one extra torch for Charlock, for the final run. You can use Radiant when searching for the sword, you won't need every single MP.

The Axe Knight is that much easier with a Silver Shield? I wonder if LV 12 + SS is easier than LV 13 + Large Shield. It would be a pain to walk over there a second time though, my plan was to kill the Axe Knight and have Erdrick's Armor make Golem easier, rather than killing Golem with difficulty and having the Silver Shield make the Axe Knight easier, simply because Hauksness is on the way. Then after that, you can scoop up Erdrick's Token, warp home after buying Herbs and Fairy Water and end that segment.

That's strange, I think at level 12 you should be able to take hits from Wyverns...wait, I think that was with the name u, not Z. u gets better Agility and at level 11 he gets a boost of +9, which translates into 4 more Defense, which translates into OMG I AM FIGHTING WYVERNS AT LEVEL 11. That might just save enough time that he might be the star player of the speedrun...saving several minutes by switching to Wyverns sooner would pay off if the Dragonlord takes only 1 minute longer to kill.

I'm pretty sure the Axe Knight is too hard to kill before Level 19 (blast him with Hurtmore) but the speedrun will be trying to kill the Dragonlord at level 18, maybe even 17. If 17 is possible, even if very unlikely, it's worth trying the segment 4000 times rather than adding 4000 minutes of grinding. When Quixim and I go over that one with our live commentary, we've agreed to the drinking game of taking a shot every time the Dragonlord kills me. Hopefully we won't die of alcohol poisoning.

I'm hoping Ryan8bit's simulator can give us a solid result on what's really the best grinding from levels 14 to 17. The Metal Slime zone can be sustained for a long time with Erdrick's Armor but I was patrolling on the grass...the hills would be a different story. Or you could stick to the desert and replace Metal Slimes with Rogue Scorpion, a pretty easy megafool.

Ryan8bit, why is Growth B better than Growth A? An extra Healmore translates into another 2 or 3 rounds with the Dragonlord. Does the lower strength mean you really do that much less damage? Then again, those extra rounds also mean the fight takes longer...and lower strength would also suck for the Axe Knight segment...

I have a Game Genie here, I can use a Game Genie code to replace Slime with Dragonlord to test how the fight could possibly go at full strength. Characters on my cart are as follows:

!, level 14, best gear possible
Z, level 10, Rimuldar gear
u, level 12, Rimuldar gear, can't beat %&!$in Axe Knight, but only has 10k gold anyway so he's going to grind to level 13

Dwedit

2010-01-06 06:45:42 am

Just want to mention that PRG 0 is strictly faster than PRG 1. If when you get hit in battle it says "Thy hits hath decreased" you have PRG0. If it says "Thy hit points hath decreased" you have PRG1. That's the only change.

ShinerCCC

2010-01-06 06:50:32 pm

Yes, a worthless avatar riding my posts.

Yeah, I've tried three separate copies of Dragon Warrior and they all seem to be PRG1. Two of them are Canadian carts (they say the 'mystical quest' tagline in French as well) and one just has the tagline in English, they all behave the same. I'm not sure if PRG0 exists on actual carts, and if it does, it would have to be a very early batch of copies.

Someone said there's a Game Genie code to make PRG1 behave like PRG0 and vice versa...the Text Dump on GameFAQs doesn't really point to both strings being in the same ROM but I wonder if SDA would let that one slide for the sake of making the run several minutes shorter and that much more bearable to verify.

Darkwing Duck

2010-01-06 08:21:03 pm

Highly Evolved

Early game:

I did not get a small shield in my run through (unless you count the one I got at the Stones of Sunlight chest). I went club/Dragon Scale, then bought Leather Armor. Got enough for keys at level 5, then went to Rimuldar. I really don't know which way is faster. But I took a few hits from wolves on the way to Rimuldar and survived.

Mid game:

Realistically, Hauksness really isn't THAT much farther from the Emblem than Cantlin. I think the time saved not getting to 13 trumps time saved walking to the Emblem from Cantlin.

End game:

I'm on a game with HP/MP strength, and I'm really wondering if strength is going to help against the Dragonlord. I'm at 19 and with MP, you get 1 extra use of healmore, like you said, so does that extra six strength really going to make a difference? I died, so maybe it is?

And at 19, you'll have at least 115 MP, making a use of repel and Radiant viable, so you don't need a torch.

Ryan8bit

Edit history:

Ryan8bit: 2010-01-07 01:27:32 pm

2010-01-07 01:18:06 pm

Quote from Darkwing Duck:

Ryan8bit says that the Leather Armor can probably be skipped, but it may be necessary to have that in order to survive the sprint to Rimuldar.

Yeah, probably. Mostly the statistics I'm generating are for a single-segment run. Personally, the idea of several segments doesn't really appeal to me because it seems like cheating. In that case, you probably wouldn't venture to Rimuldar until much later than level 5, at which point you could afford the Half Plate.

And to clear something up, let's say Shiner does a run in x hours, but in y segments. If someone else did a run in x + 1 hours, but in y - 1 segments, would that be the accepted run? Basically how are segments prioritized vs. time? Maybe I'm misunderstanding segments here.

Quote:

Specters can sleep lock you.

At level 12, though, you should have enough HP to prevent this. I'm not sure if you saw it or not, but sleep can only last so many turns simply because of the limitations of the random generator. The most attacks the enemy could get would be 6, and getting 6 is super unlikely. It's unlikely that a Specter could do enough damage in that limited number of attacks.

I think the one thing that might make the Garinham leveling not as efficient would be the 1 in 16 chance for encounters more than anything else. I'll just have to see what happens when I get there.

Quote:

I wonder if the Wyvern, Rogue Scorpion, Wraith Knight, Knight, Run Knight is a better place to grind until you can kill the Axe Knight over and over.

I'll test that zone when I get to it. I would imagine that fighting that far away from civilization, the emphasis might be more on staying alive longer.

As for the Axe Knight, he may not be worth the trouble in a speed run. We just have to wait and see. I'm not sure how long it will take for me to get to that point in my simulator. I've been pretty busy lately. If all else fails, you guys could just make a best guess by trying the runs out yourself, except that would take way more time. My simulator is nice because it can calculate in less than a minute what would normally take an hour to empirically test, and it does as many simulations as I want to ensure decent averages. I usually do somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 sims.

Quote from ShinerCCC:

Try not to get caught by Stonemans or Axe Knights.

You could always try putting Stonemen to sleep since they are really susceptible. Granted, you can still get blocked by them while they're asleep, at least they won't pound on you.

Quote:

I wonder if LV 12 + SS is easier than LV 13 + Large Shield.

The growth for agility between those levels is 8. So that's 4 defense. The Small Shield gives +10 defense, so that's 6 extra defense, which will only usually amount to about .75-1.5 less damage per hit, which would essentially be 1 damage less.

Quote:

That might just save enough time that he might be the star player of the speedrun...saving several minutes by switching to Wyverns sooner would pay off if the Dragonlord takes only 1 minute longer to kill.

It's possible for a segmented run that you would want growth type D (long term strength and agility). For beating the Dragonlord, type D was the next best thing, but it was maybe twice as risky as type B. It was still doable at level 18 with type D, so you might want that instead.

The +9 agility boost is actually at level 10. But yeah, at level 11 you should have 3 more defense if you choose long term agility. You need 48 defense, I think, to switch to the lesser type of damage. With type D, you could have that at level 10 with the Full Plate, Large Shield, and Dragon Scale.

Quote:

If 17 is possible, even if very unlikely, it's worth trying the segment 4000 times rather than adding 4000 minutes of grinding.

You're probably going to have to come up with a really unique strategy then. I ran my simulator for all growth types against the Dragonlord from levels 17+, and out of 10,000 sims, not even one was able to beat the Dragonlord. The reason is because of the huge stat gains at level 18. You might be able to come up with some sort of unconventional strategy that would work better, albeit still with limited success. Like possibly using one initial hurt spell against the second form, and if it hits, keep going.

Quote:

Ryan8bit, why is Growth B better than Growth A? An extra Healmore translates into another 2 or 3 rounds with the Dragonlord. Does the lower strength mean you really do that much less damage? Then again, those extra rounds also mean the fight takes longer...and lower strength would also suck for the Axe Knight segment...

You'd be very lucky to get in 3 rounds. More than likely it would only give you 1 or 2.

Any difference in strength ranges from str/4 - str/2. So in the case of having 8 more strength, that means 2-4 more damage per attack. So it's the difference between 3-6 and 5-10 damage. The former would probably take 25 hits to the second form on average, while the latter would take about 15 on average. So that's 10 rounds.

Growth types A and C showed very bad odds against the Dragonlord, even at level 18. It was something like a 1% chance of victory.

[quote="Darkwing Duck"]
Ryan8bit says that the Leather Armor can probably be skipped, but it may be necessary to have that in order to survive the sprint to Rimuldar.[/quote]

Yeah, probably.  Mostly the statistics I'm generating are for a single-segment run.  Personally, the idea of several segments doesn't really appeal to me because it seems like cheating.  In that case, you probably wouldn't venture to Rimuldar until much later than level 5, at which point you could afford the Half Plate.

And to clear something up, let's say Shiner does a run in x hours, but in y segments.  If someone else did a run in x + 1 hours, but in y - 1 segments, would that be the accepted run?  Basically how are segments prioritized vs. time?  Maybe I'm misunderstanding segments here.

[quote]Specters can sleep lock you.[/quote]

At level 12, though, you should have enough HP to prevent this.  I'm not sure if you saw it or not, but sleep can only last so many turns simply because of the limitations of the random generator.  The most attacks the enemy could get would be 6, and getting 6 is super unlikely.  It's unlikely that a Specter could do enough damage in that limited number of attacks.

I think the one thing that might make the Garinham leveling not as efficient would be the 1 in 16 chance for encounters more than anything else.  I'll just have to see what happens when I get there.

[quote]I wonder if the Wyvern, Rogue Scorpion, Wraith Knight, Knight, Run Knight is a better place to grind until you can kill the Axe Knight over and over.
[/quote]

I'll test that zone when I get to it.  I would imagine that fighting that far away from civilization, the emphasis might be more on staying alive longer.

As for the Axe Knight, he may not be worth the trouble in a speed run.  We just have to wait and see.  I'm not sure how long it will take for me to get to that point in my simulator.  I've been pretty busy lately.  If all else fails, you guys could just make a best guess by trying the runs out yourself, except that would take way more time.  My simulator is nice because it can calculate in less than a minute what would normally take an hour to empirically test, and it does as many simulations as I want to ensure decent averages.  I usually do somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 sims.

[quote="ShinerCCC"]
Try not to get caught by Stonemans or Axe Knights.[/quote]

You could always try putting Stonemen to sleep since they are really susceptible.  Granted, you can still get blocked by them while they're asleep, at least they won't pound on you.

[quote]I wonder if LV 12 + SS is easier than LV 13 + Large Shield.[/quote]

The growth for agility between those levels is 8.  So that's 4 defense.  The Small Shield gives +10 defense, so that's 6 extra defense, which will only usually amount to about .75-1.5 less damage per hit, which would essentially be 1 damage less.

[quote]That might just save enough time that he might be the star player of the speedrun...saving several minutes by switching to Wyverns sooner would pay off if the Dragonlord takes only 1 minute longer to kill.[/quote]

It's possible for a segmented run that you would want growth type D (long term strength and agility).  For beating the Dragonlord, type D was the next best thing, but it was maybe twice as risky as type B.  It was still doable at level 18 with type D, so you might want that instead.

The +9 agility boost is actually at level 10.  But yeah, at level 11 you should have 3 more defense if you choose long term agility.  You need 48 defense, I think, to switch to the lesser type of damage.  With type D, you could have that at level 10 with the Full Plate, Large Shield, and Dragon Scale.

[quote]If 17 is possible, even if very unlikely, it's worth trying the segment 4000 times rather than adding 4000 minutes of grinding.[/quote]

You're probably going to have to come up with a really unique strategy then.  I ran my simulator for all growth types against the Dragonlord from levels 17+, and out of 10,000 sims, not even one was able to beat the Dragonlord.  The reason is because of the huge stat gains at level 18.  You might be able to come up with some sort of unconventional strategy that would work better, albeit still with limited success.  Like possibly using one initial hurt spell against the second form, and if it hits, keep going.

[quote]Ryan8bit, why is Growth B better than Growth A? An extra Healmore translates into another 2 or 3 rounds with the Dragonlord. Does the lower strength mean you really do that much less damage? Then again, those extra rounds also mean the fight takes longer...and lower strength would also suck for the Axe Knight segment...[/quote]

You'd be very lucky to get in 3 rounds.  More than likely it would only give you 1 or 2.

Any difference in strength ranges from str/4 - str/2.  So in the case of having 8 more strength, that means 2-4 more damage per attack.  So it's the difference between 3-6 and 5-10 damage.  The former would probably take 25 hits to the second form on average, while the latter would take about 15 on average.  So that's 10 rounds.

Growth types A and C showed very bad odds against the Dragonlord, even at level 18.  It was something like a 1% chance of victory.

mikwuyma

2010-01-07 01:19:34 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Can't answer your other questions Ryan8bit, but the categories for segments are single-segment and segmented. Use as many segments as you need if you're segmenting your run.

Darkwing Duck

2010-01-07 02:22:14 pm

Highly Evolved

Quote from Ryan8bit:

Quote from Darkwing Duck:

Ryan8bit says that the Leather Armor can probably be skipped, but it may be necessary to have that in order to survive the sprint to Rimuldar.

Yeah, probably. Mostly the statistics I'm generating are for a single-segment run. Personally, the idea of several segments doesn't really appeal to me because it seems like cheating. In that case, you probably wouldn't venture to Rimuldar until much later than level 5, at which point you could afford the Half Plate.

In a speed run, you wouldn't get the half plate, run to Rimuldar with the Leather Armor, buy two keys, die, run to the mountain cave, pick up a chest, die, do money glitch, buy full plate and broad sword.

Quote:

And to clear something up, let's say Shiner does a run in x hours, but in y segments. If someone else did a run in x + 1 hours, but in y - 1 segments, would that be the accepted run? Basically how are segments prioritized vs. time? Maybe I'm misunderstanding segments here.

As mikwuyma said, there are two categories, single segment and segmented. Doesn't matter how many segments there are, be it two or two hundred, so long as it's more than one it'd be segmented.

Quote:

Specters can sleep lock you.

At level 12, though, you should have enough HP to prevent this. I'm not sure if you saw it or not, but sleep can only last so many turns simply because of the limitations of the random generator. The most attacks the enemy could get would be 6, and getting 6 is super unlikely. It's unlikely that a Specter could do enough damage in that limited number of attacks.

I think the one thing that might make the Garinham leveling not as efficient would be the 1 in 16 chance for encounters more than anything else. I'll just have to see what happens when I get there.

Sleep lock is for time purposes, not death. You lose time on wasted turns.

Quote:

I wonder if the Wyvern, Rogue Scorpion, Wraith Knight, Knight, Run Knight is a better place to grind until you can kill the Axe Knight over and over.

I'll test that zone when I get to it. I would imagine that fighting that far away from civilization, the emphasis might be more on staying alive longer.

As for the Axe Knight, he may not be worth the trouble in a speed run. We just have to wait and see. I'm not sure how long it will take for me to get to that point in my simulator. I've been pretty busy lately. If all else fails, you guys could just make a best guess by trying the runs out yourself, except that would take way more time. My simulator is nice because it can calculate in less than a minute what would normally take an hour to empirically test, and it does as many simulations as I want to ensure decent averages. I usually do somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 sims.

This is what I don't get. Once you get Erdrick's Armor, health should NOT be an issue. Hauksness is a GREAT area to grind because there are three enemy zones within a step of each other. For levels 12-13, stay in the upper area and laugh as Wolflords think stopping your spell is somehow important. At levels 14-15, drop down into the lower area and once HP is lower, move up one row and regen on Wolflords until you can fight the lower area again. Rinse and repeat. For levels 16-17, you can stay in the lower area full time, and possible smack around some guys inside Hauksness proper, and for level 18, stay longer in Hauksness and regen in the lower half of the desert. As for the Axe Knight, it seemed really inefficient to fight him.

Quote:

Quote from ShinerCCC:

Try not to get caught by Stonemans or Axe Knights.

You could always try putting Stonemen to sleep since they are really susceptible. Granted, you can still get blocked by them while they're asleep, at least they won't pound on you.

Need the MP for healmore

Quote:

I wonder if LV 12 + SS is easier than LV 13 + Large Shield.

The growth for agility between those levels is 8. So that's 4 defense. The Small Shield gives +10 defense, so that's 6 extra defense, which will only usually amount to about .75-1.5 less damage per hit, which would essentially be 1 damage less.

Quote:

That might just save enough time that he might be the star player of the speedrun...saving several minutes by switching to Wyverns sooner would pay off if the Dragonlord takes only 1 minute longer to kill.

It's possible for a segmented run that you would want growth type D (long term strength and agility). For beating the Dragonlord, type D was the next best thing, but it was maybe twice as risky as type B. It was still doable at level 18 with type D, so you might want that instead.

The +9 agility boost is actually at level 10. But yeah, at level 11 you should have 3 more defense if you choose long term agility. You need 48 defense, I think, to switch to the lesser type of damage. With type D, you could have that at level 10 with the Full Plate, Large Shield, and Dragon Scale.

Quote:

If 17 is possible, even if very unlikely, it's worth trying the segment 4000 times rather than adding 4000 minutes of grinding.

You're probably going to have to come up with a really unique strategy then. I ran my simulator for all growth types against the Dragonlord from levels 17+, and out of 10,000 sims, not even one was able to beat the Dragonlord. The reason is because of the huge stat gains at level 18. You might be able to come up with some sort of unconventional strategy that would work better, albeit still with limited success. Like possibly using one initial hurt spell against the second form, and if it hits, keep going.

Quote:

Ryan8bit, why is Growth B better than Growth A? An extra Healmore translates into another 2 or 3 rounds with the Dragonlord. Does the lower strength mean you really do that much less damage? Then again, those extra rounds also mean the fight takes longer...and lower strength would also suck for the Axe Knight segment...

You'd be very lucky to get in 3 rounds. More than likely it would only give you 1 or 2.

Any difference in strength ranges from str/4 - str/2. So in the case of having 8 more strength, that means 2-4 more damage per attack. So it's the difference between 3-6 and 5-10 damage. The former would probably take 25 hits to the second form on average, while the latter would take about 15 on average. So that's 10 rounds.

Growth types A and C showed very bad odds against the Dragonlord, even at level 18. It was something like a 1% chance of victory.

Ok, this is what I need help with. According to the Name faqs, often incorrect as it is, at level 19 you're only going to have six more strength using the higher strength gain because you'll earn eight more overall at that level but you start with two less strength (6 vs. 4). Is six strength really better than one less healmore? I was doing 5-10 damage on the Dragonlord and died all three times I faced him (although one was horrible luck), the last one dying after doing 121 damage.

[quote="Ryan8bit"]
[quote="Darkwing Duck"]
Ryan8bit says that the Leather Armor can probably be skipped, but it may be necessary to have that in order to survive the sprint to Rimuldar.[/quote]

Yeah, probably.  Mostly the statistics I'm generating are for a single-segment run.  Personally, the idea of several segments doesn't really appeal to me because it seems like cheating.  In that case, you probably wouldn't venture to Rimuldar until much later than level 5, at which point you could afford the Half Plate.[/quote]
In a speed run, you wouldn't get the half plate, run to Rimuldar with the Leather Armor, buy two keys, die, run to the mountain cave, pick up a chest, die, do money glitch, buy full plate and broad sword.

[quote]And to clear something up, let's say Shiner does a run in x hours, but in y segments.  If someone else did a run in x + 1 hours, but in y - 1 segments, would that be the accepted run?  Basically how are segments prioritized vs. time?  Maybe I'm misunderstanding segments here.[/quote]

As mikwuyma said, there are two categories, single segment and segmented.  Doesn't matter how many segments there are, be it two or two hundred, so long as it's more than one it'd be segmented.
[quote]
[quote]Specters can sleep lock you.[/quote]

At level 12, though, you should have enough HP to prevent this.  I'm not sure if you saw it or not, but sleep can only last so many turns simply because of the limitations of the random generator.  The most attacks the enemy could get would be 6, and getting 6 is super unlikely.  It's unlikely that a Specter could do enough damage in that limited number of attacks.

I think the one thing that might make the Garinham leveling not as efficient would be the 1 in 16 chance for encounters more than anything else.  I'll just have to see what happens when I get there.[/quote]

Sleep lock is for time purposes, not death.  You lose time on wasted turns.

[quote][quote]I wonder if the Wyvern, Rogue Scorpion, Wraith Knight, Knight, Run Knight is a better place to grind until you can kill the Axe Knight over and over.
[/quote]

I'll test that zone when I get to it.  I would imagine that fighting that far away from civilization, the emphasis might be more on staying alive longer.

As for the Axe Knight, he may not be worth the trouble in a speed run.  We just have to wait and see.  I'm not sure how long it will take for me to get to that point in my simulator.  I've been pretty busy lately.  If all else fails, you guys could just make a best guess by trying the runs out yourself, except that would take way more time.  My simulator is nice because it can calculate in less than a minute what would normally take an hour to empirically test, and it does as many simulations as I want to ensure decent averages.  I usually do somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 sims.[/quote]
This is what I don't get.  Once you get Erdrick's Armor, health should NOT be an issue.  Hauksness is a GREAT area to grind because there are three enemy zones within a step of each other.  For levels 12-13, stay in the upper area and laugh as Wolflords think stopping your spell is somehow important.  At levels 14-15, drop down into the lower area and once HP is lower, move up one row and regen on Wolflords until you can fight the lower area again.  Rinse and repeat.  For levels 16-17, you can stay in the lower area full time, and possible smack around some guys inside Hauksness proper, and for level 18, stay longer in Hauksness and regen in the lower half of the desert.  As for the Axe Knight, it seemed really inefficient to fight him.

[quote][quote="ShinerCCC"]
Try not to get caught by Stonemans or Axe Knights.[/quote]

You could always try putting Stonemen to sleep since they are really susceptible.  Granted, you can still get blocked by them while they're asleep, at least they won't pound on you.[/quote]
Need the MP for healmore

[quote][quote]I wonder if LV 12 + SS is easier than LV 13 + Large Shield.[/quote]