Anybody who's played this game knows it's damn hard, and speedrunning it would seem akin to running Dragon Warrior. But it's more like running Dragon Warrior III due to choices you can make in creating your party, and a huge variety of skill builds surely means there HAS to be a great exploit somewhere.

I'm posting this in the Casual Speedrunning board because I have no idea how this is going to pan out. I've been experimenting with running this game even though I've only beaten it once and I don't have a very solid idea of what I'm doing.

As cool as it would be to run this game on a flashcart to back up the game's only save file and optimize segments, that's still emulation, and not allowed.

Here's the segment guide.

SEGMENT 1
- name the guild SDA, duh
- Make these adventurers in this order.
Xyton, Landsknecht
Shiner, Troubadour
Escad, Medic
Flaire, Survivalist
Crono, Alchemist
Sheep, Alchemist
c1, Survivalist
c2, Survivalist
c3, Survivalist
c4, Survivalist
c5, Survivalist
t1, Survivalist
t2, Survivalist
t3, Survivalist
t4, Survivalist
mikwuyma, Survivalist
Form Shiner-Escad-Flaire-Crono-Sheep as your starting team. Leave them in that 3-2 formation so you can just mash A.
- go to Radha Hall, get mission
- go to Shilleka's Goods, buy 3 Hide Belts and a Wood Bow
- Equip all junk - the Bow on Flaire, distribute belts amongst the front. Skill builds for each character:
XYTON (L)
Get Blazer ASAP. So that means Swords 7, then TP Up 3, then alternate between Blazer and ATK Up as the situation fits. Note you won't actually need Blazer until Cotrangl but Blazer will help for grinding after Fenrir skip. Get a point in Freezer for Royalant. All of those should be maxed around Cotrangl so spend the rest of your points in TP Up, maybe with 1 point in HP Up. Don't cry if this guy dies (probably won't, he gets good armour and huge HP) because he isn't used in the final battle so if he's short on exp that's totally fine, he's only around to be an Inferno amplifier basically.
SHINER (T)
Don't bother opening the Custom menu for this guy until level 4. TP Up 5, Stalker 3, Return 1, finish taking Stalker to 10. Then, start learning Relaxing. Get Erasure at level 32 in time for Cotrangl. This guy doesn't need many skill points. You can sneak in 1 point in Bravery to make Fenrir a bit easier, I guess. Any extra points go into Ifrit. Yes, Ifrit, I'm not even kidding, it makes B20F a lot easier to handle and also faster.
ESCAD (M)
1 Healer, 2 Cure. Don't bother Custom'ing this guy again until he's level 5 when you can teach him Salve, another point in Healer is only 1 HP more of Cure. Be frugal with TP in the 1st Stratum but after that, get Immunize 10 obviously, then alternate between working toward Salve II (needed for Royalant) and ATK Up + Caduceus.
FLAIRE (S)
Get 1st Turn early on because it will help you kill things early on; it combos so hilariously well with Inferno. After that your next priority is definitely Bows 10, then crank up Apollon, because it does ridiculously high damage with a comparatively low TP cost. Also make sure to get Trickery up to 5 because it helps immensely with Royalant. Multihit actually doesn't get used very often, Flaire will be too busy spamming 1st Turn and when he ever gets a break to attack, it's obviously best used on Apollon. The points are better spent in 1st Turn to make it cheapter just because it gets used so damn much.
CRONO (Af)
Don't bother deploying these points until level 4. Fire Up 5, Inferno 1. Seriously. See segment 3 for justification. After getting Fire 1, get Inferno up to 10, then sneak a level into TP Up if you need the +10% BASE TP (not your +30 with Star Charms on) while you get Flame up to 10. Flame should be maxed in time for Cotrangl, so dump the rest into TP Up then TP Regen.
SHEEP (Ap)
1 Toxins, 2 Poison, don't spend his skill points until you reach 2F. But your objective with this guy is to get Poison to level 10 immediately so you can rape FOEs easily. This guy makes the underleveled trek through the Emerald Grove a lot easier. He gets benched after Fenrir is "skipped" though. Originally I was going to have him be a pinch hitter and learn ice skills but Royalant herself is weak to all 3 elements. Just tough out B11F and B12F with Crono because he'll need the levels to make the final battle faster.

From here on out, only Crono and Sheep will be referred to by name, everyone else by their one-letter class designation.

possible segment 1.5: I save everything up to this point, draw B1F, die, choose to "save my map data"...not sure about SDA ruling on this one, but come on, penalizing me for being forced to draw a map? reminds me of cup-stacking speed contests, epic but strangely unrelated to a game like this.

Surge forward and "Ask him what he's doing here", then "Leave quietly" and talk to him again, he'll let you through. Go south 3 spaces, then east, south, west all the way around to the chop room. Fight a Clawbug, get a Hard Shell, take the shortcut through back to town. Switch to c1-c2-c3-c4-c5, teach them all Chop 3 and go on a chop run. (this could be a separate segment to luck manip more Red Fruit to make slightly more money, but screw over-segmentation, saving takes longer) Come back, get reward from Radha Hall, switch back to TMSAA party, go to the pub and accept the "To taste it once more..." quest, sell junk, Talk to Shilleka to unlock Warp Wire, buy a Shortsword and some more Hide Belts (preferable) or Red Charms. Equip the Shortsword to T, equip any Hide Belts to the front row, especially to the T. Go to the inn and nap, Save to end segment.

In the early going your casters' low melee damage will be slightly helpful for cutting down enemies but Sheep's poison does 43 damage and works 100% of the time, so use him to one-shot Moles. Clawbugs have 45 HP, you'll have to follow up your poison with a swing from the back row while the front row defends.

SEGMENT 2
Grinding segment.
- Go north to the Whitestone boot first, then to the treasure room, then to the healing spring. Return here later to restore any lost TP, but the best places to grind are the chop room, the corridor south of the stairs, and the north treasure room. That's where you can fight Clawbugs or 3x Mole encounters. (well like I said before, 3 Woodflies gives slightly less experience but requires far less effort). Keep 5 Insect Eyes on hand. Anyway, make sure to grab the 100en rucksack, you'll be strapped for cash at the start. Grind until level 4 or until it's nearly 4am, whichever comes first; teach Shiner Stalker, teach Crono Inferno. Walk back to town and Sleep, then save.
It's possible to sell your Medica IIs for 60en, not too bad early on, but you can use Medicas to heal on the way to Cotrangl without using TP, a somewhat important consideration since I won't have time to unlock other grades of Medica except V.

SEGMENT 3
- Take your choppers for a run, switch to Medic in the front with Crono in the back. sell junk again. Get some Red Charms this time. Buy a Warp Wire.
- Take these two to the meadow where you can rest to fight 3 Venomflies. Get the medic killed on the way there somehow, but use Cure to keep Crono healthy on the way. You won't need that health for the actual fight though, Venomflies have a large chance to use Poison instead of melee attacks. Use Inferno and win on the first turn. Crono will gain nearly enough exp to go straight from LV4 to LV5. Teach him Fire. Warp Wire out, save.

SEGMENT 4
It's time to get the next mission. Buy a Staff for Crono if you can afford it, it's IMPORTANT. Switch back to TMSAA. Level up Sheep's Poison to LV 4. Head into the dungeon, use Stalker to sneak all the way to the door on B3F where those two brown-nosers block your progress. Grab the Warp Wire on B2F on the way. Avoid Ragelopes and Stalker. Against Fenders you just have to Defend with the front row, if someone dies it's not a big deal really. If you trigger the door and Crono has enough TP left for another Inferno, then linger and do one more fight near the door before you warp out and save.

SEGMENT 5
Revive anybody who died, get more Red Charms for medic, you don't need another Warp Wire, this loooong segment goes all the way to Fenrir.
- Get down to the healing sprinkler of B3F, this is easier than it sounds. Sure the enemies of B3F can really rape you if you don't have an Inferno ready to go but the trip from the door to the sprinkler is surprisingly short, with Stalker you'll probably only get into one more fight. Juking the Kuyutha beyond the second set of doors can take a few tries but basically you have to either follow him (much easier) or be a fair distance away from him while you run away.
- The sprinkler revives dead characters so go hog wild with your leveling here. Use Inferno to instantly win any encounters here, especially with 1st Turn. Don't bother opening the shortcut, it's a waste of time due to dialogue and turning and stuff. The best place to grind is the room directly west of the sprinkler room, the encounter rate is high and it's the group you want for best use of Inferno. Once Sheep is level 9, poison is maxed, so that's when it's time to move on to the wolves downstairs. Although it doesn't look like it, you DO accrue encounter steps on B4F's southern section so use Stalker. Use Return to make slightly faster trips back to the sprinkler. Grab the Plate just because there's another Wolf there and it will help your L later. Once all the Wolves are dead, heal one last time and make a mad dash all the way to Fenrir's lair. Grab the Amrita on the way. Warbulls are scary, you can probably run away from most of them. You don't need everybody alive, you just need to beat one Skoll, but if Sheep dies you should definitely use Return to get out of there.
- Beat the Skoll in front of Fenrir, try to start the encounter in such a way that the other Skolls won't be able to catch you. Once he's out of the way, lure Fenrir away toward the door. Once Fenrir starts moving, the Skolls on the side stop moving, so don't worry about him getting stuck (unless your froze the Skolls that way). Go out the door, go back in, go out again, and Fenrir will be red and chasing you but stuck behind the door. Lure him to the right, then switch back the other way, Fenrir won't be able to catch up once you go through the door and you can run past everybody to B6F.
- Mash through your gold medal 100m speech, take the pillar back to town and save. This segment will probably take about as long as my entire Faxanadu run *_*

SEGMENT 6
Time to reap the rewards of partially beating Fenrir. The mission can't be completed but this DOES open up B1F's secret area. Go on a chop run since you've been gone for so long. Buy a Warp Wire. If you have 10 monsters unlocked then take the Monstrous Codex quest to get a free Red Charm. (although I'd like to avoid this if possible so I can make a hilarious bonus segment of depositing the entire run's worth of codex/Item Compendium entries after beating Etreant). This part is where you'll really be strapped for cash, a stay at the inn will cost about 80en, Warp Wire costs 100, and chop runs add about 500en. You'll be staying at the inn a LOT though. Perhaps napping once to set the time to evening would be better, then I can just use the spring, it might be faster than the clock at the inn rolling around, switching to my choppers a lot... Changing characters has a high overhead cost so I should somehow calculate how much money I literally need to reach level 14 (Immunize 7 seems to be enough to barely beat Fenrir, although it might be worth looking into luck abusing a victory through Poison, Parry might be needed too)
- Switch your team to LTMSA. Enter the secret area, go through the second door, go around Ragelope to plunder the Rapier. You'll have to either Warp Wire out or fight him, but you should probably warp out. Repeat for the Plumed Hat; chances are Crono needs it to get to a second Inferno use. If you have Petal Ring unlocked it might help to get 3 of those. Get a Steel Lump from a Gel ASAP so you can unlock Broadsword for T. Now, I'm not sure if it's better to walk all the way to one of the Ragelope rooms and grind there (you can fight Waspiors, better experience) or just make quicker trips to B6F and warp back. Um...I'll have a better description for these segments eventually.

SEGMENT 7
GRINDAN
This is hard to pin down. You can do laps by the Pillar on B6F, true, but the encounter rate is lower and you can only fight 2 gels at best. In the Ragelope rooms in B1F's secret area, the encounter rate is higher and sometimes you can fight 3 enemies, so you'll get better yields for using Inferno + Blazer to nuke everything. The only drawback is the one-way entrance and extra steps needed to get there. You can spend 100en each time on a Warp Wire to get out, requiring tons of extra chop runs, or you could visit B2F, walk back up, then use Return to leave. And don't forget there's also all those Wolves for harvest on B4F, they're also very easy to kill. I'll have to measure the exp/min of these methods in my next test run. Segment 7 may needed to multiplied several times, depending on whether you're hardcore enough to grind to level 14 in one sitting or not. I don't remember how much luck is mandated.

SEGMENT 8
Fenrir dies, buy Warp Wire, go on Chop run to B6F to unlock Star Charm and Hard Sling, revive any dead choppers, buy Warp Wire, go on Take run, unlock Oils, buy Warp Wire, take on "Horticulture" and "Prayer to the stars" quests, save to end segment.

SEGMENT 9
Use TMSAA team. Grab the Down Staff by the Moa, warp wire out, buy another one, equip the staff on M. Kill a Cutter for Bear Fur. If you don't get it, restart. Go on additional Take runs if needed to buy more Star Charms, they're really good. random Take runs are always good because you need 1 Cross Seed for every Oil you buy, which should be 17 to 20 in total. End segment.

SEGMENT 10
Buy Bear Gloves and Star Charms as needed, Use LTMSA team. Grind in the northwest corridor of B6F if your A doesn't have 60 TP yet. When he does, go complete Horticulture quest. Use 1st Turn Inferno (Blazer if needed) to quickly win the first three encounters, use 1st Turn Immunize on the last one because Sloth is highly resistant to fire. The point is to gain experience quickly and fight a high concentration of Waspiors, Stingers unlock good armor and Amber Lump unlocks Nectar (which is useful; we need one to get past B23F but we can use a quest reward Nectar II if it doesn't get unlocked). Walk out, save to end segment.

SEGMENT 11
Go around and open the shortcut on B6F. I think once you enter the room, the Cutter guarding the door does a perimeter around the room, so he's avoidable. Visit the 7th floor, then Warp Wire out.

SEGMENT 12
Get the next mission from Radha Hall, get another Warp Wire, grab Chain Helm on the way down and equip on T, visit the dry healing spring, grab the Wyvern egg, warp out. Do a jog up and down the stairs if you need to reset the danger orb. Collect reward, save.

SEGMENT 13
Buy a Warp Wire, head down. Kill Pondclaw on the way down, have a drink, grab the Nectar and Oak Jacket on B9F, open the west shortcuts (run from those Assassins!), warp out. This could be combined with segment 12, I guess.

SEGMENT 14
Another really long one, the mission to kill Cernunos, plus the best grinding in the whole run. Get the next mission, buy 6 Shock Oils. Bungle down to the healing spring as usual, take the shortcuts through, head down to B10F. Go around through the north, the Moa fight is mandatory but Immunize should be level 9 or 10 by now; if you use it Moa can't do much damage but use two Shock Oils to increase your own damage. In the Armoth room, go around to the right and along the north edge, you can avoid them all. Go all the way around, hit the sprinkler, the two brown-nosers give you an Amrita II and there's another in the chest. Hang on to them, they'll come in handy vs Royalant. Grind around this spring, I specifically mean the two spaces in front of that chest because the encounter rate is higher there and it gives the group you want: you have a shot at getting Glowbird-Glowbird-Glowbird-Firebird, which nets a massive 450 exp. Level 24 is plenty for beating Cernunos because you can completely shut him out by spamming Inferno until his health reaches 25%. I would recommend grinding up to level 28 instead so you can do full damage to Cernunos (no level penalty), and also because 3rd stratum enemies are kind of tough when you first arrive, plus Royalant is a pretty tough fight. The experience up here is better anyway, and once the mission is complete it's gone, so take advantage. Don't proceed without a Tiger Fang and 5 Iron Shells. Try really hard to get 5 Tailbones. Hopefully you grabbed 3 Stingers and a few Amber Lumps by now in earlier segments too.

For Cernunos, like I said, make sure everyone goes in with a Boost. The fight should go exactly like this:
turn 1
L: oil up
T: boosted Relaxing
M: oil up
S: Apollon
A: Inferno
turn 2
L: boosted Attack
T: Oil up
M: boosted Attack
S: Oil Up
A: Inferno
turn 3
L: attack
T: attack
M: attack, Immunize if Cernunos is about to hit the red
S: attack or Apollon
A: Inferno

If your A runs out of TP before Cernunos reaches 25% health (unlikely) then have someone else use the Amrita a turn in advance. Whirlihit hurts but Glare will either miss or hardly slow down your massive offensive. Change to Flame once that happens even though its damage isn't that much better.
When he dies, head downstairs, collect reward, save.

POSSIBLE ADDITION: "Pest control" may be a worthy quest. The Nectar II reward seems enticing, it could be very useful in Pac-Man but the exp is not so great compared to where I'm headed. They have 211 HP, so it would require Inferno+Blazer spam most likely and there's 4 fights. The TP strain is large but the healing spring is close by.

SEGMENT 15
Buy Hindi if you unlocked it, buy two Vikings, buy better armor for the front row. Possible Segment 15.5 where I draw the maps and die. Anyway, I'll fill this one out later: basically the idea is to traverse plenty of squares on this floor (Amrita II should be grabbed as well), unlock the shortcut to the ant nest entrance, and unlock Self Bow and Gem Staff. Fight ants carefully, they take half damage from fire so save Flame for non-ant foes. Bloodants can still be killed with elemental damage surprisingly well, don't be shy when fighting them.

SEGMENT 16
Head into ant lair. Feel free to grab the Gum Helm from that room on the side, it's handy for M, you need to traverse squares anyway. You don't have to kill the first Servant, chase the north Bloodant and kill him, if you run past you'll get past before he respawns. The next Servant can be attacked directly if you step carefully. Once he's dead, traverse all the squares in this nest. Open the shortcut to Royalant and warp out.

SEGMENT 17
Buy 4 Freeze Oils, then kill Royalant. Easier said than done, I know, probably the hardest boss fight in the game given the power levels I'm at. The main problem is Royalant's high offensive capability. Boosted Immunize shuts off the damage completely though so you can go all out damage-wise. Trickery is AMAZING against her (taste of her own medicine, screw off Duster, maybe I should bring Theriaca Bs because blind means Apollon and Cocytus will miss). Wipe out the initial 3 Bloodants with Freezer + Cocytus, when the 4th one enters he will probably summon a Deathant, this will create for fun disjointed times when you nuke the opposing side. Because of Relaxing all you need to do is make sure your L and A don't have max TP. Even with Relaxing though, you'll probably have to reach for those Amrita IIs due to all the 1st Turn Salve II that needs to happen. Hopefully, after beating Royalant they'll let you complete the stupid, stupid, stupid mapping mission. I'll assume they do.

SEGMENT 18
Kill a Shelltor for its 100 Shell. If you don't get it, restart, it's kind of rare. That's all for this segment. This might have to be included in segment 15 if it turns out you do need to fall through every pit.

SEGMENT 19
Proceed to B13F. Selecting "yes" saves one prompt. Open the shortcut to the healing spring, warp out and end segment.

SEGMENT 20
Replace M with mikwuyma and go on a super awesome chop/take run to B13F's other side. Because you're already using Inferno + Blazer to kill everything mike will just gain levels for free on the way down. Go around the Muckdiles completely by following the perimeter of the box. Go to the take pile first (south one, closer to river), if you don't get 1 Ant Honey and 1 Stab Shell, add skill points in Take until you get them. Spend the rest on Chop, if you don't get 2 Strawberries and 1 Sea Branch restart. Warp Wire out and sell the stuff once you get it, end segment.

SEGMENT 21
Sea Charms are great, but they're pretty expensive; on my last test run I could only afford 2 at first. Don't sweat it though, the mine hole on B16F makes a lot of money so you'll be fine later. Buy 3 Blaze Oils for sure, buy a Warp Wire for later, spend the rest on Sea Charms. You can buy an Axcela II but it won't get used, trust me. There might be merit in buying some Medicas if you don't have any lying around (you should have tons from various quests and easy chest grabs. heh heh, chest grabs)
Sneak your way down to Cotrangl, visit the room on B15F with the two chests, hang on to that Scale Boot. Cotrangl should get beasted easily. He always uses his regular melee attack on whoever is lowest level, which will probably be Crono, but he's most likely to Tackle above all else. Blizzard is always followed up by Flood. These attacks can all be weathered easily with healing, especially if it's 1st Turn'd. Aquaveil has a 30% chance of being used so it's probably not worth spamming Erasure, but he never does Aquaveil twice, so if you want to make sure a boosted assault goes through then wait until the turn after Aquaveil goes up. Have your L oil up once he runs out of TP for Blazer. Your A should be able to Flame constantly no matter what (mine had about 130 TP). Don't cry if you don't get the Ice Spine, the Arc Drawer is way too expensive for this run and you can only have one anyway so it's not worth it. Take the pillar home, collect reward and end segment.

SEGMENT 22
Fin Bow is probably worth getting for an upcoming segment. Take on the "Love's uncertain promise" quest. Kill the Sickwoods at the mine hole in the north and Warp Wire out. Fire choppers and replace them with miners, then buy another warp wire and do a mine run. Careful, hang on to 5 Steel Chips and 3 Hard Shards. Buy one Steelsword and another Warp Wire. Switch back to LTMSA team and head into the dungeon. Grab the Brigandine, talk to Curse, grab the Bandanna, get perplexed by the door then warp out. Whine to Radha, do it again, grab Amrita II on the way down to B18F, warp wire out yet again when you get stumped by a big field. Go to the pub and complete the "Under construction" quest for a cheap Steelsword for your T. Whine to Radha for the LAST TIME, inspect the north tree then warp out again again and end segment.

SEGMENT 23
These next 3 should be a pain in the ass. Get 2 Gem Cores from Burstgels in the secret area (back and front have higher encounter rate), buy two Mystic Rods (do mine runs if you need it) and save.
SEGMENT 24
Get Space Claw from Desouler on B17F's secret area. Boosted Immunize (i.e. a quick fight involving using 3 Axcela IIs) may be necessary. Warp out. Buy a Pattisa, save.
SEGMENT 25
Get Royal Hide from Kingdile. Bring 4 Freeze Oil, Boosted Immunize is almost certainly necessary. This drop is really rare, it's a huge pain. Warp out. Buy two Failnaughts and 4 Freeze Oils, save.

SEGMENT 26
*eventual victory over Pac-Man*
Unfortunately the Radha cockblock you and the 21st floor so you have to warp back here and collect the reward before saving.

SEGMENT 27
Well, time to do the awesome mine runs of B21F. Unlock Axcela III, if you still need an Oleander send your takers upstairs to take some. It takes some time to walk so I think I'd end the segment after the mine run.

SEGMENT 28
Go kill the Dinolich and get a Sword Rib, get a Duergar and end segment.

SEGMENT 28
Buy two or three Theriaca As and maybe a Blaze Oil or two. Ren & Tlachtaga can be really easy to beat or a little annoying which merely takes longer. Basically Blazer + Inferno will demolish them pretty quickly, fire Apollons at Curse and shoot Flames at Ren if your L can't do Blazer or if Curse is already dead. There are other intricacies to this fight, I'll check up on those later. Don't bother using Erasure on Ren's stance, that just makes her mad, in fact the stance gives her less defense so you probably want it on. When they go down, warp out, save and end segment.

SEGMENT 29
Activate the elevator. For the Kingdile on the 23rd floor, when you try to sneak past him to the north, he will intercept you. Run away, use a Nectar if someone dies, then Benny Hill it all the way to the stairs. You have to kill a Desouler on a bridge in B22F (time limit of about 7 turns before a Kingdile catches up with you, shouldn't be a problem though), then at the end of B21F's other side you have to kill a Kingdile, save a boosted Immunize for that. An Axcela III might help. You should probably bring some Freeze Oils for this fight too then.

segment 29.5:
I was going to dedicate a segment to unlocking Angel Ring but I just realized, that's only an extra base of 30 TP, an Amrita II is cheaper >_<

SEGMENT 30
Head to B25F and attempt to open the shortcut. By backpedaling 3 steps, you can run past the Treetusk in the north corridor. For the fearsome Hellbull-Armoroll-Armoroll-Armoroll fight, Blazer + Inferno isn't quite enough to kill the Hellbull but since it's slow you can just have your T or M attack to finish it off. When the reach the big southern hallway, remember the Kingdiles only patrol up and down, they don't chase you, so start on the east edge of this hall before proceeding northwards. Warp out once you do and end segment.

SEGMENT 31
Kill a Treetusk with an elemental attack to unlock Athanor. Kill another Treetusk to unlock Ward Gems. Buy a Sylpheed and an Angel Robe if you have it. TEC up your A, switch everyone else's gear around in a similar fashion: anything with +STR will help. I guess extra TP to start with can't hurt. Hang on to those Bear Gloves! End segment.

SEGMENT 32
Buy 6 or 7 Axcela IIIs (this is number of turns required to kill Etreant / 6). Spend the rest of your money on about 15-20 Amrita IIs. This can easily total 25-30k ental alone of raw healing supplies. Hopefully it's enough. Remove L from your team, so your setup is TM,SA. Go upstairs to B20F, bonk into a Diabolix and have S use an Axcela III on M while everyone else attempts to flee. If someone gets hit, null perspiration. Head back down, use the west elevator and select B21F to reset the danger orb, proceed to other elevator and engage Etreant. Have your T use Erasure every turn no exceptions (unless this game really does have a Dragon Warrior III style RNG where I can just write down the turns Growth gets used and attack on the others...well that would probably affect Etreant's behaviour, nevermind), use 1st Turn on Boosted Immunize at the start (unless Etreant attempts to Growth on the first turn, in which case use S to fire an Apollon), have your A shoot Flames mercilessly every turn if able. Have your M heal occasionally if needed, otherwise use Caduceus. Your S will fire an Apollon if able, unless 1st Turning a healing skill would come first. If Apollon is airborne and healing is not needed yet, he's responsible for throwing Amrita IIs at people, loading the next Axcela III into your healer, or using Trickery on Etreant for fun. (I'd highly suggest doing so when he's down to less than 25% health, it might stop Inferno). About 38 turns later, you should be WINNER

POSSIBLE SEGMENT INSERTION: kill Iwaro again for experience and Gold Plume? I highly doubt it, the time it would take wouldn't be worth skill points I don't need.

This is Terence's documents about what he learned when he disassembled the game. AMAZING INFO HERE WOWWWWW
http://www.zshare.net/download/65328833a767ca3e/

also here's my old topic on GameFAQs, didn't get much interest
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=934287&topic=50298017

Before anything else: Etrian Odyssey 2 is a billion times better suited to speedrunning.  Would recommend trying that first.  That said, about EO1:

Your 'battle' team should have these three members by default:
S (multishot, apollyon, first turn, stalker even though it's not nearly as fucking broken as it is in 2)
M (if you need to ask, stop reading this topic. go 1 point in cure 1 -> immunize -> salve 2 -> caduceus)
T (bravery, relaxing (necessary for 20f if nothing else, going back to 18f repeatedly would be a major waste of time), and hell, maybe even divinity)

Use an A for the first stratum (and the second, if Poison works against Cernunos).  After that, though, either rest and respec him to hit the following bosses, or have him dead after each major battle so the exp goes to other members of your party and then switch him out for a front-row guy as soon as he's useless.

The elemental weaknesses of bosses are:
Wolves/Fenrir: Fire
Cernunos: Volt
Corotrangul: Fire
Iwaoropenelep: Ice
Ren: Fire
Tlachtga: Physical
Etreant: Elemental

If you drop the A, I would go with two Ds for the front row.  Bait is really, really good, and you could get one of the binds on each to shut down a couple massive moves on the bosses.  Requires a lot of luck and/or rng manipulation and/or being observant, though.
If you keep the alch, I would go for either an L or a D (and put the T on the front row until the M has caduceus).  I'm leaning D, but an L would be much easier to use (bad reason) and I don't know how a chaser hit on a weakness compares to Bait (good reason).  Compare the two before deciding on a strategy.

Why no P?  Because you can get Axcela 2s by stratum 3 and Axcela 3s by... uh, wow, stratum 5.  With boosted immunize, I don't think you should have too many survivability problems even if you're not properly levelled.  If you do end up needing a P, though (it'd be faster than additional levelling), use Defender and F Guard.  Parry is dumb.

Let me state clearly, however, that you should not have to level for survivability after b3f or so.  Yes, I know this is Etrian Odyssey, but a first turn'd boosted immunize should get you through all the late-game fights, and you should not fight a single random battle after a certain point unless you do it for levelling purposes.  Stratum 1 won't have that, but that's what Poison is for.

That said, here are levelling tips anyways.



Also, if you need money, the chop point at A1 on 21f is the single most lucrative place in the game.  It gives more than 40k per trip.

I've considered doing it, but then I played it for about 30 seconds and went NO THANKS.  My wife loves it though.

Could've sworn that one was chop, but whatever.


Not an issue.  Hoof it to 8F immediately, unlock the shortcuts, see Ren, kill the Pondclaw, then if you're going to fight randoms at all do it by the healing spring.  Speaking of that, you seem to be fighting every random you encounter.  Why?  I know running is unreliable but that's what stalker/ward chimes are there to ameliorate.


ice, volt, and thor?
I don't know your detailed skillpoint distribution at this point, but why do you have ice?  Cernunos is weak to volt, and you don't seem to have respecced him out of poison yet, so I would focus solely on getting Thunder until after hitting the third stratum, at which point you really should respec.  Also, I'm not sure if you know this, but the tier-1 elemental spells are crap.  At level 10 they still do less damage than a level-1 tier-2 spell.  Running around with nothing more than basic Volt and Ice is dumb.  Don't cite TP as a restriction on that - I'll either say "another class would be doing a LOT more damage then" or "buy amritas".
Also, don't ever put any points into volt/fire/ice up besides what you need to unlock skills: the spreadsheet says damage is increased, but it only increases a variable that gets rounded back down anyways during damage calculation, so you are basically not doing a single thing by raising those up past the minimum requirements.  Sucks, I know.


huh?  It's for bosses.  First turn a boosted immunize (because medics are really slow) so they don't wipe your massively-underlevelled party before you get a chance to react.  And patch up, wtf?  Skip it.


In a not-casual setting you would just reset if someone died accidentally.  Not criticizing what you're doing now, but just saying.


Easiest sure, but fastest?  You should see whether using the spring on 8f is faster, since you're there.


Ward Chimes are terrible.  Stalker at 10 is much more effective.  Honestly, if I had to set a plan in stone right now, I would max stalker on my S before doing anything else, since throughout the first stratum Poison will be killing big things regardless.  Plus you'll need a lot less money, meaning many less extraneous resource-gathering trips.


Look at your spreadsheet, lol.  The attack up skill is ridiculous for Ms, and so's Caduceus itself.  My M was doing more damage than my P once it was maxed.  The M does need to be on the front row, but they're not actually that fragile so it works out.


?  no.  I beat him at around 5 without poison.


I remember Fenrir as being easy to poison.  Maybe you were just unlucky, and/or didn't manipulate the RNG.  But yeah, do poison him.


There are maps on gamefaqs with treasure chest loot filled in, etc.  Use those.

...

Wait, you still haven't gotten rid of your original savefile?  Are you seriously starting up a new game, going all the way into stratum 2 without saving, dying, and then starting another one from scratch?  Wow.  Seriously, just emulate the game.  I hear DS emulation is ok now.


It's in the spreadsheet you linked, lol.  40% elemental defense reduction at level 10.  And that's a bad idea, btw.  I think later on enemies can and will clear it (can't remember if I'm thinking of postgame or not, sorry), and unlike every other T buff it only lasts five turns.  The defensive portion is pretty great, and even makes using a P's anti-element skills unnecessary against the Dragons in the postgame (but that is a vastly different and unnecessary topic).


Ice-element attacks are best against them.  This is the strongest argument for using an A late-game imo, but even without one you can put one point in frost on a T.

The midterm was quick and painless, I think I did pretty well. But I wrote out Sheep's skill build on the back before starting and I discovered at level 25 Thunder is only level 5 but that's fine because that's a decent boost. After that I can go back to leveling Thor until it's time to respec or something. Since this run would be segmented I have nothing to fear from stupid Petaloids, especially if I can get Stalker 10.

So I'm still thinking about Caduceus here, though staves may be weak having insane ATK Up boosts will compensate I'm sure. And that Bone Staff can boost HP on the side too. I don't know about having MP in the front for regular fights, I can just switch my formation before fighting FOEs, but such a setup seems to demand Salve. It's tech tree for Immunize but again Immunize seems useless before the second stratum, Fenrir didn't hurt me at all and if one of my back row guys dies I can just restart the segment. If I go with this Stalker setup then each recording attempt will be very quick. I'll want to open up the shortcut first though, so I can get down there with more TP before the big fight goes down, Amritas are too expensive especially since I don't need to waste time with chop runs. I can get Immunize 10 during the "Grind to 25" portion from Fenrir farming. I think that would be a good point to get it, it helps a lot in FOE fights in the second stratum (if they can't be skipped or if it's faster to just power through) but I think I'll definitely need it for Cernunos. I hear I need to keep one Curoller alive to keep him from using his instant-kill move, so maybe I need to get Parry up to 10 so I can block two hits, I don't have enough levels to learn Smite instead. Cure II seems crucial for the second stratum because of P's greatly increased HP (and damage taken before level 19) but that's only one more level.

I don't think I need that Survivalist, it's a character slot I can't spare anyway. Usually my P can take that beating while Immunize gets set up. Maybe on the third stratum though, where I can ditch Sheep 5 levels before he can Rest anyway.

This Parry-wall thing might still be useful in the third stratum as long as I can avoid Killclaws and those Shell FOE guys. They take too long to kill anyway. I'm checking what kinds of monsters appear again and I think only the Hexfrog has AoE stuff via cursing my alchemists.

Wolves respawn every 7 days, right? IOSYS (yuck, they suck) says 3 days but that can't be right. I thought it might also be 5.

99% sure it's 7.  Do test anyways, though, especially since I was fairly positive bosses didn't respawn until you beat the next one.  I could be hallucinating, but I _know_ Iwaopeln does that.

And lol @ tvtropes.

It's true, TVTropes is in fact wrong about everything, not just video games. Well, it might be correct about anime stuff (which seems like most of its content?), I wouldn't know, but given everything else on the site I doubt it.

the first one

okay here's what's new:

- skip those Stalkers in the top left corner of B3F. they killed a run once, they're too out of the way, leveling from Wolf respawn is way faster anyway and the treasure sucks too. fuck them forever.
- leveling from Wolves is awesome, the encounter rate in there is pretty low too so you don't have to spam Stalker
- speaking of Stalker, it is AMAZING
- Fenrir DOES respawn without stepping any farther than B6F's Chop Lump, Star Charms ftw. I think 15 days is still the minimum and I think it's 7 days for the Wolves
- Skolls are kind of resistant to poison but it works, be careful. A Flame isn't enough to bring them down either, they have about 380 to 400 HP, I refuse to deposit them in the Monster Codex because that would take forever and I also want a silly segment after the run is over where I inscribe every single monster and item after the game is over XD
- Fenrir is still easy to kill, I was level 14, no excessive leveling was done (well, I was trying to cheap out on Sheep's TP and didn't use Poison on a Warbull, turns out Fire only does about 66 damage and that warbull ended up killing my Protector. had to Warp Wire back with my new sword >=( ). as expected, he only ever attacked my Protector. Skolls sometimes mix it up though. Fenrir seems to be completely immune to poison. I am considering TASing this game (never made one before, hmm) when I get my computer back, then maybe I can iterate a bazillion attempts until it works (or doesn't). Although I should point out, my alchemist ran out of TP and I had to use the Amrita you pick up on B4F to finish the fight, Fire does pitiful damage and Flame rips in the low 200 range for 14 TP each. Getting a point in TP Up isn't a great idea because it will give you .5 more Flame uses but with lower damage, and my Flame was only level 6 or 7 at the time. Or maybe if Sheep was tossing Volts in there (about 30 to 40 damage each, oh well) then I wouldn't run out of steam right before the end.

Here is my current dilemma. I contemplated how I was going to beat Cernunos and I couldn't remember if fire spells were very effective. I didn't get an alchemist on my team until after the third stratum and I usually didn't rematch him much. If only I'd bothered to test on my current game (well I just retired all my level 70s so I'm re-leveling them now. I also figured out how to progress past B26F but what comes after is pretty gayzo. but the alchemist really peters out in the endgame), now I can't save over it. I was wracking my brains trying to remember if something is especially vulnerable to fire and couldn't think of anything. I guess those big plant-things are, but gels and scorpions and waspiors and birds aren't especially weak to fire in the jungle. Nothing is resistant to Thunder though. I've been grinding up this Survivalist, he seems to have every skill essential to speedrunning in general, but it's inconvenient because:
- I kick out Crono, the fire alchemist, to kill the skolls, then go back to town
- I kick out Sheep, the poison/thunder user, to kill Fenrir, and some of the Skolls past Fenrir

if I don't change my initial 4-character setup, I can do a complete Fenrir run in about 5 minutes, netting (153 x 4) + 773 exp (4 1skoll fights + fenrir+1 skoll fight), which is about 273 exp/min. That's probably faster than leveling by the spring, BUT the overhead cost of trying to get there at level 14 is way too huge. The Cutter guarding the door to the B7F stairs will take forever to kill (if at all, Immunize isn't level 10 yet) and the regular enemies are vicious even at level 18. I estimate even my unfinished Stalker won't be enough for me to get to B8F and kill Pondclaw due to all the damaging floor. So I think it's worthwhile to grind on Fenrir until a given level to beat Cernunos. But what tools do I need, and what's worth bringing? Here's some approaches:

ESCAD
- I probably can't get a good Smite in time. Shields 10 and Fortify 5 is 15 levels, and then 10 more just to get Smite leveled. And although Immunize helps a ton, I would prefer having him use Parry for when it's needed. Getting Parry to 10 is a priority so I can block Cernunos + his Curoller, but I just remembered, doesn't Cernunos have a 2 or 3-hitting combo attack? Is there a good chance it will hit my back row dudes? Anyway I don't think you can unlock Shock Oil by now either so having this guy as an attacker is out of the question. I need his TP for Stalker as well. As for what to do with him after

CRONO
- I can start leveling up Volt Up, Volt 3 and then get some points in Thunder. But this would take too long, I'd have to get him up to level 28 or 30 or something. He'd be more like second fiddle to Sheep's Thunder 10. Maybe the two of them together could blast Cernunos pretty good.
- But Royalant, the next boss, is weak to Ice. So now I'm trying to drag along a rushed tri-elementalist. arrrrgh. It's faster to accrue skill points by raising a new character from the ground up! (lower HP doesn't matter with 1st Turn + Immunize, lol!)

SHEEP
- Oops I got Thor up to 3. That's totally not necessary with Stalker, and with Parry 10 if I run into the 4 gels + Glowbird fight I can just use that while I try to run away >_<
- In any case, Thunder 10 + Crono's meager Thunder or Flame powers should be enough to quickly end encounters if I decide running is too risky. But after Cernunos, will this be good enough to damage Royalant and her many cronies? I'll definitely run out of TP, makes Relaxing very tempting...

NAT5SLUG (survivalist. see for backstory. btw that is Zarkonis standing up, and Crono filming)
- Multishot is amazing, especially at level 10. other advantages might include somehow finding a way to kill Cotrangul in 3 turns once I get there and start grinding from him, bam now I have the Arc Drawer in the 4th stratum :D)
- Apollon can be decent too but Multishot has "omg nuke this encounter" powers
- I got 1st Turn just to test it out, it's helpful. Lols @ giving it to an Alchemist so he can immediately cast Thor.
- This guy can get Stalker too. I imagine the Protector will be obsolete at some point, then I can forge a new frontline. A Dark Hunter with Drain can stay alive until he runs out of TP. Parry doesn't block magic (although if I was forced to do postgame bullshit I would get the three anti skills. Anticold might stop Cotrangul's Blizzard thing eh? I wonder if the Fenrir rare drop armor, Briault, has good enough ice resist to consider using for that fight.). But yeah I don't even know if I'll need a Protector, I just have him for early game parrying but beyond that...I don't get En Garde for "efficiency" when Stalker removes about 70% of the game's content lol. Aegis is useless, I don't rely on luck like that in a segmented speedrun. Defender is useless compared to how good Immunize is, I don't think I'll need to stack them.

also this bugs me: I want a Troubadour just to Erasure Cotrangul's Aquaveil, or else using Crono is out of the question. Damn. Physical damage isn't that great in this game, unless you can power up a good Ronin or Survivalist. Landsknecht is better for multi-target stuff but that won't apply in this speedrun, running is fastest. Although Troubadour element song + 2-Hit is pretty delicious. Especially with Bravery. But Troubadours are so useless on their own, and fewer skills are worth learning, I ended up maxing HP Up and TP Up on mine so he was a frontline tank.

anyway I've stopped grinding for now because I'm totally paralyzed with indecision. I can make a totally new team but I don't know what team that should be because I also want to plan for future bosses a bit. Any suggestions, VorpalEdge?

The elemental oils don't add their damage to skill-based attacks, so I think using them and regular attacking is actually worse than using a damage skill.  The only thing I would use them on is the Ogres on b20f, and maybe when Etreant guards against physical damage (or is that magic too?  i don't know, you only get to fight him once, heh).

Now that I think of it, they would be a good substitute if you run out of TP on a long fight, though.

About binding, I'd go with Head only, if at all.  It shuts down some major attacks, and you will not get all 3 binds up for ecstasy without making a team with 3 Ds or something like that.

Also, I still say you can poison Fenrir.

Cernunos has died. Killing him was easy, I got an ambush on him (out of a cutscene, LOL) and got his head and arms bound pretty easily, which made him completely harmless. Boosted Immunize reduced Whirlhit to doing 10-20 damage. Flame 10 did about 110 damage, so did everyone's Shock Oil attacks, I took down his 2800 HP surprisingly fast. Curollers died to Inferno (well, one lived with 1 HP so he got a Defend out, that assclown).

My medic was the highest level at 26 or 27, not quite sure which. I taught him Salve II but it was totally unnecessary, so I think once I have Cure II I can focus on getting closer to ATK Up 10. I'll try to explain what happened to get here:

- I started by raising a Troubadour off Fenrir. Paralyzed with indecision, I decided to get his Divinity up first, which would make it easier to level up the others next. Once I finally got it to level 10 while raising everyone else, I noticed it only gives a 30% experience boost. WHAT A WASTE OF 24 LEVELS. So now my Dark Hunter, Quixim, is vastly underleveled, because I swapped him in much much later (right now he's level 20 compared to everyone else who is 24-27). I grinded my S up to 23, which enough to get 1st Turn and Stalker 10. I hoped to learn Disable on the way, I barely got it to level 1 right before Cernunos. You're better off just shooting with Shock Oil up than trying to go for Ecstasy hits, at least this early on. The conditional drop for Cruella and Diabolix states "kill while totally bound", not "kill with Ecstasy". hmm...I want my 7 wasted skills points back (ATK Up 5 and Whips +1) plz >:
I thought I could swap the A for T for Fenrir grinding but having to go on Take runs and buying more Blaze Oils takes forever. Just level his Inferno up a bit (before Flame 10, trust me)
- The fire user's usefulness cannot be denied. 1st Turn + Inferno is often an instant win or close to it, and since you get experience and items for GOOD unlocks in the jungle you've got to have him. I'd have no way to kill Petaloids otherwise, without 1st Turn they would just sleep-lock me. Gels are also more vulnerable to fire than I remember; Fenrir and his crew take (nearly) double damage from fire spells so just remember that's what you should expect to see.
- You only need to reach the 7th floor to unlock the Wyvern mission, you cannot proceed to B9F until you get the egg. I just tried drawing maps of B11F and B12F, it doesn't complete the mission so I think I need to kill Royalant. You only need to reach the 9th floor to unlock the Cernunos mission, you need to be undertaking it to unlock the B10F healing point, which is also crucial. The 5 enemy battles nearby are great experience (303 I think) and can be won quickly with 1st Inferno (In1stno?), although Glowbirds can barely survive it even with Fire Up 7 + Inferno 5. I think they can even survive Inferno 6, so they will get a mighty peck on someone with their high speed and then die to whoever swings first. The idea here is to grind for levels, and hopefully 5 Tailbones to make the second fight with Cernunos faster by giving the medic a Bone Flail (2 Glass Eyes from Hextoads on B11F would be way better and easier anyway). I would also consider 4 Gum Vines essential, to unlock Hindi after beating Cernunos. Well, 1 Gum Vine also unlocks a huge whip improvement for your D, provided you also get a Bent Claw, which is easy enough. Goddamn Petaloids! Also get a Tiger Fang to unlock Viking for your L. The other point of grinding here is to fill up everyone's Boost meter to get off to a running start against Cernunos. Does the boost increase your chance of getting a bind out? If it doesn't then it's definitely better to boost a shock attack.
- I think instead of just doing laps at the inn with one character to advance the calendar 14 days, I think I should do a 5 char Take run every day ;_;
The Arcana Rod costs 58000, and I want two of them. A Take run brings in a little over 1000 each time (overhead cost is 8 for the inn, 100 for Warp Wire, and 30 * # of chars who died), so every Fenrir run is another 14k in the bank. The Royal Mane only sells for 2200. In addition, Shilleka can run out of Oils if you buy enough, then you need to bring in more Cross Seeds. ARGH! So, doing consistent Take runs will not only give me funds but also ensure I won't run out of Cross Seeds during the run. Unfortunately this is the fastest way to get money, Cross Seeds sell for much higher than the Chop stuff and the item points in the 3rd stratum are nigh-inaccessible.
- I somehow skipped fighting any Cutters in the southeast room on B6F. For some reason that guy wasn't standing by the door o_O. Fight one anyway during Fenrir grinding to unlock Bear Glove for S and L.
- Stalker 10 is amazing. Can't live without it.
- Make sure to get the Oak Jacket on B9F for the medic. It's close enough to the healing spring anyway. The Nectar might be worth grabbing as a contingency plan/luck pool booster. 5x Amber Lump unlocks it, you can get into 5x Waspior fights on B10F so you might unlock it soon anyway. 10 will unlock Hamao! Stingers also unlock sweet armour.
- Don't fight Assassins. At all. They can easily poison a character before Immunize goes up, and since the poison does 113 damage they're dead. You want Scorpions for Iron Shell (3 and 5 unlock some good stuff), Assassins give Thin Shells which are useless. Toxic Barbs unlock a minor whip upgrade, you'll probably get the Gum Throat x5 one more easily.
- Don't kill Shelltor either, 100 Shell only unlocks the Amber Ring (ailment resist) which won't be needed.
- Tusk Charm is a waste of time but I think killing an Armoth in that 4x Armoth room on B10F is necessary, I can't sneak by them >:
- Bravant sucks, it copies War Cry and also wears off after 5 turns. Boosting your attack by 10% for 4 turns isn't worth it when you could attack again for 20% more damage instead, lol.
- WTF THE MONSTER DROPS ARE IN A SEPARATE GUIDE FROM THE ITEM GUIDE, I HATE GAMEFAQS
- A T could be useful, if I restructure my entire team. I would have to lose either my S (no First Turn? screw that. also secondary leg binder), my D (lose my best binder, and potential recipient for an early ultimate weapon? acceptable, since the T gets Arc Drawer even sooner), my A (my nuke would have to switch to Bravery + Allslash, which can work but not as well against anything with physical resist) or my L (no secondary head binder, BUT I kind of want him to get the sword chaser skills anyway, because 1st Inferno + Blazer = LOL I WIN). The T lacks the sweeping power of the L. I visited the 3rd Stratum a bit and Ants take 1/2 damage from fire skills, it's a huge pain in the ass but they can still be killed easily enough, but it takes a LOT out of my A. Maybe I should bring back Sheep, still level 12, and teach him some Ice skills quickly. I'm working toward Swords 7 for my L now (even though I have Axes 7 and Silencer 10, this means I also have to swap weapons for bosses ;_;) and that means Blazer and Freezer have equal preference, it only takes one more level to learn either. I'm going to keep Crono in charge of fire though, fire seems to be consistently good throughout most of the game and it means that once Inferno and Fire Up are also at level 10 I can focus on TP Up and TP Regen and maybe even Scavenge. I think you need Sight to find the Manticor, which will unlock an even more ridiculous staff if I can kill it quickly.
Anyway, the dilemma is that with a T I don't need to waste 5 + 10 skill points on my S to learn Stalker, my T can learn it instead and then unlock the super-useful Return skill. Everybody knows B20F, the Pacman floor, is a huge annoyance, but if I just cast Return three times I'm already back at the healing spring! It would also make moving around the 5th stratum easier too. I suppose I can just get the L skill Flee (argh! requires DEF Up 5!) instead but that takes longer since I have to get into a fight. The character to drop seems like the D; on my first and only playthrough of this game I didn't use a D in my main group, so I know the game is quite beatable without binds, and Arc Drawer is just as good as Dominator anyway. The Arc Drawer is also much more affordable, because the B16F Mine hole is very easy to reach and it offers tons of money, unlocks the significant upgrade Steelsword, and also the possibility to unlock Adamas if I need to give someone a lot of physical resist XD.
- Wow, I just noticed you can unlock a shortcut to the mine holes on B10F, and that means Fossil wouldn't be that hard to farm to unlock Old Choker. What does Luck determine? Chance to poison or bind enemies? Chance you yourself get bound or status'D? Chance of critical hit? Getting 2 or 3 of those for my Dark Hunter sounds delicious. Speaking of that, would Viper be a smarter skill to get than Ecstasy, since it will give me a power hitting move for regular fights? I don't use my D's TP in regular fights at all...
- Enemies on B11F do huge damage. Wow.

I still haven't looked at Etrian.rar either. >_<

EDIT: Cernunos doesn't respawn. I think I'll have to kill Royalant first.
Ants sometimes attack the back row so leveling Sheep is hard. But they can be poisoned very easily, heh heh.
Hindi isn't unlocking even though I've brought in more than 5 Gum Vines, I think I need 5 Tailbones too.

I've been posting on this GameFAQs thread more lately, because I am witnessing a certain phenomenon on these boards as usual:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=934287&topic=52059145

I've noticed something about RPG speedrunners. They post a thread asking for help, because it's usually a daunting task and there is always uncertainty that your strategy isn't the fastest, and it could be slimmed down more. The key to running an RPG is "if it can be skipped, skip it". So they just post their current strategies, and hardly ever get replies, and languish in obscurity.

But if someone DOES post, usually the reply is "no, you're wrong, I tried that and it's too slow blah blah blah", thus alienating anyone who tries to help. I've noticed I've been doing this myself. Pretty much the only way to contribute to such a thread, is it to competitively try to run it yourself.

You can kind of see it happen here as well, I just rant to myself:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=563273&topic=43869120

brb playing Dragon Quest VIII again >_>

(not really)

EDIT: btw I killed Iwaopeln really easily. But for the real run, I'm going to try and scrap the P and D and start with a T right away. Scrapping the poison user may be considered as well.

Yep Darkwing, us RPG speedrunners are bona fide crazy.
5th stratum went okay.

To get Sternum and Sword Rib, I went to the 4th Stratum secret area and killed exactly two Dinoliches. The third one was a big red ball of fury on the map but I killed both of them on the same turn, thus avoiding a stupid unwinnable fight. However I think it could be faster to fight the one on the west side of B21F, rest 7 days, then fight it again. I think Dino Plate is kind of unnecessary anyway, see below. Duergar is awesome though, and it only costs 95k so about 3 mine hole runs will buy it, way faster than farming for Flamberge.

Ren & Tlachtaga can vary wildly. On my test run I absolutely destroyed them, I got a surprise round and headsealed Tlachtaga. Blazer + Inferno rawked Ren especially hard. Tlachtaga usually died before I could get all 3 binds on her anyway. She only goes for Cranial, Sapping and stun, it seems. Ren can heal them, and her ice katana slash and Kubiuchi can devastate sometimes. I think having a T to nuke her stance every turn would be a lot more useful in this fight, and Bravery will cancel Sapping, it reduced my guys' damage by about 50 each. This is all well and good until his head gets sealed. I guess I can buy Royal Rings but really, a few Theriaca As would be a lot faster compared to the money I need in this stage of the run. Angel Rings are 13k each and I need 6 to 9 of them. They are really easy to unlock with a visit to the chop lump on B23F, and the take pile on B24F, both accessible via the east elevator.

The run to the elevator took a few tries because I was trying to figure out how to get there, and what battles were necessary. The 24th floor is totally unnecessary, and it takes so long to walk to the healing spring when you only get in 1 fight (usually just past the bridge on B22F) anyway. The Kingdile on B23F can be avoided by walking north, running away (use a nectar, someone will die), then slipping past to the east and then south. Then it's Benny Hill from there. The only mandatory FOE fight is the Desouler on the other B22F bridge. Killing it in 5 turns is pretty easy, you have about 9 until that Kingdile catches up with you I think.

Unsealing the B25F exit is pretty easy too. Avoid the Treetusk by taking 3 steps back, then continuing forward. It does pretty huge damage and it takes a while to kill, not sure if that Hex Marrow is worth it. Maybe it is, see below. No mandatory FOE battles, but a 4x Direwolf fight is really annoying, it's possible an FOE could catch up. It's making me consider using an ice alchemist instead, unless something in the 5th stratum is immune to ice in the same way and I didn't know about it. The 3 Kingdiles the big southern hall do not chase you, they only patrol up and down, so just open the shortcut and leave.

I forgot how hard Etreant is. I sealed his head, which stopped Resolve, then he Cyclone'D me the next turn and everybody took 320 damage. My L has the highest max HP with 260. My next attempt was wiped out with his basic physical attacks, with Immunize they still do around 220-260 damage. I guess I need to boost all my Immunizes. I'll see how much an Adamas helps too. I also might want to replace my D with a Hexer; Cranial is more likely to work, Relapse will keep it on, and I use Sapping on him to reduce the damage I take for good. I could also sneak some more damage with Revenge, especially if I bring a ton of Nectars. I'd have to go back and unlock the Luck Staff though.

I took a quick look at Etrian.rar finally, it confirms my findings about where to find Clawbug the most easily, and will also make my B10F grinding a lot better. I'll be able to unlock Nectar, maybe even Hamao, guaranteed, because Waspiors are easier to find in that southwestern corridor (I can unlock it with the shortcut) and they're also easier to kill with Inferno than Glowbirds. I'll have to inspect Etreant's skills and AI next and see if Cyclone can be sealed, because I don't think Defending is the best answer to being saved from it. I'm worried grinding of some sort may be essential to beating Etreant, whether it's to raise a new character, level up everyone to keep from getting destroyed by the "level gap", or get Adamasses and Moss Rings *_*
Getting to the final boss has proven to be pretty easy, quite possibly doable in less than 2 hours, but actually beating him looks insurmountable so far.

EDIT: found some good stuff crawling through the GameFAQs board's archives:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=934287&topic=48154548 - Amber Ring is 20% ailment resist, Adamas is 15% physical resist, Dino Plate is 5% (wow Dino Plate sucks)
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=934287&topic=47695909 - Damage formulas! Yes!!! This shows that Fire Up does not multiply your TEC-based damage, but the "skill ATK" damage (like the amount of ATK a weapon adds), which means 6 * 1.3 = 7.  So, Fire Up is useless. Oops. Also, Bravants add a "power boost" instead of a "physical attack boost" so I can use one on my Alchemist to have him do higher damage! Awesome!
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=934287&topic=40649954 - giant companion topic for the sticky. DELICIOUS
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=934287&topic=46499572 - EXP table
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=934287&topic=46460398 - how Boost accrues
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=934287&topic=45300354 - possible script for Ant's Jaw, Royalant's rare drop, but it unlocks a katana for Ronin which I probably won't be using anyway
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=934287&topic=41519059 - how LUC works
- Iwaopeln respawns as easily as Fenrir, or after you beat Ren + Tlachtaga. omg leveling abuse!!11
- Cotrangl drops Ice Spine if the killing move was not fire-element. Oh, I guess I can get it on my first runthrough then. But grinding for that money could possibly take longer than getting Failnaught from the secret area of B17F.
- This game also seems to use a sort of Dragon Warrior III-ish psuedo-random number generator stuff, so I can probably manipulate hard fights in my favour.

I have to catch a bus, I'll resume reading from page 15 (of 45 *_*) later