Legend of Legaia

Edit history:

S.K. Ren: 2012-06-09 10:08:26 pm

2012-06-09 10:06:49 pm

Thats... pretty awesome. So far my plan is to have each character focus on one magic: Vahn - Gimmard, Noa- Orb/Spoon and Gala- Mushura. My plan is to have Noa with her high speed serve as the healer and have Vahn/Gala inflict -20% ATK/DEF on bosses. I guess I'll have Gala get the boost as if I remember he actually has the best Int of the group.

AS for worth it? Definitely not the first method. And stealing doesn't seem to look good either...

Rakuen

2012-06-09 11:10:25 pm

Weegee Time

I'd agree with using Noa as the healer, since guessing who to heal at the end of a round is painful at best. I hope you have a backup plan if she gets taken down as she also has the least staying power.

Gala bats cleanup since he's the slowest but strongest character. I don't remember combat being particularly fast in this game. I hope you have a plan for Noa to close out a battle if Gala can't quite do it. It'll allow you to avoid paying time for more combat animations, especially if an enemy would be next to act. That'll add up to quite a bit over a game like this.

S.K. Ren

Edit history:

S.K. Ren: 2012-06-10 12:29:51 pm

S.K. Ren: 2012-06-10 12:20:42 am

S.K. Ren: 2012-06-09 11:26:31 pm

2012-06-09 11:20:08 pm

Too true. Especially since Gala is not only slow, but his AGI sucks hard at low levels. He has to spirit just to get 3 bars when you first get him... ugh but Noa can easily close out fights since she has the best AGi of teh group she can pull off more damaging combos than either Gala or Vahn at the early to mid stage of the game. But yeah, combat animations are sloooow so reducing the number of necessary battle and their overall length will be key.

Edit: Also a trick I'm gonna have to work on is figuring out the maximum level you can be while still facing the weakest version of a given boss. A painful example is facing Caruban with Lv1 Vahn/Lv4 Noa and Fire breath does ~80 damage. Lv3 Vahn/Lv5 Noa and now it does ~140 damage, oww. My mistake. Its been a bit too long since I've played Legaia. I forogt that the defense boost from Spirit applies before the character's turn comes up.

Also, do you remember how the fishing mini game worked? Cause the Spikefish flute seems like a cheap way to beat some difficult bosses.

Too true. Especially since Gala is not only slow, but his AGI sucks hard at low levels. He has to spirit just to get 3 bars when you first get him... ugh but Noa can easily close out fights since she has the best AGi of teh group she can pull off more damaging combos than either Gala or Vahn at the early to mid stage of the game. But yeah, combat animations are sloooow so reducing the number of necessary battle and their overall length will be key. 
[s]
Edit: Also a trick I'm gonna have to work on is figuring out the maximum level you can be while still facing the weakest version of a given boss. A painful example is facing Caruban with Lv1 Vahn/Lv4 Noa and Fire breath does ~80 damage. Lv3 Vahn/Lv5 Noa and now it does ~140 damage, oww.[/s] My mistake. Its been a bit too long since I've played Legaia. I forogt that the defense boost from Spirit applies before the character's turn comes up.

Also, do you remember how the fishing mini game worked? Cause the Spikefish flute seems like a cheap way to beat some difficult bosses.

Rakuen

2012-06-10 06:10:55 am

Weegee Time

It looks like the Spikefish Flute doesn't work against bosses, except Koru where it apparently can break his attack script. Well that does look handy. You might be thinking of the Lippian Flute, the other 200 coin flute. The wiki puts its success rate at 1/128, which isn't too good for you. But if you absolutely need it for something, at least it's easy to get. It's faster for the game clock than leveling up.

I think the fishing game works the same as most other RPGs. Life gauge, Tension gauge, lower Life makes it easier to reel, a full Tension gauge breaks the line, etc. I don't know the reeling patterns to increase your odds of hooking a fish though. If there's a help section, maybe it's in there like in BoF 3 & 4?

S.K. Ren

Edit history:

S.K. Ren: 2012-06-10 08:52:40 pm

2012-06-10 08:47:26 pm

Ok so I'm trying to optimize my Drake Kingdom path before I move on to Sebecus Island.

Segment 1

Rim Elm: Mash O to skip dialogue, X to choose least talky options. Stop by your house before seeing Tetsu to save walking back to your house. Use Hyper Elbow (Short animation and Arm/Ra-Seru dominant attack makes for a good staple) as my primary combo. After getting Meta absorb a Gimmard. 3-4 Hyper Elbows followed by just punching it to death with your Ra-Seru should do it assuming it doesn't block the hell out of your attacks. :D. Talk to Mei (Skips encounters, takes you to house and gets you a nifty accessory [+10% Max HP])
Leave right away... or not. Grab Magic Leaf in one of the villager's houses. Leave, re-enter and grab the point card, then go.

Drake Castle: Skip the hunter's spring. Run from everything until you get to the castle itself. Make sure to grab the Door of Light form outside. From here, you only have two uses of Gimmard until you get to Mt. Rikuoa. Run to Mt. Rikuoa, make sure Vahn is level 2 (Should take 1 fights total from Rim Elm, with 2 Gimmard uses between here and there it should be easy if you take out two of the tougher 2 enemy sets in Drake Castle)

Snowdrift Cave: Noa's part is extremely straight forward. Following exileUT's TAS, I kill 2 Red and 1 Black mole thing. I also pick up two of the obvious Healing Shrooms in the cave (1 on the way to training and 1 on the way out of the cave. I run from everything for expediency.

Now I've been thinking about whether its worth suffering through eh dialogue to get the free Nail Glove and I'm thinking no, seeing as how I'll be getting a much better weapon for Noa in West Voz forest and the next required fight is in East Voz. The +6(?) is nice but I can do without for now. Still, the official decision is pending. Its about 25-30 seconds to get there and back factoring in encounters, dialogue and walking.

Mt. Rikuoa: Grab all the chests. The first one is just a healing Leaf but the next is an Azure Jewel [+20% UDF], a Power Water [+4 ATK] (perfect for Noa's role in the upcoming fights.) Beating Golem is a cinch with infinite healing form Terra so wail away with Dolphin Attack (Same reason for Hyper Elbow) for victory and a Guardian Water[+4 UDF&LDF] (For Vahn later). Grab the phoenix and save... and prepare to do the next segment alot.

Segment 1 End/ 2 Start

Back with Vahn we see we get a full heal, which is nice. I have two goals here... Get Vera and don't die. Vera can usually be downed with Spirit, +2 Hyper Elbows(><><>; Also why we needed him at level 2) and a Ra-Seru beat down... usually. These guys like to block an awful lot. Afterwards just head towards Caruban and grab the Healing Bloom.

Segment 2 End/ 3 Start

Beating Caruban at level 2 Vahn/Level 4 Noa is possible but very luck based on whether he attacks whoever is Spiriting at the time.

My successful attack pattern went like this
V:Gimmard ~200 damage
N:Spirit

V:Gimmard ~200 Damage
N:Tempest Break ~250 Damage

V:Spirit
N:Healing Bloom

V:Die horribly while trying to do x2 Hyper Elbow
N:Spirit

N:Tempest Break ~250 Damage

N:Spirit

N:Tempest Break ~250 Damage

Victory Noa goes to level 6, Vahn is left at level 2

Revive the tree and Door of Light back out of the dungeon.

Drake Castle II: Skip dialogue as much as possible, grab the Platinum Card, Survival Knife, Healing Leaves, and Swift Water[+4 Spd]. Outside with merchants I get Noa a free Battle Robe and flunk the Quiz for a Wisdom Water[+4 Int]. At this point I equip Vahn with his new weapon and Noa with her Armor. Vahn gets the Guardian and Swift Water. The reason Im not saving the swift water for Gala is because 1 swift water will do nothing in grand scheme of things for him and I plan on saddling him with the Speed Chain so it will ultimately have been wasted. I also get the Wisdom Water to buff Gala. He has the highest INT growth of the party making him the future glass cannon of the group.

Now I have 2 options here. I have the option of selling 2 Phoenixes (1 from Mt. Rikuoa and one from an upcoming Mist blockade) to buy two Defender Chains. These can greatly help me survive in the few mandatory fights present or I can save that money for 2 Deep Sea Jewels which really only help vs Zeto. Thoughts?

I also grab the Life Water [+12 Max HP]. I'm thinking Gala will need this one, especially facing ~~Zombie~~ ~~Zongie~~ Songi.

Biron Monastery: Grab the Speed Elixer and rush through the dialogue again (Replying its not a Seru both times, saying yes to the Elder and picking West Voz immediately(Oddly Songis scene after makes him more selfish evil than 9th circle of hell evil if you pick East Voz first.)

I make sure to grab the Ivory book from the mist blocking on my way to West Voz.

Segment 3 End/ 4 Start

West Voz: Two goals really, get Nighto for both Noa and Vahn and get Noa Feral and Deep Sea Jewel. Ivory book really helps here. Getting Vera for Noa is also a plus if I can pull it off. I try to not exceed 3 battles total.

Run to Biron, Heal up and head to East Voz. Save before facing Viguro x2

Segment 4 End/ 5 Start

Nighto the crap out of them, and mop them up assuming luck is on your side.

That's as far as I've gotten. I'm trying to think if I should level my magic some in Biron before heading to East Voz since I get free healing. Maybe no more than 10 minutes of grinding? What do you think?

Ok so I'm trying to optimize my Drake Kingdom path before I move on to Sebecus Island.
[hidden]Segment 1

Rim Elm: Mash O to skip dialogue, X to choose least talky options. Stop by your house before seeing Tetsu to save walking back to your house. Use Hyper Elbow (Short animation and Arm/Ra-Seru dominant attack makes for a good staple) as my primary combo. After getting Meta absorb a Gimmard. 3-4 Hyper Elbows followed by just punching it to death with your Ra-Seru should do it assuming it doesn't block the hell out of your attacks. :D. Talk to Mei (Skips encounters, takes you to house and gets you a nifty accessory [+10% Max HP])
Leave right away... or not. Grab Magic Leaf in one of the villager's houses. Leave, re-enter and grab the point card, [i]then[/i] go.

Drake Castle: Skip the hunter's spring. Run from everything until you get to the castle itself. Make sure to grab the Door of Light form outside. From here, you only have two uses of Gimmard until you get to Mt. Rikuoa. Run to Mt. Rikuoa, make sure Vahn is level 2 (Should take 1 fights total from Rim Elm, with 2 Gimmard uses between here and there it should be easy if you take out two of the tougher 2 enemy sets in Drake Castle)

Snowdrift Cave: Noa's part is extremely straight forward. Following exileUT's TAS, I kill 2 Red and 1 Black mole thing. I also pick up two of the obvious Healing Shrooms in the cave (1 on the way to training and 1 on the way out of the cave. I run from everything for expediency.

Now I've been thinking about whether its worth suffering through eh dialogue to get the free Nail Glove and I'm thinking no, seeing as how I'll be getting a much better weapon for Noa in West Voz forest and the next required fight is in East Voz. The +6(?) is nice but I can do without for now. Still, the official decision is pending. Its about 25-30 seconds to get there and back factoring in encounters, dialogue and walking.

Mt. Rikuoa: Grab all the chests. The first one is just a healing Leaf but the next is an Azure Jewel [+20% UDF], a Power Water [+4 ATK] (perfect for Noa's role in the upcoming fights.) Beating Golem is a cinch with infinite healing form Terra so wail away with Dolphin Attack (Same reason for Hyper Elbow) for victory and a Guardian Water[+4 UDF&LDF] (For Vahn later). Grab the phoenix and save... and prepare to do the next segment alot.

Segment 1 End/ 2 Start

Back with Vahn we see we get a full heal, which is nice. I have two goals here... Get Vera and don't die. Vera can usually be downed with Spirit, +2 Hyper Elbows(><><>; Also why we needed him at level 2) and a Ra-Seru beat down... usually. These guys like to block an awful lot. Afterwards just head towards Caruban and grab the Healing Bloom.

Segment 2 End/ 3 Start

Beating Caruban at level 2 Vahn/Level 4 Noa is possible but very luck based on whether he attacks whoever is Spiriting at the time.
[hidden]My successful attack pattern went like this
V:Gimmard ~200 damage
N:Spirit

V:Gimmard ~200 Damage
N:Tempest Break ~250 Damage

V:Spirit
N:Healing Bloom

V:Die horribly while trying to do x2 Hyper Elbow
N:Spirit

N:Tempest Break ~250 Damage

N:Spirit

N:Tempest Break ~250 Damage

Victory Noa goes to level 6, Vahn is left at level 2 
[/hidden]

Revive the tree and Door of Light back out of the dungeon.

Drake Castle II: Skip dialogue as much as possible, grab the Platinum Card, Survival Knife, Healing Leaves, and Swift Water[+4 Spd]. Outside with merchants I get Noa a free Battle Robe and flunk the Quiz for a Wisdom Water[+4 Int]. At this point I equip Vahn with his new weapon and Noa with her Armor. Vahn gets the Guardian and Swift Water. The reason Im not saving the swift water for Gala is because 1 swift water will do nothing in grand scheme of things for him and I plan on saddling him with the Speed Chain so it will ultimately have been wasted. I also get the Wisdom Water to buff Gala. He has the highest INT growth of the party making him the future glass cannon of the group.

Now I have 2 options here. I have the option of selling 2 Phoenixes (1 from Mt. Rikuoa and one from an upcoming Mist blockade) to buy two Defender Chains. These can greatly help me survive in the few mandatory fights present or I can save that money for 2 Deep Sea Jewels which really only help vs Zeto. Thoughts?

I also grab the Life Water [+12 Max HP]. I'm thinking Gala will need this one, especially facing [s]Zombie[/s] [s]Zongie[/s] Songi.

Biron Monastery: Grab the Speed Elixer and rush through the dialogue again (Replying its not a Seru both times, saying yes to the Elder and picking West Voz immediately(Oddly Songis scene after makes him more selfish evil than 9th circle of hell evil if you pick East Voz first.)

I make sure to grab the Ivory book from the mist blocking on my way to West Voz.

Segment 3 End/ 4 Start

West Voz: Two goals really, get Nighto for both Noa and Vahn and get Noa Feral and Deep Sea Jewel. Ivory book really helps here. Getting Vera for Noa is also a plus if I can pull it off. I try to not exceed 3 battles total.

Run to Biron, Heal up and head to East Voz. Save before facing Viguro x2

Segment 4 End/ 5 Start

Nighto the crap out of them, and mop them up assuming luck is on your side.

[/hidden]

That's as far as I've gotten. I'm trying to think if I should level my magic some in Biron before heading to East Voz since I get free healing. Maybe no more than 10 minutes of grinding? What do you think?

Rakuen

2012-06-10 09:51:30 pm

Weegee Time

Quote:

I have the option of selling 2 Phoenixes (1 from Mt. Rikuoa and one from an upcoming Mist blockade) to buy two Defender Chains. These can greatly help me survive in the few mandatory fights present or I can save that money for 2 Deep Sea Jewels which really only help vs Zeto. Thoughts?

I would say it depends on what segments are important to you and your tolerance for doing them. Since you're making it a choice here, it's not like you must have either of them, but they can clearly help the run and your sanity. What I would look for here is your ability to save turns by not healing. Combat isn't fast, so even one turn saved may equal the amount of time you spend buying/selling items. I imagine Zeto will be a pain in the arse because he'll be a tough boss at the end of a long segment, so there's that to consider as well.

Overall, you'll probably save more heal time if you go with the Defender chains, because they have more utility. If you can survive Zeto without the jewels, my gut says go with the chains. If you're really committed, you may want to test out both paths just to make sure. At the very least, make sure you keep a save at this segment. Really you should try to keep all your segment points, but keeping one here means you don't have to mess with the previous two anymore.

As for whether to level up or not, I'm not going to lie, I'm relying on memories of playing this game a long time ago, plus some google-fu. I remember struggling even when I felt like I was properly leveled up. Here's a good question to ask any time you're thinking of grinding. If you spend the time now, how much do you think you can make up in the long run? Obviously if not grinding will end your run, then do it. Otherwise try to come up with some sort of acceptable break-even point. Keep in mind that all experience can probably help at some point (not like it floats away...), but it is not helpful in your immediate future unless it causes a level up. Also keep in mind that, in a segmented run, you can and probably should be taking more risks. I know this is really vague advice, but it's the best I can do without playing through the game right now.

Outside of that, it looks like you have a good plan. I kind of question picking up the Life Water, because I don't think 12 HP will be tremendously useful. If it's a quick pickup on the way though, it probably wouldn't hurt too much. I very much approve of letting Gala's speed rot in stat hell.

[quote]I have the option of selling 2 Phoenixes (1 from Mt. Rikuoa and one from an upcoming Mist blockade) to buy two Defender Chains.  These can greatly help me survive in the few mandatory fights present or I can save that money for 2 Deep Sea Jewels which really only help vs Zeto. Thoughts?[/quote]
I would say it depends on what segments are important to you and your tolerance for doing them.  Since you're making it a choice here, it's not like you [i]must[/i] have either of them, but they can clearly help the run and your sanity.  What I would look for here is your ability to save turns by not healing.  Combat isn't fast, so even one turn saved may equal the amount of time you spend buying/selling items.  I imagine Zeto will be a pain in the arse because he'll be a tough boss at the end of a long segment, so there's that to consider as well.

Overall, you'll probably save more heal time if you go with the Defender chains, because they have more utility.  If you can survive Zeto without the jewels, my gut says go with the chains.  If you're really committed, you may want to test out both paths just to make sure.  At the very least, make sure you keep a save at this segment.  Really you should try to keep all your segment points, but keeping one here means you don't have to mess with the previous two anymore.

As for whether to level up or not, I'm not going to lie, I'm relying on memories of playing this game a [i]long[/i] time ago, plus some google-fu.  I remember struggling even when I felt like I was properly leveled up.  Here's a good question to ask any time you're thinking of grinding. If you spend the time now, how much do you think you can make up in the long run?  Obviously if [i]not[/i] grinding will end your run, then do it.  Otherwise try to come up with some sort of acceptable break-even point.  Keep in mind that all experience can probably help at some point (not like it floats away...), but it is not helpful in your [i]immediate[/i] future unless it causes a level up.  Also keep in mind that, in a segmented run, you can and probably should be taking more risks.  I know this is really vague advice, but it's the best I can do without playing through the game right now.

Outside of that, it looks like you have a good plan.  I kind of question picking up the Life Water, because I don't think 12 HP will be tremendously useful.  If it's a quick pickup on the way though, it probably wouldn't hurt too much.  I very much approve of letting Gala's speed rot in stat hell.

S.K. Ren

Edit history:

S.K. Ren: 2012-06-11 10:53:27 pm

2012-06-11 03:35:14 am

The 12 HP is meant really just to bolster him for his Solo Songi fight since he'll be super weak. 12 HP isn't much but it does make the difference between dead and barely alive in some cases. Depending on how well it turns out I may write it off. Its really only ~10 or less sec to pop in, load the map, grab the chest and leave. Since I see myself focusing on a magic heavy play through, I think it may be worth it to level up my magic at the same time as my character levels however magic is weird in how it levels with it being easier to level magic on enemies you can kill in 1 hit or have low magic resistance, hence low exp Sad

Edit: Ok, new plan. If I'm going to get any grinding done, I need to do it while enemies are still killable. So I'm adopting a new policy: Fight all fights I know I can finish in 1 round. In the end I expect this to save me time for a while until I can get the Chicken King due to me often needing to spend multiple rounds to run in some cases and after the enemies all act anyways. This will let me not need as many segments too.

The 12 HP is meant really just to bolster him for his Solo Songi fight since he'll be super weak. 12 HP isn't much but it does make the difference between dead and barely alive in some cases. Depending on how well it turns out I may write it off. Its really only ~10 or less sec to pop in, load the map, grab the chest and leave. Since I see myself focusing on a magic heavy play through, I think it may be worth it to level up my magic at the same time as my character levels however magic is weird in how it levels with it being easier to level magic on enemies you can kill in 1 hit or have low magic resistance, hence low exp :(

Edit: Ok, new plan. If I'm going to get [i]any[/i] grinding done, I need to do it while enemies are still killable. So I'm adopting a new policy: Fight all fights I know I can finish in 1 round. In the end I expect this to save me time for a while until I can get the Chicken King due to me often needing to spend multiple rounds to run in some cases and after the enemies all act anyways. This will let me not need as many segments too.

Rakuen

Edit history:

Rakuen: 2012-06-11 05:32:41 pm

2012-06-11 05:31:51 pm

Weegee Time

If it's only 10 seconds, then I wouldn't sweat it too much if it can really make a difference.

I did a search for magic levels and I might have found the same one you did. Anyway, here's a courtesy link in case anyone is interested. Level 2 seems easy enough, maybe 3 for things you're going to use a lot? I guess it depends on how many spells you're intending to power up and whether you'll end up replacing any of them in the future.

garik16

2012-08-24 07:56:01 pm

Anyone (SK Ren?) still working on this? I'm playing through the game again trying to see how low level I can be in an actual run right now. Also, since I don't see any listing anywhere, I've basically been trying to figure out all the elements of each boss after octam when you can get the relevant jewels to lower damage. So far I have:

Songi2: Dark (Duh)
Van Saryu: Earth? (Haven't checked, didn't need it)
Dohati: Dark (Needed Ebony Jewels badly here to survive)
Gaza1: Light
Gaza2: Dark

I don't think Xain is any element since nothing seems to reduce his damage, which sucks because that boss is going to require a LOT of trial & error.

garik16

2012-08-31 09:49:51 pm

Latest Update of my practice run through Cort1:

Songi2: Dark
Van Saryu: Huh?

(Probably Earth)
Dohati: Dark
Gaza1: Light
Gaza2: Dark
Chi Delilas: Earth
Lu Delilas: Light
Gi Delilas: Fire
Zora: Dark
Rogue: ???? (Presumably Multi depending upon her change element, but she's stupid easy anyhow)
Jette: Dark
Cort1: Dark (Guilty Cross I think is physical and nonelemental, but both Mystic Circle and JUGGERNAUT are Dark - I put a lost grail and light talisman on gala to deal with Juggernaut only to have all 3 characters survive it due to ebony jewels, making this fight a lot easier).

Long Story Short, Ebony Jewels make this run much much easier and should be purchased from Octam after Xain.

The real question of an actual run will be Sol: How much time do you waste on baka fighter? I suspect I could get enough cash to buy soru bread since i am buying ZERO armo on the run, and thus only need to waste 15 minutes on one play through of baka fighter so as to have enough coins for the Gold Card and to get the chicken king. (If i do this well enough i should have 100 coins left over for one soru bread).

However, if i only due one run through of baka fighter, I'm left without the life grail, which forces me to use up the point guard on che delilas (with no armor, even an earth artifact will not save Gala in this fight - even with defender chain Che does too much during his regular attacks for me to ever get a Kemaro in.). Ideally I'd save the point guard to do some 15000 to Cort while Cort has his shield up because when Cort's shield is up, my damage is heavily reduced since i'm relying on Kemaro to kill bosses. But I don't think the time saved is more than the 30 minutes needed of baka fighter.

Oh and levels: You don't need to grind at any point really once you're in Sebacus: I fought random battles in Act 2 only 3 times to get orb, once to get a gola gola for vahn (helps make the kemaro miniboss doable since they seem immune to nighto and I want to absorb them both to save time), twice to get spoon (thanks to spoon-spoon random battles) and that's it (because after Sol you have chicken king and speed chain). Segments may be good/bad depending upon how running luck is - nivora ravine is particularly bad due to how your characters split. But really you don't need to grind:
I beat Xain with characters at level 12/11/10
I beat Dohati with characters I think at 15, and heck I just beat Cort at level 25, 25, and 24. Not exactly high.

The Jewels from Octam make every boss after Xain easily beatable at lower levels. And Kemaro provides the damage.

Latest Update of my practice run through Cort1:

Songi2: Dark
Van Saryu: ??? (Probably Earth)
Dohati: Dark
Gaza1: Light
Gaza2: Dark
Chi Delilas: Earth
Lu Delilas: Light
Gi Delilas: Fire
Zora: Dark
Rogue: ???? (Presumably Multi depending upon her change element, but she's stupid easy anyhow)
Jette: Dark
Cort1: Dark (Guilty Cross I think is physical and nonelemental, but both Mystic Circle and JUGGERNAUT are Dark - I put a lost grail and light talisman on gala to deal with Juggernaut only to have all 3 characters survive it due to ebony jewels, making this fight a lot easier).

Long Story Short, Ebony Jewels make this run much much easier and should be purchased from Octam after Xain.

The real question of an actual run will be Sol: How much time do you waste on baka fighter?  I suspect I could get enough cash to buy soru bread since i am buying ZERO armo on the run, and thus only need to waste 15 minutes on one play through of baka fighter so as to have enough coins for the Gold Card and to get the chicken king.  (If i do this well enough i should have 100 coins left over for one soru bread).

However, if i only due one run through of baka fighter, I'm left without the life grail, which forces me to use up the point guard on che delilas (with no armor, even an earth artifact will not save Gala in this fight - even with defender chain Che does too much during his regular attacks for me to ever get a Kemaro in.).  Ideally I'd save the point guard to do some 15000 to Cort while Cort has his shield up because when Cort's shield is up, my damage is heavily reduced since i'm relying on Kemaro to kill bosses.  But I don't think the time saved is more than the 30 minutes needed of baka fighter.

Oh and levels:  You don't need to grind at any point really once you're in Sebacus: I fought random battles in Act 2 only 3 times to get orb, once to get a gola gola for vahn (helps make the kemaro miniboss doable since they seem immune to nighto and I want to absorb them both to save time), twice to get spoon (thanks to spoon-spoon random battles) and that's it (because after Sol you have chicken king and speed chain).  Segments may be good/bad depending upon how running luck is - nivora ravine is particularly bad due to how your characters split.  But really you don't need to grind:
I beat Xain with characters at level 12/11/10
I beat Dohati with characters I think at 15, and heck I just beat Cort at level 25, 25, and 24.  Not exactly high.

The Jewels from Octam make every boss after Xain easily beatable at lower levels.  And Kemaro provides the damage.

garik16

Edit history:

garik16: 2012-09-11 12:29:43 pm

2012-09-09 07:57:38 pm

Ugh.....Cort1 is Dark. Songi3 is Dark........

but Cort2 appears to be nonelemental. Which seriously hurts the time on him...because essentially it means that my strat through 95% of the game of avoiding all armor upgrades is majorly infeasible - you won't survive if you don't pick up the ra seru equipment. So add about 10 minutes to getting to Cort2 to begin with.

Then there's the fight. I was at 26, 26, 25 and fighting him straight up doesn't work - his physical attack does 2400 if unblocked (Kill) and none of the characters have high enough defense to block except 1% of the time when not spirited, even with defender chains. And you cant simply use double phoenix + speed chain since he'll use his final crisis move quite often.

I beat him basically with a strategy I call SuperVahn: I equipped vahn with mettle goblet, life armband (gotten from a mei earlier - really don't need it, could use life ring to skip this or probaly would be fine without it, but it helps you a bit), and a defender chain. I then had 4 wonder elixers and 2 shield elixers that I hadn't sold.....and promptly used them all on Vahn (If I hadn't sold/skipped them all, I'd also use a fury boost). The other characters essentially JUST spirited during this process - taking the hits and then healing on occasion. This takes a while because you have to heal eventually, but after 2 shield elixers and 1 wonder elixer, vahn's D was high enough that he could survive a physical attack, so this could continue onwards.

Eventually you have a Vahn who even without spiriting will block 3/4 attacks from Cort2, take only 250 damage from them, and will do around 4500 with miracle arts. THe only thing that can kill him is the inevitable doomsday, which afaict, he uses only once in the battle. If your other characters have reasonable health, theyll survive and they can revive vahn for the kill. You can save some time here by using lost grails on at least one of the other characters....two of them are not far out of the path of the run.

Of course, this takes a LOT of time - (it takes like 10 minutes alone to get to super vahn), and annoyingly, while the save point is right before Cort2's boss room.....you have to go through the 5 minute cutscene before you fight him. It's like Xain all over again - nonelemental bosses cant have their save points 5 seconds before the fight for some reason.

EDIT: The Cutscene is 3 minutes - and I've managed to kill Cort in 22 minutes, which is pretty fast all things considering. There's a lot of luck in getting this right and this segment will be a killer - he usually uses Doomsday only once in the battle (never early, seemingly after he's taken 30K damage, but once as late as 55K), but one time he just used doomsday twice, causing an instant kill. Not cool. Also annoying, is that the doomsday will eliminate the effects of the fury boost on vahn, slowing down your progress. And then of course there are his attacks - in the 22 minute kill, he attacked vahn a bunch, who can survive thanks to super buffs.

Ugh.....Cort1 is Dark.  Songi3 is Dark........

but Cort2 appears to be nonelemental.  Which seriously hurts the time on him...because essentially it means that my strat through 95% of the game of avoiding all armor upgrades is majorly infeasible - you won't survive if you don't pick up the ra seru equipment.  So add about 10 minutes to getting to Cort2 to begin with.

Then there's the fight.  I was at 26, 26, 25 and fighting him straight up doesn't work - his physical attack does 2400 if unblocked (Kill) and none of the characters have high enough defense to block except 1% of the time when not spirited, even with defender chains.  And you cant simply use double phoenix + speed chain since he'll use his final crisis move quite often.

I beat him basically with a strategy I call SuperVahn: I equipped vahn with mettle goblet, life armband (gotten from a mei earlier - really don't need it, could use life ring to skip this or probaly would be fine without it, but it helps you a bit), and a defender chain.  I then had 4 wonder elixers and 2 shield elixers that I hadn't sold.....and promptly used them all on Vahn (If I hadn't sold/skipped them all, I'd also use a fury boost).  The other characters essentially JUST spirited during this process - taking the hits and then healing on occasion.  This takes a while because you have to heal eventually, but after 2 shield elixers and 1 wonder elixer, vahn's D was high enough that he could survive a physical attack, so this could continue onwards.

Eventually you have a Vahn who even without spiriting will block 3/4 attacks from Cort2, take only 250 damage from them, and will do around 4500 with miracle arts.  THe only thing that can kill him is the inevitable doomsday, which afaict, he uses only once in the battle.  If your other characters have reasonable health, theyll survive and they can revive vahn for the kill.  You can save some time here by using lost grails on at least one of the other characters....two of them are not far out of the path of the run.

Of course, this takes a LOT of time - (it takes like 10 minutes alone to get to super vahn), and annoyingly, while the save point is right before Cort2's boss room.....you have to go through the 5 minute cutscene before you fight him.  It's like Xain all over again - nonelemental bosses cant have their save points 5 seconds before the fight for some reason.

EDIT:  The Cutscene is 3 minutes - and I've managed to kill Cort in 22 minutes, which is pretty fast all things considering.  There's a lot of luck in getting this right and this segment will be a killer - he usually uses Doomsday only once in the battle (never early, seemingly after he's taken 30K damage, but once as late as 55K), but one time he just used doomsday twice, causing an instant kill.  Not cool.  Also annoying, is that the doomsday will eliminate the effects of the fury boost on vahn, slowing down your progress.  And then of course there are his attacks - in the 22 minute kill, he attacked vahn a bunch, who can survive thanks to super buffs.

Kellerpg

2012-09-12 10:56:34 pm

Hi! I Rly want to see your LoL Speedrun..

Good luck! keep going!

garik16

2012-09-14 12:55:18 pm

Okay so just about to start route planning via emulator for each segment. Anyone have any tricks for the slot machines? It would undoubtedly make the game faster, but I do not think the slots are usable really except via TAS......I mean I guess I could use the one in Vidna to get enough coins to skip baka fighter, but that's about it. Definitely not enough for me to point card spam my way through battles.

uha

2012-12-16 03:08:26 pm

Any updates for us?

uha

2012-12-16 04:38:54 pm

Ok guys I think this is an appropriate place to notify people: I'm throwing a $50 bounty on a completed speedrun of this. If anyone else who is interested in seeing this stuff done, let me know if you are adding to the bounty. I would like to see a non-segmented console runthrough, but honestly, as there is no official speedrun posted on this site at all, I'm up for anything SDA accepts and publishes. If this goes well, I just want to add another point: I love this game, and I will continue to keep people interested in speed runs just to increase people's awareness of the game.

Ideally I'd like to create a new bounty in a few months which will be much more sadistic...a no saves, no party death continuous runthrough. Obviously the bounty will be adjusted upwards accordingly. Again, if anyone else is interested in seeing this done we should increase the bounty! I know $50 isn't much but seeing as how people have already made substantial contributions towards an official speedrun for the love of the game, I'm hoping this money will encourage people to finish their testing and get an official time on the board for others to beat.

Ok guys I think this is an appropriate place to notify people: I'm throwing a $50 bounty on a completed speedrun of this.  If anyone else who is interested in seeing this stuff done, let me know if you are adding to the bounty.  I would like to see a non-segmented console runthrough, but honestly, as there is no official speedrun posted on this site at all, I'm up for anything SDA accepts and publishes.  If this goes well, I just want to add another point: I love this game, and I will continue to keep people interested in speed runs just to increase people's awareness of the game.

Ideally I'd like to create a new bounty in a few months which will be much more sadistic...a no saves, no party death continuous runthrough.  Obviously the bounty will be adjusted upwards accordingly.  Again, if anyone else is interested in seeing this done we should increase the bounty! I know $50 isn't much but seeing as how people have already made substantial contributions towards an official speedrun for the love of the game, I'm hoping this money will encourage people to finish their testing and get an official time on the board for others to beat.

garik16

2012-12-18 10:45:28 pm

Hi Uha, missed your post.

I've been swamped by a ton of other things, not least of which is living at home, which makes streaming of a PS1 near impossible at the moment.

Which is not to say I'm abandoning this project, I'm essentially trying to get a run done on an emulator while I'm living at home so I'll know what is reasonable for each segment when I finally move out. (Non-Segmented is not happening - that's like 15 hours straight I swear.)

Completed Segments:
Segment 1: Rim Elm (Getting Level 2, Mei's Pendent, Magic Leaf, Healing Leaf, skipping everything else): 16:42.
-----This Segment could clearly be a little better --> I had great luck with the 3 gimard battles (no tail fire, vahn went first twice!), but somehow got an extra gimard battle that I had to run from which cost me like 10-15 seconds. Add in about 5-6 seconds of bad movement and better menu skills, 16:10 or 16:00 is totally possible.

On Deck:
Segment 2: Fetch Point Card, equip Hunter's Clothes and Mei's Pendent.
(Obviously a super short segment).

Segment 3 I'm debating on. I want to be level 4 before Caruban as in my earlier test run (for levels purposes) I found level 4 Vahn simply can kill caruban by casting gimard 4x in a row with one Noa attack in there. Level 3 Vahn only gets 3 Gimards. Which means I do have to level before then. Now the I can simply fight battles normally, but It's probably faster to get to level 4 by going to a point with easy healing (either hunter's spring - which includes a 1 minute cutscene ew) or the sleeping room in Drake Castle. So I think It's best for me to simply go to Drake Castle, run from every battle after I run out of gimard magic (for quick 1 turn battles) and then farm battles outside the sleeping room till i hit level 4.
----By the way, this should be the last grinding I do in this game for Vahn alone.

In other words, the two options are Segment 3: Vahn to Hunter's Spring or Vahn skips Hunter's spring and goes to Drake Castle.

Hi Uha, missed your post.

I've been swamped by a ton of other things, not least of which is living at home, which makes streaming of a PS1 near impossible at the moment.

Which is not to say I'm abandoning this project, I'm essentially trying to get a run done on an emulator while I'm living at home so I'll know what is reasonable for each segment when I finally move out.  (Non-Segmented is not happening - that's like 15 hours straight I swear.)

Completed Segments:
Segment 1:  Rim Elm (Getting Level 2, Mei's Pendent, Magic Leaf, Healing Leaf, skipping everything else): 16:42.  
-----This Segment could clearly be a little better --> I had great luck with the  3 gimard battles (no tail fire, vahn went first twice!), but somehow got an extra gimard battle that I had to run from which cost me like 10-15 seconds.  Add in about 5-6 seconds of bad movement and better menu skills, 16:10 or 16:00 is totally possible.

On Deck:
Segment 2: Fetch Point Card, equip Hunter's Clothes and Mei's Pendent.  
(Obviously  a super short segment).

Segment 3 I'm debating on.  I want to be level 4 before Caruban as in my earlier test run (for levels purposes) I found level 4 Vahn simply can kill caruban by casting gimard 4x in a row with one Noa attack in there.  Level 3 Vahn only gets 3 Gimards.  Which means I do have to level before then.  Now the I can simply fight battles normally, but It's probably faster to get to level 4 by going to a point with easy healing (either hunter's spring - which includes a 1 minute cutscene ew) or the sleeping room in Drake Castle.  So I think It's best for me to simply go to Drake Castle, run from every battle after I run out of gimard magic (for quick 1 turn battles) and then farm battles outside the sleeping room till i hit level 4.  
----By the way, this should be the last grinding I do in this game for Vahn alone.

In other words, the two options are Segment 3: Vahn to Hunter's Spring or Vahn skips Hunter's spring and goes to Drake Castle.

garik16

Edit history:

garik16: 2012-12-20 10:58:17 pm

2012-12-20 10:57:25 pm

Okay totally skipping Hunter's Spring - bad guys on world map are totally too low level to be worth farming.

So some quick test runs:

Segment 1 Current time: 16:42
Segment 2 (Get Point Card, Equip and get to Drake Castle): 18:55 (2:13 segment length)
-----This could be shortened by at least 20-30 seconds.
Segment 3 (To Save/Healing Point): 22:34 (3:39) - far from optimized, totally possible to save maybe even a minute plus.
Segment 4 (Get Mountain Key, Hit Level 3): 24:24 (1:50 - again far from optimized, should be about a minute)

There are three types of bad guys in Drake Castle:
Gimards (42 XP)
Drake Ghosts (64 XP)
Skeletons. (58.5 XP)

95% of the time you get pairs, 5% of the time it seems you get Drake Ghosts solo, though Once you're in the throne room i've yet to get a solo Drake Ghost. Naturally the most you can get out of a battle is when you get a Ghost/Skeleton Combo (123 XP).

The goal is to level up twice. Thus i Need to hit 730 XP for level 4. I'm at 126 XP at level 2, 365 XP nets you level 3. This means I need 5 random battles at least (with most being the 126 XP battles). This is annoying, because I can fight one random battle in segments 3 and 4, and then I need 3 more in segment 5/6 - the problem being i only get 3 gimards. Ideally i'd get solo drake ghost fights in each of segment 5 and 6, but I haven't yet found it possible.

If i Can't get solo drake ghosts, it may be faster to do 3 segments of pure leveling, and not using up all my MP on Gimards.

EDIT: A reasonable goal is to get out of Drake Castle by say the 28 minute mark.

Okay totally skipping Hunter's Spring - bad guys on world map are totally too low level to be worth farming.

So some quick test runs:

Segment 1 Current time: 16:42
Segment 2 (Get Point Card, Equip and get to Drake Castle): 18:55 (2:13 segment length)
-----This could be shortened by at least 20-30 seconds.
Segment 3 (To Save/Healing Point):  22:34 (3:39) - far from optimized, totally possible to save maybe even a minute plus.
Segment 4 (Get Mountain Key, Hit Level 3):  24:24 (1:50 - again far from optimized, should be about a minute)

There are three types of bad guys in Drake Castle:  
Gimards (42 XP)
Drake Ghosts (64 XP)
Skeletons.   (58.5 XP)

95% of the time you get pairs, 5% of the time it seems you get Drake Ghosts solo, though Once you're in the throne room i've yet to get a solo Drake Ghost.  Naturally the most you can get out of a battle is when you get a Ghost/Skeleton Combo (123 XP).

The goal is to level up twice.  Thus i Need to hit 730 XP for level 4.  I'm at 126 XP at level 2, 365 XP nets you level 3.  This means I need 5 random battles at least (with most being the 126 XP battles).  This is annoying, because I can fight one random battle in segments 3 and 4, and then I need 3 more in segment 5/6 - the problem being i only get 3 gimards.  Ideally i'd get solo drake ghost fights in each of segment 5 and 6, but I haven't yet found it possible.

If i Can't get solo drake ghosts, it may be faster to do 3 segments of pure leveling, and not using up all my MP on Gimards.

EDIT:  A reasonable goal is to get out of Drake Castle by say the 28 minute mark.

Kellerpg

2012-12-21 09:45:20 am

Hey garik16, hi!

U already thought doing a TAS instead a SDA run? Tell u that because maybe doing a Tool assisted helps u or other people doing a SDA one day....that rpg games re rly dificult for a sda...legaia just bad as it!

sry english...

garik16

2012-12-21 02:04:03 pm

Keller, don't worry about the language - you're totally fine.

I have pretty much zero TAS skills - I can certainly use save states to ensure battles go perfectly but that's about it for my proficiency with emulator tools. By contrast check out exileut's work on the very first parts of the game on tasvideos - he's able to use the tools to ensure that he gets the minimum random battles possible and thus takes the least amount of time to get things done. Yeah I could do a very basic TAS with perfect battles and slot machines, but that wouldn't be the helpful stuff for non-TASers.

Kellerpg

2012-12-21 06:47:43 pm

I dunno..maybe help for some route, analysis stuff...

I Dunno nothing about TAS Tools too but i suppose after u learn something about it, run TAS will be easier that a sda, dont u think? Manipulate RGN on random battles and get serus (or any other thing) its a great thing...

A legaia run will be amazing, SDA or TAS it ^^

Well..wish u very good luck, if u had recorded some part of it (drake castle..) post on youtube for us *-*

garik16

Edit history:

garik16: 2012-12-21 10:59:06 pm

2012-12-21 10:39:56 pm

Okay, shaved 21 seconds off of Segment 2 (1:52) - which is pretty good, so I think I'm starting Drake Castle for real.

For those following along, Segment 2 is the following:
Equip Clothes + Pendent
Into Town, get Point Card
Back Out of Town, Get to Drake Castle.

The annoying parts are that there are two NPCs in town who can get in the way if you're not careful and more importantly, the game's annoying as hell on random battles. You on average get 3 random battles from town to Castle - but you can get 4 if you're unlucky. In addition, gobu gobus will make it unlikely to run and will act before you, as will wasps. So it sucks.

The TAS does Segment 2 amazingly with 1 random battle in 1:22. So there's essentially 30 seconds of savings here, except it's really like 5-6 seconds less because Exile's TAS doesn't waste time on the menus equiping. Probably closer to 15 seconds savings here possible if you get the perfect random battle (2 random battles) and enemy luck.

EDIT: Or you know, I'll get 1:39, 13 seconds better by way of perfect menus, only getting hit once, and getting only 2 random battles. That's as near optimum as I ever think I'll get.

So I'll be starting Segment 3 at 18:21 with probably about 20-30 seconds of saving left in segment 1.

Okay, shaved 21 seconds off of Segment 2 (1:52) - which is pretty good, so I think I'm starting Drake Castle for real.

For those following along, Segment 2 is the following:
Equip Clothes + Pendent
Into Town, get Point Card
Back Out of Town, Get to Drake Castle.

The annoying parts are that there are two NPCs in town who can get in the way if you're not careful and more importantly, the game's annoying as hell on random battles.  You on average get 3 random battles from town to Castle - but you can get 4 if you're unlucky.  In addition, gobu gobus will make it unlikely to run and will act before you, as will wasps.   So it sucks.

The TAS does Segment 2 amazingly with 1 random battle in 1:22.  So there's essentially 30 seconds of savings here, except it's really like 5-6 seconds less because Exile's TAS doesn't waste time on the menus equiping.  Probably closer to 15 seconds savings here possible if you get the perfect random battle (2 random battles) and enemy luck.

EDIT:  Or you know, I'll get 1:39, 13 seconds better by way of perfect menus, only getting hit once, and getting only 2 random battles.  That's as near optimum as I ever think I'll get.

So I'll be starting Segment 3 at 18:21 with probably about 20-30 seconds of saving left in segment 1.

ais523

2012-12-22 12:36:41 am

I'm not convinced a TAS would be easier than a realtime run. (I helped with some of the Legaia TASing, before exileUT decided it was too hard and gave up.) In a TAS, you can control luck, but that means you have to control luck if you want to be remotely optimal. It makes it a whole different game, nearly always. (Perhaps the most major TAS trick is diagonal encounter running; the game world is split into a number of invisible squares and you can only get a random encounter crossing from one into the next; this means that repeatedly running across a border makes random encounters much more likely, for if you feel like grinding, and that you can halve the encounter rate if going in an approximately diagonal direction via a pixel-perfect run from the corner of one square to another. This seems too precise to do on console except by accident.)

Rakuen

2012-12-22 08:32:15 am

Weegee Time

Quote from ais523:

Perhaps the most major TAS trick is diagonal encounter running

Wow, so that's how the encounters work? That's pretty interesting, thanks for sharing!

garik16

2012-12-22 09:08:21 am

Quote from Rakuen:

Quote from ais523:

Perhaps the most major TAS trick is diagonal encounter running

Wow, so that's how the encounters work? That's pretty interesting, thanks for sharing!

Yeah, exileUT detailed it here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7355&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20&sid=004e31cebf1f1109b8771ae193581b34

There's a value that is set after each random battle/leaving town which goes down each time you cross one of these square borders - sometimes large somtimes small - which when you hit zero triggers a random battle. That's why exileUT's up to Golem TAS gets so little random battles - he goes through the minimum squares and he uses tools to ensure the random encounter value is always reset to maximum after each battle.

Ais, any chance you feel like re-picking up the TASing? Even just seeing the routes - even if it's basically impossible to duplicate them well enough - would help ensure I'm getting from Point A to B properly.

garik16

2012-12-22 09:52:37 pm

I'm going to start doing a few attempts at Segment 3 (Drake Castle to Sleepy Zone) and I'll be streaming it right now at twitch.tv/garik16. Sorry for the shoddy presentation - first time trying this.