Kingdom Hearts 2 Speedrun

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-05 03:09:10 pm

2012-11-05 03:08:46 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Hey kwinse, (or anyone else who feels helpful) you said earlier that you would help the others plan a synthesis route. I lost my memory card that has my I'm lvl 99 and godly file on it, so I can't really do any testing yet. One thing I really need to know the answer for that would be quite helpful is whether I can reach the 1000 item mark by farming pride rock (by dumping 99 lightning shards into the moogle every time I get it). I don't remember if the moogles have a stock limit. If they do, I'll either farm 3 key places as opposed to one, or I might just use buy materials to fill out the end. I want to know which case it is, and if so, how I can efficiently make my collection to be able to synthesize multiples of good things. For example I still need to figure out how hard it is to just sink everything into power/magic boosts after getting one of everything.

I also want to know how many energy crystals I can collect to optimize the process as well. If I only need to end up getting a few or even one of each crystal, then I could manipulate it off an enemy as I pass it during the second world set, and then never have to return. So I need to figure all this out before then. Can you help me out/do you want to talk about optimization?

Hey kwinse, (or anyone else who feels helpful) you said earlier that you would help the others plan a synthesis route. I lost my memory card that has my I'm lvl 99 and godly file on it, so I can't really do any testing yet. One thing I really need to know the answer for that would be quite helpful is whether I can reach the 1000 item mark by farming pride rock (by dumping 99 lightning shards into the moogle every time I get it). I don't remember if the moogles have a stock limit. If they do, I'll either farm 3 key places as opposed to one, or I might just use buy materials to fill out the end. I want to know which case it is, and if so, how I can efficiently make my collection to be able to synthesize multiples of good things. For example I still need to figure out how hard it is to just sink everything into power/magic boosts after getting one of everything.

I also want to know how many energy crystals I can collect to optimize the process as well. If I only need to end up getting a few or even one of each crystal, then I could manipulate it off an enemy as I pass it during the second world set, and then never have to return. So I need to figure all this out before then. Can you help me out/do you want to talk about optimization?

Axel Ryman

Edit history:

Axel Ryman: 2012-11-05 04:10:19 pm

Axel Ryman: 2012-11-05 03:42:23 pm

2012-11-05 03:14:38 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

I think there is no cap, or if it is, it's 9999 since I have over 1k of some materials. Let me check my save.

Edit:

Inventory can hold 99
Material Log can hold 999
Actual materials the Moogle can hold at a given time...not sure, not at 999 yet on Dense Shards. Let the grind begin!

Edit 2:
And grind over pretty fast. Got 100 midway through running through through TWTNW. Materials a Moogle can hold is capped at 999 as well, and it's a hardcap too, so having 1000+ of anything is just a waste.

You won't really need the boosts too much and the materials for them are a pain in the butt to get, so only make them if you have enough spare materials for them. Same with Energy Crystals. You won't really need them either, but use them if you wanna save on materials, especially on the items that cost a lot of materials(And Ultima Weapon of course).

Ghostwheel

2012-11-05 10:30:07 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Thats a relief, thank you very much. Now I just need to get the 8 shards/stones/gems route optimized, use energy crystals to for example make it so I don't have to synth any more mythril things and to minimize the amount of crystals I have to farm. I'm definitely not going for power items now that I know this, and I can just farm pride rock for levels and raw items. Probably easiest in the end to level final right after xigbar, who I'll fight asap. then go to pride rock and get just enough lightning shards to get 1000 items when I have the rest of what I'm planning for. Get pride rock, olympus, and space paranoids done, and farm the shards/stones/gems that I need and the specific stuff I haven't gotten yet. This will let me level fast exactly in the places I need to level, and hopefully put me in a good position for sephiroth/paradox cups. Theorying this just got a whole lot easier.

Strongfox

2012-11-10 02:12:05 pm

Quote from Qxybxjjllp:

Thats a relief, thank you very much. Now I just need to get the 8 shards/stones/gems route optimized, use energy crystals to for example make it so I don't have to synth any more mythril things and to minimize the amount of crystals I have to farm. I'm definitely not going for power items now that I know this, and I can just farm pride rock for levels and raw items. Probably easiest in the end to level final right after xigbar, who I'll fight asap. then go to pride rock and get just enough lightning shards to get 1000 items when I have the rest of what I'm planning for. Get pride rock, olympus, and space paranoids done, and farm the shards/stones/gems that I need and the specific stuff I haven't gotten yet. This will let me level fast exactly in the places I need to level, and hopefully put me in a good position for sephiroth/paradox cups. Theorying this just got a whole lot easier.

Your segments are getting better and better. Love them so much.

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-12 09:46:55 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-11 08:34:54 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-10 03:44:36 pm

2012-11-10 03:16:08 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Hey thanks man. There is a nontrivial aspect of the run that is me getting better and better at this game as I run it :P.

I'm trying the light cycle now but its annoying the hell out of me. I need to get 30 heartless kills for the journal, and try it again, but the try again is just satisfied by quitting immediately. Usually the jiminy objective can be cleared by doing it right the first time. But there is no heartless counter the first time! I don't even know it this minigame counts the first time because it does not display my previous score as a record when I go to try it again with a counter. I doubt anyone knows the answer to whether it does, but its worth a shot.

Edit: I just had a great run, the first time in a while I thought it was 30. But it didn't show up in the journal. That just means I get to save that hell for a much more controlled situation. I'll take care of the light cycle, dataspace, and hostile program in one segment, and only worry about time saving mistakes. I MIGHT BE WRONG, however, I've tested this to the nth degree, and I'm pretty certain. If anyone has evidence that I don't in fact have to do the game twice, speak now before I record the demyx segment. The thing is, I can't reliably count because you have to deal the last blow for it to count as a kill. If they crash, it makes the same sound whether you drive them into the wall or they just do it themselves. So I'll never truly be certain.

Edit: Sorry guys, I'm not getting hostile program done this weekend. He's shaping up to be a real twilight thorn/shadow stalker. i.e, on beginner, he's easy to race by burning through your limits/drive quickly, but on standard, I need to optimize a lot more. These are the most interesting parts though, and they're the parts of this game that behave most like a math puzzle. I'll probably get it done sometime this week.

Edit: Ok, I've finally debugged my strategy so to speak. In order to get through this in a reasonable amount of time without wasting two ethers, I finally found a good way to kill two birds with one stone and level my summons up too. Getting the timing of certain damage outputs to reach certain hp gates at certain points required me realizing that I shouldn't be freezing him at any time i'm doing anything other than straight combos, and that I need to unequip aerial finish so I can restore my drive gauge faster and land more consistent hits. The battle now proceeds Genie -> Knocksmash -> hits during mp charge to regain drive (Use a freeze here) (Exoskeleton falls off) -> Genie (After which he begins the run around the field and then fire lasers section -> Knocksmash -> Freeze (Ether and Aerial combos) -> Knocksmash (Or not. Testing shows that if I get lucky enough with genie, he might be dead before this)

This still uses three knocksmashes like my previous strategy of knocksmash -> genie (I've tried valor here too with lesser success) -> ether -> knocksmash -> ether -> knocksmash. But the one I just mentioned has a poorly timed second knocksmash that because of the phase hes in only gets 4 or so hits. I spend a lot of time as well in the second half of the fight, causing me to run around aimlessly a lot more. i'm glad I finally got this cleaned up.

Hey thanks man. There is a nontrivial aspect of the run that is me getting better and better at this game as I run it :P.

I'm trying the light cycle now but its annoying the hell out of me. I need to get 30 heartless kills for the journal, and try it again, but the try again is just satisfied by quitting immediately. Usually the jiminy objective can be cleared by doing it right the first time. But there is no heartless counter the first time! I don't even know it this minigame counts the first time because it does not display my previous score as a record when I go to try it again with a counter. I doubt anyone knows the answer to whether it does, but its worth a shot.

Edit: I just had a great run, the first time in a while I thought it was 30. But it didn't show up in the journal. That just means I get to save that hell for a much more controlled situation. I'll take care of the light cycle, dataspace, and hostile program in one segment, and only worry about time saving mistakes. I MIGHT BE WRONG, however, I've tested this to the nth degree, and I'm pretty certain. If anyone has evidence that I don't in fact have to do the game twice, speak now before I record the demyx segment. The thing is, I can't reliably count because you have to deal the last blow for it to count as a kill. If they crash, it makes the same sound whether you drive them into the wall or they just do it themselves. So I'll never truly be certain.

Edit: Sorry guys, I'm not getting hostile program done this weekend. He's shaping up to be a real twilight thorn/shadow stalker. i.e, on beginner, he's easy to race by burning through your limits/drive quickly, but on standard, I need to optimize a lot more. These are the most interesting parts though, and they're the parts of this game that behave most like a math puzzle. I'll probably get it done sometime this week.

Edit: Ok, I've finally debugged my strategy so to speak. In order to get through this in a reasonable amount of time without wasting two ethers, I finally found a good way to kill two birds with one stone and level my summons up too. Getting the timing of certain damage outputs to reach certain hp gates at certain points required me realizing that I shouldn't be freezing him at any time i'm doing anything other than straight combos, and that I need to unequip aerial finish so I can restore my drive gauge faster and land more consistent hits. The battle now proceeds Genie -> Knocksmash -> hits during mp charge to regain drive (Use a freeze here) (Exoskeleton falls off) -> Genie (After which he begins the run around the field and then fire lasers section -> Knocksmash -> Freeze (Ether and Aerial combos) -> Knocksmash (Or not. Testing shows that if I get lucky enough with genie, he might be dead before this)

This still uses three knocksmashes like my previous strategy of knocksmash -> genie (I've tried valor here too with lesser success) -> ether -> knocksmash -> ether -> knocksmash. But the one I just mentioned has a poorly timed second knocksmash that because of the phase hes in only gets 4 or so hits. I spend a lot of time as well in the second half of the fight, causing me to run around aimlessly a lot more. i'm glad I finally got this cleaned up.

Strongfox

2012-11-13 09:24:14 pm

Hidden Quote Because its so long lol

Quote from Qxybxjjllp:

Hey thanks man. There is a nontrivial aspect of the run that is me getting better and better at this game as I run it :P.

I'm trying the light cycle now but its annoying the hell out of me. I need to get 30 heartless kills for the journal, and try it again, but the try again is just satisfied by quitting immediately. Usually the jiminy objective can be cleared by doing it right the first time. But there is no heartless counter the first time! I don't even know it this minigame counts the first time because it does not display my previous score as a record when I go to try it again with a counter. I doubt anyone knows the answer to whether it does, but its worth a shot.

Edit: I just had a great run, the first time in a while I thought it was 30. But it didn't show up in the journal. That just means I get to save that hell for a much more controlled situation. I'll take care of the light cycle, dataspace, and hostile program in one segment, and only worry about time saving mistakes. I MIGHT BE WRONG, however, I've tested this to the nth degree, and I'm pretty certain. If anyone has evidence that I don't in fact have to do the game twice, speak now before I record the demyx segment. The thing is, I can't reliably count because you have to deal the last blow for it to count as a kill. If they crash, it makes the same sound whether you drive them into the wall or they just do it themselves. So I'll never truly be certain.

Edit: Sorry guys, I'm not getting hostile program done this weekend. He's shaping up to be a real twilight thorn/shadow stalker. i.e, on beginner, he's easy to race by burning through your limits/drive quickly, but on standard, I need to optimize a lot more. These are the most interesting parts though, and they're the parts of this game that behave most like a math puzzle. I'll probably get it done sometime this week.

Edit: Ok, I've finally debugged my strategy so to speak. In order to get through this in a reasonable amount of time without wasting two ethers, I finally found a good way to kill two birds with one stone and level my summons up too. Getting the timing of certain damage outputs to reach certain hp gates at certain points required me realizing that I shouldn't be freezing him at any time i'm doing anything other than straight combos, and that I need to unequip aerial finish so I can restore my drive gauge faster and land more consistent hits. The battle now proceeds Genie -> Knocksmash -> hits during mp charge to regain drive (Use a freeze here) (Exoskeleton falls off) -> Genie (After which he begins the run around the field and then fire lasers section -> Knocksmash -> Freeze (Ether and Aerial combos) -> Knocksmash (Or not. Testing shows that if I get lucky enough with genie, he might be dead before this)

This still uses three knocksmashes like my previous strategy of knocksmash -> genie (I've tried valor here too with lesser success) -> ether -> knocksmash -> ether -> knocksmash. But the one I just mentioned has a poorly timed second knocksmash that because of the phase hes in only gets 4 or so hits. I spend a lot of time as well in the second half of the fight, causing me to run around aimlessly a lot more. i'm glad I finally got this cleaned up.

Cant wait to see the rest of Tron world Cheesy

Hidden Quote Because its so long lol [hidden][quote="Qxybxjjllp"]Hey thanks man. There is a nontrivial aspect of the run that is me getting better and better at this game as I run it :P.

I'm trying the light cycle now but its annoying the hell out of me. I need to get 30 heartless kills for the journal, and try it again, but the try again is just satisfied by quitting immediately. Usually the jiminy objective can be cleared by doing it right the first time. But there is no heartless counter the first time! I don't even know it this minigame counts the first time because it does not display my previous score as a record when I go to try it again with a counter. I doubt anyone knows the answer to whether it does, but its worth a shot.

Edit: I just had a great run, the first time in a while I thought it was 30. But it didn't show up in the journal. That just means I get to save that hell for a much more controlled situation. I'll take care of the light cycle, dataspace, and hostile program in one segment, and only worry about time saving mistakes. I MIGHT BE WRONG, however, I've tested this to the nth degree, and I'm pretty certain. If anyone has evidence that I don't in fact have to do the game twice, speak now before I record the demyx segment. The thing is, I can't reliably count because you have to deal the last blow for it to count as a kill. If they crash, it makes the same sound whether you drive them into the wall or they just do it themselves. So I'll never truly be certain.

Edit: Sorry guys, I'm not getting hostile program done this weekend. He's shaping up to be a real twilight thorn/shadow stalker. i.e, on beginner, he's easy to race by burning through your limits/drive quickly, but on standard, I need to optimize a lot more. These are the most interesting parts though, and they're the parts of this game that behave most like a math puzzle. I'll probably get it done sometime this week.

Edit: Ok, I've finally debugged my strategy so to speak. In order to get through this in a reasonable amount of time without wasting two ethers, I finally found a good way to kill two birds with one stone and level my summons up too. Getting the timing of certain damage outputs to reach certain hp gates at certain points required me realizing that I shouldn't be freezing him at any time i'm doing anything other than straight combos, and that I need to unequip aerial finish so I can restore my drive gauge faster and land more consistent hits. The battle now proceeds Genie -> Knocksmash -> hits during mp charge to regain drive (Use a freeze here) (Exoskeleton falls off) -> Genie (After which he begins the run around the field and then fire lasers section -> Knocksmash -> Freeze (Ether and Aerial combos) -> Knocksmash (Or not. Testing shows that if I get lucky enough with genie, he might be dead before this)

This still uses three knocksmashes like my previous strategy of knocksmash -> genie (I've tried valor here too with lesser success) -> ether -> knocksmash -> ether -> knocksmash. But the one I just mentioned has a poorly timed second knocksmash that because of the phase hes in only gets 4 or so hits. I spend a lot of time as well in the second half of the fight, causing me to run around aimlessly a lot more. i'm glad I finally got this cleaned up.[/quote]
[/hidden]Cant wait to see the rest of Tron world :D

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-27 07:59:11 am

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-19 06:41:52 am

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-17 07:30:04 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-17 07:29:29 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-17 01:04:41 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-17 07:27:44 am

2012-11-16 08:44:22 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Enjoy! One final gift before I leave

Strongfox

2012-11-16 11:14:37 pm

Quote from Qxybxjjllp:

Well hello everyone. I have 4 new segments ready, and when they're encoded, they'll be put up here, along with the two I make after that. Enjoy!

Yippy im so giddy i cant wait

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-18 03:29:11 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-18 03:28:06 pm

2012-11-18 03:27:29 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Ok, so I'm not going to be able to record for a bit, seeing as Thanksgiving is coming up and I'll be away. This will be the time when I start theorying the hell out of this game to organize the best synthesis route. My route for the rest of the game is as follows:
1) Land of Dragons - Save at Storm Rider
2) Storm Rider
3) Finish Beast's Castle
4) Port Royal (Probably all at once, as there is no convenient save point, but maybe I'll tack some of the beginning onto the end of 3)
5) Halloween town 1
6) Halloween town 2
7) Agrabah
8) Twilight town up to before Xigbar, force final form
9) Xigbar
10) A bunch of segments where I fully level final form. There is no convenient place to do this save for the fact that at this point D+G are walking around in Hall of Empty Melodies, allowing for about 20 seconds saved on each pass. I don't know yet how many levels I'll gain from this, (I'm hoping a decent amount) but I do know that at level ~30 you can still nuke the creepers almost instantly with Magnega
11) Olympus Coliseum 2 and Pain and Panic, Cerberus, and Titan Cups getting 2 Lucky Lucky Equips and hopefully being at 41 myself
12) Equip my stuff, and do Pride Lands 1. I might farm all frost crystals I can off the living bones.
13) Hopefully Final form leveling gives me enough power to abuse the top of Pride Rock to level like crazy, and get enough lightning shards to not even worry about getting 1000 items
14) Finish Pride Lands 2, then probably finish TWTNW
15) Head to Space Paranoids 2 and finish it, attempting to level Master form on the way and get Lightning Crystals Maybe I'll chill out here and level my summons using the drive countdown "bug".
16) 100 Acre Wood
17) Atlantica
18) Head to timeless river to level Wisdom all the way and get the synth Items I can from the varied enemies there.
19) Probably level Master in the LoD Antechamber while getting Dark Stones/Serenity Shards
20) Go around and farm the things I only need one or two of, and finish a lot if not all of the minigames.
21) Get Ultima Weapon.
22) Figure out a route to optimize the collection of the remaining 20/25/30 class items. I'll probably need to spend a bit of time in Beast's Castle and Agrabah based on my preliminary thoughts.
23) Farm a few energy crystals to cut down on my crystal usage. I'm really hoping to only have to get a few of each one.
24) Beat Sephiroth (This may happen earlier or later, he is not so relevant)
25) Synthesize everything. If this isn't enough to level my moogle to 9, buy some stuff and synthesize more.
26) Take on the remaining Coliseum cups
27) Go to kingdom hearts and beat the game.

As you can see most of what isn't fleshed out yet deals with synthesis, mostly because I've not had a lot of experience trying to beat it quickly from the zero point. My current plan is to finish leveling myself and the drive forms ASAP because I want to be really mobile and not have to rely on them to farm or run around quickly, as each party member you lose is 2 lucky lucky you lose. (and you lose attack by equipping the lucky ring to yourself) . Plus the only things that insta fill you drive gauge at this point are going to the world map (wastes a decent amount of time) going though the door to Timeless river, entering the Altar of Naught and entering a coliseum cup. (Maybe I'll level summons here instead...) I'll draft much more concrete plans this week, and I'll keep you guys posted.

If anyone has thoughts or feedback, I would appreciate hearing what you have to say (this by the way applies to my run in general. I always want to hear some constructive comments or criticism.)

Ok, so I'm not going to be able to record for a bit, seeing as Thanksgiving is coming up and I'll be away. This will be the time when I start theorying the hell out of this game to organize the best synthesis route. My route for the rest of the game is as follows:
1) Land of Dragons - Save at Storm Rider
2) Storm Rider
3) Finish Beast's Castle
4) Port Royal (Probably all at once, as there is no convenient save point, but maybe I'll tack some of the beginning onto the end of 3)
5) Halloween town 1
6) Halloween town 2
7) Agrabah
8) Twilight town up to before Xigbar, force final form
9) Xigbar
10) A bunch of segments where I fully level final form. There is no convenient place to do this save for the fact that at this point D+G are walking around in Hall of Empty Melodies, allowing for about 20 seconds saved on each pass. I don't know yet how many levels I'll gain from this, (I'm hoping a decent amount) but I do know that at level ~30 you can still nuke the creepers almost instantly with Magnega
11) Olympus Coliseum 2 and Pain and Panic, Cerberus, and Titan Cups getting 2 Lucky Lucky Equips and hopefully being at 41 myself
12) Equip my stuff, and do Pride Lands 1. I might farm all frost crystals I can off the living bones.
13) Hopefully Final form leveling gives me enough power to abuse the top of Pride Rock to level like crazy, and get enough lightning shards to not even worry about getting 1000 items
14) Finish Pride Lands 2, then probably finish TWTNW
15) Head to Space Paranoids 2 and finish it, attempting to level Master form on the way and get Lightning Crystals Maybe I'll chill out here and level my summons using the drive countdown "bug".
16) 100 Acre Wood
17) Atlantica
18) Head to timeless river to level Wisdom all the way and get the synth Items I can from the varied enemies there.
19) Probably level Master in the LoD Antechamber while getting Dark Stones/Serenity Shards
20) Go around and farm the things I only need one or two of, and finish a lot if not all of the minigames.
21) Get Ultima Weapon.
22) Figure out a route to optimize the collection of the remaining 20/25/30 class items. I'll probably need to spend a bit of time in Beast's Castle and Agrabah based on my preliminary thoughts.
23) Farm a few energy crystals to cut down on my crystal usage. I'm really hoping to only have to get a few of each one.
24) Beat Sephiroth (This may happen earlier or later, he is not so relevant)
25) Synthesize everything. If this isn't enough to level my moogle to 9, buy some stuff and synthesize more.
26) Take on the remaining Coliseum cups
27) Go to kingdom hearts and beat the game.

As you can see most of what isn't fleshed out yet deals with synthesis, mostly because I've not had a lot of experience trying to beat it quickly from the zero point. My current plan is to finish leveling myself and the drive forms ASAP because I want to be really mobile and not have to rely on them to farm or run around quickly, as each party member you lose is 2 lucky lucky you lose. (and you lose attack by equipping the lucky ring to yourself) . Plus the only things that insta fill you drive gauge at this point are going to the world map (wastes a decent amount of time) going though the door to Timeless river, entering the Altar of Naught and entering a coliseum cup. (Maybe I'll level summons here instead...) I'll draft much more concrete plans this week, and I'll keep you guys posted.

If anyone has thoughts or feedback, I would appreciate hearing what you have to say (this by the way applies to my run in general. I always want to hear some constructive comments or criticism.)

Strongfox

2012-11-18 10:08:44 pm

Quote from Qxybxjjllp:

Ok, so I'm not going to be able to record for a bit, seeing as Thanksgiving is coming up and I'll be away. This will be the time when I start theorying the hell out of this game to organize the best synthesis route. My route for the rest of the game is as follows:
1) Land of Dragons - Save at Storm Rider
2) Storm Rider
3) Finish Beast's Castle
4) Port Royal (Probably all at once, as there is no convenient save point, but maybe I'll tack some of the beginning onto the end of 3)
5) Halloween town 1
6) Halloween town 2
7) Agrabah
8) Twilight town up to before Xigbar, force final form
9) Xigbar
10) A bunch of segments where I fully level final form. There is no convenient place to do this save for the fact that at this point D+G are walking around in Hall of Empty Melodies, allowing for about 20 seconds saved on each pass. I don't know yet how many levels I'll gain from this, (I'm hoping a decent amount) but I do know that at level ~30 you can still nuke the creepers almost instantly with Magnega
11) Olympus Coliseum 2 and Pain and Panic, Cerberus, and Titan Cups getting 2 Lucky Lucky Equips and hopefully being at 41 myself
12) Equip my stuff, and do Pride Lands 1. I might farm all frost crystals I can off the living bones.
13) Hopefully Final form leveling gives me enough power to abuse the top of Pride Rock to level like crazy, and get enough lightning shards to not even worry about getting 1000 items
14) Finish Pride Lands 2, then probably finish TWTNW
15) Head to Space Paranoids 2 and finish it, attempting to level Master form on the way and get Lightning Crystals Maybe I'll chill out here and level my summons using the drive countdown "bug".
16) 100 Acre Wood
17) Atlantica
18) Head to timeless river to level Wisdom all the way and get the synth Items I can from the varied enemies there.
19) Probably level Master in the LoD Antechamber while getting Dark Stones/Serenity Shards
20) Go around and farm the things I only need one or two of, and finish a lot if not all of the minigames.
21) Get Ultima Weapon.
22) Figure out a route to optimize the collection of the remaining 20/25/30 class items. I'll probably need to spend a bit of time in Beast's Castle and Agrabah based on my preliminary thoughts.
23) Farm a few energy crystals to cut down on my crystal usage. I'm really hoping to only have to get a few of each one.
24) Beat Sephiroth (This may happen earlier or later, he is not so relevant)
25) Synthesize everything. If this isn't enough to level my moogle to 9, buy some stuff and synthesize more.
26) Take on the remaining Coliseum cups
27) Go to kingdom hearts and beat the game.

As you can see most of what isn't fleshed out yet deals with synthesis, mostly because I've not had a lot of experience trying to beat it quickly from the zero point. My current plan is to finish leveling myself and the drive forms ASAP because I want to be really mobile and not have to rely on them to farm or run around quickly, as each party member you lose is 2 lucky lucky you lose. (and you lose attack by equipping the lucky ring to yourself) . Plus the only things that insta fill you drive gauge at this point are going to the world map (wastes a decent amount of time) going though the door to Timeless river, entering the Altar of Naught and entering a coliseum cup. (Maybe I'll level summons here instead...) I'll draft much more concrete plans this week, and I'll keep you guys posted.

If anyone has thoughts or feedback, I would appreciate hearing what you have to say (this by the way applies to my run in general. I always want to hear some constructive comments or criticism.)

Hope all goes well

[hidden][quote="Qxybxjjllp"]Ok, so I'm not going to be able to record for a bit, seeing as Thanksgiving is coming up and I'll be away. This will be the time when I start theorying the hell out of this game to organize the best synthesis route. My route for the rest of the game is as follows:
1) Land of Dragons - Save at Storm Rider
2) Storm Rider
3) Finish Beast's Castle
4) Port Royal (Probably all at once, as there is no convenient save point, but maybe I'll tack some of the beginning onto the end of 3)
5) Halloween town 1
6) Halloween town 2
7) Agrabah
8) Twilight town up to before Xigbar, force final form
9) Xigbar
10) A bunch of segments where I fully level final form. There is no convenient place to do this save for the fact that at this point D+G are walking around in Hall of Empty Melodies, allowing for about 20 seconds saved on each pass. I don't know yet how many levels I'll gain from this, (I'm hoping a decent amount) but I do know that at level ~30 you can still nuke the creepers almost instantly with Magnega
11) Olympus Coliseum 2 and Pain and Panic, Cerberus, and Titan Cups getting 2 Lucky Lucky Equips and hopefully being at 41 myself
12) Equip my stuff, and do Pride Lands 1. I might farm all frost crystals I can off the living bones.
13) Hopefully Final form leveling gives me enough power to abuse the top of Pride Rock to level like crazy, and get enough lightning shards to not even worry about getting 1000 items
14) Finish Pride Lands 2, then probably finish TWTNW
15) Head to Space Paranoids 2 and finish it, attempting to level Master form on the way and get Lightning Crystals Maybe I'll chill out here and level my summons using the drive countdown "bug".
16) 100 Acre Wood
17) Atlantica
18) Head to timeless river to level Wisdom all the way and get the synth Items I can from the varied enemies there.
19) Probably level Master in the LoD Antechamber while getting Dark Stones/Serenity Shards
20) Go around and farm the things I only need one or two of, and finish a lot if not all of the minigames.
21) Get Ultima Weapon.
22) Figure out a route to optimize the collection of the remaining 20/25/30 class items. I'll probably need to spend a bit of time in Beast's Castle and Agrabah based on my preliminary thoughts.
23) Farm a few energy crystals to cut down on my crystal usage. I'm really hoping to only have to get a few of each one.
24) Beat Sephiroth (This may happen earlier or later, he is not so relevant)
25) Synthesize everything. If this isn't enough to level my moogle to 9, buy some stuff and synthesize more.
26) Take on the remaining Coliseum cups
27) Go to kingdom hearts and beat the game.

As you can see most of what isn't fleshed out yet deals with synthesis, mostly because I've not had a lot of experience trying to beat it quickly from the zero point. My current plan is to finish leveling myself and the drive forms ASAP because I want to be really mobile and not have to rely on them to farm or run around quickly, as each party member you lose is 2 lucky lucky you lose. (and you lose attack by equipping the lucky ring to yourself) . Plus the only things that insta fill you drive gauge at this point are going to the world map (wastes a decent amount of time) going though the door to Timeless river, entering the Altar of Naught and entering a coliseum cup. (Maybe I'll level summons here instead...) I'll draft much more concrete plans this week, and I'll keep you guys posted.

If anyone has thoughts or feedback, I would appreciate hearing what you have to say (this by the way applies to my run in general. I always want to hear some constructive comments or criticism.)[/quote]
[/hidden]
Hope all goes well

Fragmaster01

2012-11-18 11:00:13 pm

Wiggle wiggle

Suggestions... lesse
I always leveled Final Form in Mysterious Tower, but if you can get a bunch of Creepers that'd probably be way faster. Have you tried using Thundaga on them instead of Magnega?
Leveling Master Form once you get Final is a good idea too, if only for the improved doublejump making for faster travels.
I vaguely recall something about leveling master form off of the carousel in Christmas Town? Not too familiar with it. LoD is the usual place to grind it in non-final mix.
Prioritize getting the LuckyLucky keyblade, which I'm pretty sure is from 100AcreWood. At that point, you'll be slightly overleveled from your Final Form farming, so gettng more drops out of enemies is better than slight damage boosts. Just, you know, change it back before a boss fight.

Elaborate on the summon leveling through drive countdown "bug"?

Axel Ryman

2012-11-18 11:10:38 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Quote from Fragmaster01:

Suggestions... lesse
I always leveled Final Form in Mysterious Tower, but if you can get a bunch of Creepers that'd probably be way faster. Have you tried using Thundaga on them instead of Magnega?
Leveling Master Form once you get Final is a good idea too, if only for the improved doublejump making for faster travels.
I vaguely recall something about leveling master form off of the carousel in Christmas Town? Not too familiar with it. LoD is the usual place to grind it in non-final mix.
Prioritize getting the LuckyLucky keyblade, which I'm pretty sure is from 100AcreWood. At that point, you'll be slightly overleveled from your Final Form farming, so gettng more drops out of enemies is better than slight damage boosts. Just, you know, change it back before a boss fight.

Elaborate on the summon leveling through drive countdown "bug"?

Magnega would be the better choice since it can kill all the enemies around the area instead of just a small AoE like Thundaga.

The Carousel in Christmas Town was in a Final Mix RTA to get Aerial Dodge. The Final Mix location is to have the Drive Converter ability equipped, then go into the Mysterious Tower where the 4 Gambler nobodies are and just play their games for Drive Orbs. LoD is a better spot in Vanilla since you don't have Drive Converter in Vanilla.

The Summon Leveling bug thing he mentioned is, I think, grabbing a Drive Orb just as the the gauge goes down a level to gain exp. Like you go from 3 bars to 2, and immediately grab an orb to go back to 3, but then it goes back to 2 an you gain 2 exp from it.

If summons work the same way in Vanilla as Final Mix, you can probably just use Stitch. In the RTAs I've seen, the Stitch Summon can last for an entire lengthy battle if you're constantly hitting an enemy. Use this to raise the bar to help gain levels and you can do that over and over. Then again, I find Chicken Little to be better for that, or even Genie.

[quote="Fragmaster01"]Suggestions... lesse
I always leveled Final Form in Mysterious Tower, but if you can get a bunch of Creepers that'd probably be way faster. Have you tried using Thundaga on them instead of Magnega?
Leveling Master Form once you get Final is a good idea too, if only for the improved doublejump making for faster travels.
I vaguely recall something about leveling master form off of the carousel in Christmas Town? Not too familiar with it. LoD is the usual place to grind it in non-final mix.
Prioritize getting the LuckyLucky keyblade, which I'm pretty sure is from 100AcreWood. At that point, you'll be slightly overleveled from your Final Form farming, so gettng more drops out of enemies is better than slight damage boosts. Just, you know, change it back before a boss fight.

Elaborate on the summon leveling through drive countdown "bug"?[/quote]

Magnega would be the better choice since it can kill all the enemies around the area instead of just a small AoE like Thundaga.

The Carousel in Christmas Town was in a Final Mix RTA to get Aerial Dodge. The Final Mix location is to have the Drive Converter ability equipped, then go into the Mysterious Tower where the 4 Gambler nobodies are and just play their games for Drive Orbs. LoD is a better spot in Vanilla since you don't have Drive Converter in Vanilla.

The Summon Leveling bug thing he mentioned is, I think, grabbing a Drive Orb just as the the gauge goes down a level to gain exp. Like you go from 3 bars to 2, and immediately grab an orb to go back to 3, but then it goes back to 2 an you gain 2 exp from it.

If summons work the same way in Vanilla as Final Mix, you can probably just use Stitch. In the RTAs I've seen, the Stitch Summon can last for an entire lengthy battle if you're constantly hitting an enemy. Use this to raise the bar to help gain levels and you can do that over and over. Then again, I find Chicken Little to be better for that, or even Genie.

I have no name

2012-11-18 11:12:37 pm

Quote from Fragmaster01:

I vaguely recall something about leveling master form off of the carousel in Christmas Town? Not too familiar with it. LoD is the usual place to grind it in non-final mix.
Elaborate on the summon leveling through drive countdown "bug"?

I ended up grinding Master Form in both places-the carousel is generally better for items though. Beasts Castle also works rather well in the ballroom, you can probably double up Master Form grinding with synthesis item farming in a lot of places.

The summon exp trick is simple: right as the gauge ticks down, you perform an action to cause it to go back up. So if it's at 2 and just reached 1, attacking or picking up a drive orb will 'wrap' it back up to 2. When it drops from 2 to 1 again, you just got the EXP for 2 to 1 for that summon twice. This repeats for as long as you can keep the chain going.

Roseluck

2012-11-19 12:29:02 am

The summon trick is probably the best, but if for some reason that doesn't work out, cancelling chicken little's limits is the fastest way to burn through bars.

Just do as much as you can at 7LL, maybe 6 if there are a ton of strong enemies, in order to cut down on actual grinding for stuff."

AfReN

2012-11-19 06:14:40 am

Hey guys, it seems like most of the talk here is about the 100% run, is there any info around on an any %?

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-20 08:42:52 am

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-20 08:26:47 am

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-19 01:56:27 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-19 01:53:06 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-19 09:06:10 am

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-19 09:03:21 am

2012-11-19 06:49:34 am

The artist formerly known as Qxy

I was planning on Magnega followed by Thundara or just a combo if I needed to for the nobodies. The Magnega groups about half the creepers on the path together quite nicely. Come to think of it, I've been considering just using the chicken little limit cancelling for summon leveling. (The summon bug I mentioned is the one the I have no name described by the way)

Going the stich route is one way to go, but if I have a D+G walking around room to abuse in Halloween town 1 with enemies right outside, I can just level my summons there. (with summon boost, no doubt helpful for prison keeper and the experiment)(Edit: I found the place. Yuletide hill right before prison keeper works perfectly!) I could just walk out, spam the limit till I get to 0, but not losing the summon, and then walk back in and get my drive gauge back.

I'll get sweet memories and use it for farming, especially when I lose my party due to the drives. But if I have the other 6 Lucky Lucky, a bit of testing will show me whether for any given situation ultima weapon is faster.

I'll take a look at the Carousel, I've never heard of farming there before. Edit: So there are a lot of Graveyards and Toy soldiers there, all of which give 4 drive orbs. You have to kill a trick Ghost or 2 first, and you can mostly keep the fight in one area, using the carousel to help out a bit. This brings up the fact that there are a lot of things which drop 4 (and with double jackpot iirc 12) large drive orbs(Hot rod Crimson Jazz Devastator Fat Bandit Large Body to name a few), and perhaps Master level can be leveled through some awkward combination of these areas and collecting synth items from them as well. There is something to this that I will consider and test, however my intuition is it might be faster to do the bulk of my mass farming with 7LL instead of 3, significant enough of an advantage to justify just leveling Master form all the way from the outset at one of these places. (Just look at the odds below)

Edit: AfReN, you can go back a few pages and see tons of info on beginner and a little bit on proud. I don't think anyone is planning anything currently. I know puwexil was looking at all worlds and some people were thinking about running Final Mix, but there hasn't been any update on that for quite a bit.

Edit2: I hate how I don't know any of the math in this game. I look everywhere and I just get speculation and conflicting information. I'm pretty sure I understand anti form from empirical evidence backing one of the theories I saw, and I've figured out with trial and error how to use combo boost and combo plus most efficiently, though I don't know how Decisive pumpkin affects things. Damage formulas and boost multipliers would really help me cut down on testing for magic combos, finishers and mid combo attacks, optimal combo length etc... Probably the single most frustrating thing is I don't know what Lucky Lucky does. From all the places I've looked, the common consensus is that each one either multiplies your current drop chance by 1.3 or 1 and 1/3, stacking exponentially. The former to the seventh is 6.27 and the latter is 7.49,(Master and final form numbers being 2.197 and 2.37 respectively, valor wisdom 3.713 and 4.2) so there is a nontrivial difference here that I can't really test. (For example, if 1.3 is true then the probability of farming 5 shards off 6 hammer frames is .26, but 1 and 1/3 is .533) If I am to figure out how many drops I can reasonably expect on a pass of a farming section, so I know what segments to keep, it would be helpful to know. I'm not sure how many math centric people are around here, but does anyone have any reliable mathematical information about this game?

I was planning on Magnega followed by Thundara or just a combo if I needed to for the nobodies. The Magnega groups about half the creepers on the path together quite nicely. Come to think of it, I've been considering just using the chicken little limit cancelling for summon leveling. (The summon bug I mentioned is the one the I have no name described by the way)

Going the stich route is one way to go, but if I have a D+G walking around room to abuse in Halloween town 1 with enemies right outside, I can just level my summons there. (with summon boost, no doubt helpful for prison keeper and the experiment)(Edit: I found the place. Yuletide hill right before prison keeper works perfectly!) I could just walk out, spam the limit till I get to 0, but not losing the summon, and then walk back in and get my drive gauge back.

I'll get sweet memories and use it for farming, especially when I lose my party due to the drives. But if I have the other 6 Lucky Lucky, a bit of testing will show me whether for any given situation ultima weapon is faster.

I'll take a look at the Carousel, I've never heard of farming there before. Edit: So there are a lot of Graveyards and Toy soldiers there, all of which give 4 drive orbs. You have to kill a trick Ghost or 2 first, and you can mostly keep the fight in one area, using the carousel to help out a bit. This brings up the fact that there are a lot of things which drop 4 (and with double jackpot iirc 12) large drive orbs(Hot rod Crimson Jazz Devastator Fat Bandit Large Body to name a few), and perhaps Master level can be leveled through some awkward combination of these areas and collecting synth items from them as well. There is something to this that I will consider and test, however my intuition is it might be faster to do the bulk of my mass farming with 7LL instead of 3, significant enough of an advantage to justify just leveling Master form all the way from the outset at one of these places. (Just look at the odds below)

Edit: AfReN, you can go back a few pages and see tons of info on beginner and a little bit on proud. I don't think anyone is planning anything currently. I know puwexil was looking at all worlds and some people were thinking about running Final Mix, but there hasn't been any update on that for quite a bit.

Edit2: I hate how I don't know any of the math in this game. I look everywhere and I just get speculation and conflicting information. I'm pretty sure I understand anti form from empirical evidence backing one of the theories I saw, and I've figured out with trial and error how to use combo boost and combo plus most efficiently, though I don't know how Decisive pumpkin affects things. Damage formulas and boost multipliers would really help me cut down on testing for magic combos, finishers and mid combo attacks, optimal combo length etc... Probably the single most frustrating thing is I don't know what Lucky Lucky does. From all the places I've looked, the common consensus is that each one either multiplies your current drop chance by 1.3 or 1 and 1/3, stacking exponentially. The former to the seventh is 6.27 and the latter is 7.49,(Master and final form numbers being 2.197 and 2.37 respectively, valor wisdom 3.713 and 4.2) so there is a nontrivial difference here that I can't really test. (For example, if 1.3 is true then the probability of farming 5 shards off 6 hammer frames is .26, but 1 and 1/3 is .533) If I am to figure out how many drops I can reasonably expect on a pass of a farming section, so I know what segments to keep, it would be helpful to know. I'm not sure how many math centric people are around here, but does anyone have any reliable mathematical information about this game?

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-20 10:52:45 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-20 06:24:32 pm

2012-11-20 06:23:55 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Some of my recent findings:
1) Firaga is the best option for final form Leveling, so I might attempt Pride Lands 1 before I do it so I can have it. There are 34 nobodies that are small enough and close enough to kill quickly, and for the first 3 levels, I don't have enough time to kill them all in one pass. Maybe I'll try ethers to get to level 3 in 3 passes.
2) Bright Items are easy to come by, as are serenity items. I shouldn't need to worry so much about them. Maybe I'll get enough bright items to be able to max out my moogle level befor I need to synth rank S stuff. If so, I only need 2 power, frost, lucid, dark, lightning and blazing crystals, and 4 dense or twilight.
3) I'll want a lot (read ~10) energy crystals to cut down on my crystal farming and on mythril item usage, so I need only rely on the ones I get in chests. Bookmasters are easy to come by and die to magnega very quickly
4) The following noncrystal items I have solid strats for:
Blazing Shard - Beast's castle start in West wing anBld kill everything then keep circling through the secret passage for 6 hammer frames a pass
Blazing Gem - Just walk around Agrabah and kill things
Frost Shard - Village Cave. Possible Master form level spot
Frost Gem - Redo Chasm of Challenges, kill the 5 fortune tellers in the treasure room, then either keep killing them in the treasure room or go to the outside of the cave and kill icy cubes
Lightning shard -Pride rock
Lightning Gem - Halloween town forest or the Great maw on the way to sephiroth
Lucid Shard - Halloween town forest
Lucid Stone - Halloween town carousel (I hate these enemies...)
Lucid Gem - Bookmasters
Power Shard - Halloween town forest/beast castle secret passage
Power Stone - go to the Bazaar and kill things
Power Gem - Just run through the Pride Lands
Dark Shard - Timeless river while I'm wisdom leveling
Dark Stone - LoD while I'm Master leveling
Dark Gem - The first time I go through BC in the undercroft, then a seperate trek to the courtyard.
Dense Shard - I'll get these when Final Form leveling
Dense Stone - Go to the Snipers and Assassins part of Hall of empty melodies
Dense Gem - Final Form Leveling
Twilight Shard - Probably Havoc's divide or Yen Sid's tower
Twilight Stone - Twilight town, Yen Sid's Tower.
Twilight Gem - The single place in the game assassins exist.
5) I will be getting a lot (read: 224,000) EXP from my final form leveling, so I should be high enough to get the ball rolling on pride rock (Magnega has to be strong enough)
6) Olympus coliseum and timeless river are the only stones I've left unturned here, and I've drafted up ways to so far make the synthesis sections flow naturally into each other.
7) Because of the way binomial distributions work, and because of how fast I kill things at level 75, it is much more efficient to go for sheer volume where i can find it. I'm hoping that for each shard I can find 7 enemies a pass to kill, stone 6 and gem 5, so i have a reasonable probability of getting each done in 5 passes. The 12% drop guys I can probably just reset for a 100% yield. I can probably pick up most one ofs on one pass, as they are usually close by to my route for the 30/25/20s and have a 12% drop (at 7LL this is either a 76% or 91% chance. Really need to figure that out...) I must have Sweet Memories attached at all times that I farm because exponential increase only gets better the more I have.
8) This is going to take a while to do... and there is no real way to get around how many time I'll have to reset for optimal drops. Though my estimated ingame time for completion should be around 8-9 hours, because I'll likely only spend 20 minutes leveling each form, and 5 minutes on each synth item.

I apologize for the wall of text. I am a bit verbose, but my philosophy is to contribute as much info to the community as possible so everyone has better runs.

Some of my recent findings:
1) Firaga is the best option for final form Leveling, so I might attempt Pride Lands 1 before I do it so I can have it. There are 34 nobodies that are small enough and close enough to kill quickly, and for the first 3 levels, I don't have enough time to kill them all in one pass. Maybe I'll try ethers to get to level 3 in 3 passes.
2) Bright Items are easy to come by, as are serenity items. I shouldn't need to worry so much about them. Maybe I'll get enough bright items to be able to max out my moogle level befor I need to synth rank S stuff. If so, I only need 2 power, frost, lucid, dark, lightning and blazing crystals, and 4 dense or twilight.
3) I'll want a lot (read ~10) energy crystals to cut down on my crystal farming and on mythril item usage, so I need only rely on the ones I get in chests. Bookmasters are easy to come by and die to magnega very quickly
4) The following noncrystal items I have solid strats for:
Blazing Shard - Beast's castle start in West wing anBld kill everything then keep circling through the secret passage for 6 hammer frames a pass
Blazing Gem - Just walk around Agrabah and kill things
Frost Shard - Village Cave. Possible Master form level spot
Frost Gem - Redo Chasm of Challenges, kill the 5 fortune tellers in the treasure room, then either keep killing them in the treasure room or go to the outside of the cave and kill icy cubes
Lightning shard -Pride rock
Lightning Gem - Halloween town forest or the Great maw on the way to sephiroth
Lucid Shard - Halloween town forest
Lucid Stone - Halloween town carousel (I hate these enemies...)
Lucid Gem - Bookmasters
Power Shard - Halloween town forest/beast castle secret passage
Power Stone - go to the Bazaar and kill things
Power Gem - Just run through the Pride Lands
Dark Shard - Timeless river while I'm wisdom leveling
Dark Stone - LoD while I'm Master leveling
Dark Gem - The first time I go through BC in the undercroft, then a seperate trek to the courtyard.
Dense Shard - I'll get these when Final Form leveling
Dense Stone - Go to the Snipers and Assassins part of Hall of empty melodies
Dense Gem - Final Form Leveling
Twilight Shard - Probably Havoc's divide or Yen Sid's tower
Twilight Stone - Twilight town, Yen Sid's Tower.
Twilight Gem - The single place in the game assassins exist.
5) I will be getting a lot (read: 224,000) EXP from my final form leveling, so I should be high enough to get the ball rolling on pride rock (Magnega has to be strong enough)
6) Olympus coliseum and timeless river are the only stones I've left unturned here, and I've drafted up ways to so far make the synthesis sections flow naturally into each other.
7) Because of the way binomial distributions work, and because of how fast I kill things at level 75, it is much more efficient to go for sheer volume where i can find it. I'm hoping that for each shard I can find 7 enemies a pass to kill, stone 6 and gem 5, so i have a reasonable probability of getting each done in 5 passes. The 12% drop guys I can probably just reset for a 100% yield. I can probably pick up most one ofs on one pass, as they are usually close by to my route for the 30/25/20s and have a 12% drop (at 7LL this is either a 76% or 91% chance. Really need to figure that out...) I must have Sweet Memories attached at all times that I farm because exponential increase only gets better the more I have.
8) This is going to take a while to do... and there is no real way to get around how many time I'll have to reset for optimal drops. Though my estimated ingame time for completion should be around 8-9 hours, because I'll likely only spend 20 minutes leveling each form, and 5 minutes on each synth item.

I apologize for the wall of text. I am a bit verbose, but my philosophy is to contribute as much info to the community as possible so everyone has better runs.

SBK91

2012-11-21 09:26:16 pm

Quote:

Damage formulas and boost multipliers would really help me cut down on testing for magic combos, finishers and mid combo attacks, optimal combo length etc...

Combo Boost/Air Combo Boost increases the damage of your ground/air combo finishers by (1+Number of regular hits)*10%, and the boosts stack linearly. For example, with the regular Combo Boost equipped but no Decisive Pumpkin, and two Combo Pluses equipped, your ground finishers would deal 50% more damage ((1+2 regular hits+2 Combo Pluses)*10%). With two Combo Pluses, Combo Boost, and Decisive Pumpkin, your finishers would deal 100% more damage (1+2 regular hits+2 Combo Pluses)*10%*2). Magic finishers do NOT benefit from Combo Boosts with the exception of Explosion.

Note magic deals 50% damage to most bosses, so Explosion will be weaker than Guard Break (but much stronger against regular enemies; also it deals full damage to Sephiroth). The regular Reflect is just as strong as the finisher. Horizontal Slash should be used for all air combos.

Until you get the Finishing Plus from levelling, the Rumbling Rose is by far the best keyblade for combat.

I'm fairly certain that the more hits in the combo the higher the DPS (and bosses won't counter as often). This is certainly true for pure magic combos (I timed it, and four hit>two finisher comes slightly ahead of two hit>two finisher). Fire/Blizzard/Thunder Boost increases damage by 20%, and stacks linearly. Fire has the lowest DPS of the elemental magics (in Base form and not combining with Magnet). Blizzard and Thunder are identical. From what I've seen of Genie Jafar, with the Rumbling Rose, ground combos have a higher DPS than air combos.

Quote:

I'm not sure how many math centric people are around here, but does anyone have any reliable mathematical information about this game?

I can post damage values for lots of the attacks if you'd like (though next to no information on the damage modifiers for Limits).

For Grim Reaper 2, Stitch with Blizzara might be useful.

For Xigbar, cancelling Final Strike with Firaga might be worth considering.

[quote]Damage formulas and boost multipliers would really help me cut down on testing for magic combos, finishers and mid combo attacks, optimal combo length etc...[/quote]
Combo Boost/Air Combo Boost increases the damage of your ground/air combo finishers by (1+Number of regular hits)*10%, and the boosts stack linearly. For example, with the regular Combo Boost equipped but no Decisive Pumpkin, and two Combo Pluses equipped, your ground finishers would deal 50% more damage ((1+2 regular hits+2 Combo Pluses)*10%). With two Combo Pluses, Combo Boost, and Decisive Pumpkin, your finishers would deal 100% more damage (1+2 regular hits+2 Combo Pluses)*10%*2). Magic finishers do NOT benefit from Combo Boosts with the exception of Explosion.

Note magic deals 50% damage to most bosses, so Explosion will be weaker than Guard Break (but much stronger against regular enemies; also it deals full damage to Sephiroth). The regular Reflect is just as strong as the finisher. Horizontal Slash should be used for all air combos.

Until you get the Finishing Plus from levelling, the Rumbling Rose is by far the best keyblade for combat.

I'm fairly certain that the more hits in the combo the higher the DPS (and bosses won't counter as often). This is certainly true for pure magic combos (I timed it, and four hit>two finisher comes slightly ahead of two hit>two finisher). Fire/Blizzard/Thunder Boost increases damage by 20%, and stacks linearly. Fire has the lowest DPS of the elemental magics (in Base form and not combining with Magnet). Blizzard and Thunder are identical. From what I've seen of Genie Jafar, with the Rumbling Rose, ground combos have a higher DPS than air combos.
 
[quote]I'm not sure how many math centric people are around here, but does anyone have any reliable mathematical information about this game?[/quote]
I can post damage values for lots of the attacks if you'd like (though next to no information on the damage modifiers for Limits).

For Grim Reaper 2, Stitch with Blizzara might be useful.

For Xigbar, cancelling Final Strike with Firaga might be worth considering.

Axel Ryman

2012-11-21 09:39:25 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Quote from SBK91:

Until you get the Finishing Plus from levelling, the Rumbling Rose is by far the best keyblade for combat.

What if you don't get Finishing Plus from leveling at all? Tongue

Cause I'm trying to take some notes for Final Mix.

Fragmaster01

2012-11-21 09:58:26 pm

Wiggle wiggle

Well, if you're doing Critical Mode Final Mix, then you already have Finishing Plus, and so Hero's Crest/Holy Pumpkin would be best for normal combat. Also note that for Final Mix, most of the postgame bosses(if you're running 100%) make it so adding extra combo hits is actually Bad for you, as they'll automatically break out of stagger after a certain number of hits/time passed.

Axel Ryman

2012-11-21 10:06:38 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Quote from Fragmaster01:

Well, if you're doing Critical Mode Final Mix, then you already have Finishing Plus, and so Hero's Crest/Holy Pumpkin would be best for normal combat. Also note that for Final Mix, most of the postgame bosses(if you're running 100%) make it so adding extra combo hits is actually Bad for you, as they'll automatically break out of stagger after a certain number of hits/time passed.

Already beat a full game of Critical. I'm thinking of doing both a Beginner and a Critical mode run.

Ghostwheel

Edit history:

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-21 10:38:25 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-21 10:26:16 pm

Ghostwheel: 2012-11-21 10:25:54 pm

2012-11-21 10:19:00 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

@SBK91: I actually was considering the Xigbar thing after seeing the a Final Mix video that did it. Also useful because its easy to go anti (and therefore final) during that fight. Thank you very much for all the info. I've shortened the combos up until this point because in larger groups, the number of finishers I pull off seems to affect the fight length, not to mention a long combo can drag one guy away from the rest. As for the hostile program and demyx, they are notorious for interrupting my combo a lot. Going further, I think I'll slap on some more CB's and see what happens against other bosses.

I'd appreciate any more info you could provide, that would be nice. (Especially if you know about lucky lucky or how your own strenth/magic stat factors in.) Where are you getting this stuff from? If I knew that I wouldn't have to bother you and I could just go straight to the source for all the random stuff I wan't to look up.

Roseluck

2012-11-21 10:43:14 pm

Thread on Gamefaqs about damage, started by good ole SBK91 ;)-- http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/915410-kingdom-hearts-ii/58864341

Ghostwheel

2012-11-21 10:47:52 pm

The artist formerly known as Qxy

Neat, many thanks. I never looked at threads on GameFAQs, just at full fledged guides. Should prove helpful indeed.

SBK91

2012-11-22 07:32:17 am

Quote:

Well, if you're doing Critical Mode Final Mix, then you already have Finishing Plus, and so Hero's Crest/Holy Pumpkin would be best for normal combat.

Correct.

Quote:

Also note that for Final Mix, most of the postgame bosses(if you're running 100%) make it so adding extra combo hits is actually Bad for you, as they'll automatically break out of stagger after a certain number of hits/time passed.

Depends on the boss. Vexen and Larxene definitely benefit from less hits in the combo, but against most of the others more hits is better for the higher per combo damage. Terra, for example, can be killed with the Pumpkin at Lv. 1 as quickly as Fenrir at Lv. 99. Combo finishers provoke counters much faster than normal hits.

Quote:

Thank you very much for all the info. I've shortened the combos up until this point because in larger groups, the number of finishers I pull off seems to affect the fight length, not to mention a long combo can drag one guy away from the rest.

It may very well be true shorter combos are better for regular enemies (especially without the Pumpkin/Crest) but I'm almost positive longer combos are better for singular enemies (ie bosses).

In terms of fighting groups, have you experimented with Magnet+Stitch? Hitting an enemy currently affected by Magnet with Thunder, Fire, Explosion or a similiar attack gives Magnet a chance to hit again (which means renewing Magnet everytime it expires leads to faster kills). It becomes truly ridiculous if Stitch starts playing his ukelele. It's certainly by far the easiest way of fighting groups.

According to Glave, Lucky Lucky's do stack exponentially in vanilla. In Final Mix, they stack linearly but increase drop rates by 50% instead.

Stats are really weird. From what we understand, they're a series of peaks with relatively flat points in between. Until your STR/MAG reaches a specific value that depends on the enemy (which isn't just defense), you'll deal the same amount of damage regardless of the value (so a Lv. 1 Sora deals the same damage as a Lv. 40 Sora against Sephiroth without stat boosts). The damage floor is fairly high though. Going a few points above the enemy's value vastly increases your damage (like, 2-4 times as much) then flattens out to almost nothing until it reaches the next peak. Likewise, a few points of defense can make an big difference, but only to a certain point.

I have an untested theory that at multiples of 20 over 20 (so 40, 60, 80, etc) you deal three times as much damage, but I don't know if this triple damage stacks linearly or exponentially (or if this is even true).

Keyblade abilities are always more useful than stats.

A note on Final Firaga: the Firaga finisher is terrible. At best it's only as strong as the regular hit, frequently misses hits, slower, and knocks enemies away. Stick to the regular hit.

[quote]Well, if you're doing Critical Mode Final Mix, then you already have Finishing Plus, and so Hero's Crest/Holy Pumpkin would be best for normal combat.[/quote]
Correct.

[quote]Also note that for Final Mix, most of the postgame bosses(if you're running 100%) make it so adding extra combo hits is actually Bad for you, as they'll automatically break out of stagger after a certain number of hits/time passed.[/quote]
Depends on the boss. Vexen and Larxene definitely benefit from less hits in the combo, but against most of the others more hits is better for the higher per combo damage. Terra, for example, can be killed with the Pumpkin at Lv. 1 as quickly as Fenrir at Lv. 99. Combo finishers provoke counters much faster than normal hits.

[quote]Thank you very much for all the info. I've shortened the combos up until this point because in larger groups, the number of finishers I pull off seems to affect the fight length, not to mention a long combo can drag one guy away from the rest.[/quote]
It may very well be true shorter combos are better for regular enemies (especially without the Pumpkin/Crest) but I'm almost positive longer combos are better for singular enemies (ie bosses).

In terms of fighting groups, have you experimented with Magnet+Stitch? Hitting an enemy currently affected by Magnet with Thunder, Fire, Explosion or a similiar attack gives Magnet a chance to hit again (which means renewing Magnet everytime it expires leads to faster kills). It becomes truly ridiculous if Stitch starts playing his ukelele. It's certainly by far the easiest way of fighting groups.

According to Glave, Lucky Lucky's do stack exponentially in vanilla. In Final Mix, they stack linearly but increase drop rates by 50% instead.

Stats are really weird. From what we understand, they're a series of peaks with relatively flat points in between. Until your STR/MAG reaches a specific value that depends on the enemy (which isn't just defense), you'll deal the same amount of damage regardless of the value (so a Lv. 1 Sora deals the same damage as a Lv. 40 Sora against Sephiroth without stat boosts). The damage floor is fairly high though. Going a few points above the enemy's value [i]vastly[/i] increases your damage (like, 2-4 times as much) then flattens out to almost nothing until it reaches the next peak. Likewise, a few points of defense can make an big difference, but only to a certain point.

I have an untested theory that at multiples of 20 over 20 (so 40, 60, 80, etc) you deal three times as much damage, but I don't know if this triple damage stacks linearly or exponentially (or if this is even true).

Keyblade abilities are always more useful than stats.

A note on Final Firaga: the Firaga finisher is terrible. At best it's only as strong as the regular hit, frequently misses hits, slower, and knocks enemies away. Stick to the regular hit.