oh, i only mentioned the lesser demons as a hyperbolic example. i've actually been doing the "grinding" in the first floor of the Sanctum; the EXP and the Weapon/Gear drops in that floor alone are GAME CHANGING.
Mixer Swords as main weapons for my lord and fighter, and Light Battle Dore as main weapon for my thief
Laxacorks sub-weapons for the lord and fighter, and stampy-stamp as sub for the thif (this is my front-row).
yeah dude i stopped being able to stomach grinding those demons like about 10 posts ago lol. i reached the royal tomb about 3-4 days ago, and that place is fucking OBNOXIOUS. by far the most annoying place yet; i'm literally fucking hitting 'Function' button/key on every single wall... if someone saw me playing they'd swear i'm fucking OCD crazy.
i'm currently having a lot more fun fighting the high-level mobs in the Sanctum. it's a much more enjoyable dungeon, plus the drops are AMAZING. also waaaay crazy good EXP. unlike the tomb the there are no annoying/repetitive trash mobs; instead each fight requires me to actually think AND be rewarded for thinking afterwards with good exp and loot. it's how the universe should work always
those medusas are a joke now, i started spamming every single status spell on them until i found which ones work best and amusingly those medusas are like ultra-weak to Charm (Pinto) and the Almighty Ever-Useful Best Spell In The Game SLEEP (misama). i have yet to run into a monster that doesn't fall for my sweet lullabies. i have everyone's weapons enchanted now with 15-20% sleep, and that's the reason i'm dual-wielding all 3 front-row characters, btw.
i've found out exactly how mechanics work regarding melee combat and also most of the spell stuff...
- you want weapons with a positive ACC number and the highest amount of Attacks Per Swing modifier. don't even look at the damage, it's irrelevant post-mid game.
- the more attacks-per-swing a weapon says it has the more chances you have of landing an affliction if the weapon has it. it's calculated on every "hit". btw, this is how Brawler's special resistance disabling blows work: Brawlers' attacks have a unique property that is basically an enemy resistance destroyer and it triggers randomly on every hit they make... it's why brawlers have "combo attack" as a unique skill, so that they can fulfill their primary duty well.
- i looked into the game files and i finally have concrete info on exactly how each attribute affects things:
STRENGTH: every 1 point of STR affects the chance-to-hit (don't know how much exactly, but it does, it is the ONLY stat that affects ACC); also every 1 point of STR increases damage dealt by 5 %, however the percentage increase is added after the damage "roll", so you can't just add it up linearly. if you want to melee (and land hits, and therefore have those hits land afflictions) the ONLY stat that matters is STR.
INT = determines in exactly the same way as STR does for melee the proportionally increasing % of both the damage done by Mage spells and also the (unkonwn number) % chance of bypassing enemy resistance. every extra point of INT is a linear increase in effectiveness with Mage spells, just like STR with melee.
PIETY = same as int, but for cleric spells. special note: also affects directly amount of healing done by potions/items and it also also affects anything in the "holy" category. yes, this means a Light Seal + high PIETY = 1-shotting enemies every turn with Inelm cleric spell (or close to it anyway!)
AGILITY = determines turn order and for enemies the higher their AGILITY past their natural cap they get a bonus to AC defense. for player characters each stat caps out 10 points after their racial max. for example, a hotlet starts with 15 luck (well, CAN start with that, you know what i mean) and caps at 25, ten points after 15. similarly dwarves are the VITALITY gods, 'Newts the STR monsters, etc. Elves make ridiculous Mages due to INT...
LUCK = it affects a fucking metric ton of shit. it affects by an unknown amount the % of amount of hits landed when you attack, but this is calculated AFTER the game calculates the to-hit roll's modifier to the ACC derived from STR. the more hits you land in a single swing = more damage, it is Elminage's version of Criticals. luck also determines absolutely every single Thief Skills related activity, etc, and it also is responsible for the random "Spot" rolls done while walking in dungeons that will alert you to secrets. a 25 luck (or higher with special items...) hotlet thief pretty much will always "sense something !!!!", you just need to keep walking around. NOTE: this does not affect things like secret pits (i.e. traps), only hidden doors and such, and also alerting you to incoming floor masters as well.
*deep breath* luck also affects whether your stats go up or down on level ups, and by how much (game saying STR gained can mean 1 or 2 points for example); and it affects hitpoints but only in a binary way: only determines whether you roll "1 HP" or you roll a natural HP gain derived from a VITALITY roll. luck also affects directly chances of drops from monsters, alchemists' finding good ore, servants finding good herbs (magic herbs, basically), etc. basically anything that seems to have a random element is affected directly by LUCK.
VITALITY: this one is interesting. it affects how many HPs you increase on level up, AFTER the game rolls your LUCK to see if its 1 HP or regular HP gain. VIT also determines directly the percentage that dictates whether you turn to Ashes or not when being revived. that is only of the only things NOT affected whatsoever by luck. the more VIT the char has the less you have to worry about them turning to ashes on revival. now that i feel like i'm almost past mid-game, or already past mid-game where dying in battle is... um, frequent ocurrence, i now think having high VIT is probably the second most important stat, after STR/INT/PIETY (melee/mage/cleric).
EDIT: status affliction spells are determined by combination of character's LUCK + INT/PIETY (mage/cleric schools, depending on what spell it is). example: a max INT elf mage has with magic essence is the best possible choice to have cast Sleep or Petrify, same with PIETY for cleric school of spells. The combination of the two stats then run an opposed check on the enemy's spell resistance percentage + enemy's luck.
special note: alchemy school of spells are all non-elemental. Charm (pinto) is ONLY affected by the caster's luck, from what i've deduced, it's the only logical result since after much digging in the files and testing in-game i came to conclusion finally that alchemy disables and spells simply are not modified whatsoever by any stat except luck.
for example when you cast Orath (amount of attacks per swings is increased for each character) that amount is determined by the casters luck. finally, regarding the amazing and all-powerful level 1 alchemy spell Podemoon (breath) i did EXTENSIVE play testing and shit to see just what modifies it and from what i can tell it's considered a straight-up PHYSICAL attack by the game, and is subject to the enemy's AC. futhermore each successive use of the breath spell reduces the damage done by 50%. of course, the enemy spell resistance to alchemy is responsible too, obviously. goes without saying.
the level 7 alchemy spell, the single-target one that does a ton of damage, is a complete fucking mystery so far. unlike breath it's not considered a physical attack, and i have no idea to which spell resistance it answers to. i tried to figure it out because i actually did find out that the level 7 spell that is an all-enemies nuke, the one that is described as "non-attribute damage" by the game, is a complete misnomer! in reality that spell is modified by ALL THREE ELEMENTS: when it is cast on the enemy it rolls against their mage spell resistance, and if it passes then it rolls against each one of the elemental defenses. it does so much damage because most enemies don't have all 3 elemental defenses high; think about it: most enemies are "themed" and only have maybe a decent fire defense or ice or thunder or holy or dark, but almost never ALL, so that is why that Mage spell achieves the high damage it does.
EDIT EDIT: obviously the same applies to your party in order to defend against that spell. i started looking into it when the enemies in Sanctum started spamming that spell on me and raping me. now i have EVERYONE with gear enchanted with decent defense in EVERY element.
