Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[Dorarnae]

Courtier
Great Deceiver
Dorateen
Dorarnae

i'm really in my full-on ibag's towrer steam roll groove. well, yes, stargazers are like an almost guaranteed 50/50 situation of whether wipe or not but i encountered two "Angel"-type enemies and after like 15 straight rounds of 1 guy casting magic resistance down on them, and then another guy casting Speed Down on them, and then a final guy with alchemy casting speed UP on my party: yessss, i have finally gotten my very first OP summon. i finally understand why courtier and others speak so fondly of catching them all; i am using a Bishop who originally was a Summoner so he not only does not have blood oath but he gets 3 casts (which, in context, is more than enough), and he never catches anything good but this is the first time i actually got lucky and contracted a legit OP enemy the aforementioned twin angels.

and this will make me look retarded but believe it or not i had never thought about using the Bifeo spell (alchemy spell that taunts enemies into only attacking party member that the caster selects); and, wait for it... WAIT FOR IT... MAKING THEM TARGET THE SUMMON.

O.M.G.

mind. it is blown.

it truly is a fucking testament to how unequivocally grandly designed and planned out the entire experience of taking on the 20 floors of the Tower. I mean, upwards of 300-400 hours already clocked and i had never even had the slightest hint of the thought of the idea of using an existing spell that says it makes enemies target whoever you choose and making them attack a Summoned creature. this emergent interplay between myself as a player and a fond discovery of a new way, for myself obviously, to use the exact same old ass game systems/rules i've been playing with for months in a legitimately new way/approach: i can't think of RPGs that keep on giving as Elminage Gothic does.

it was the challenge of Ibag's tower that jumpstarted that little neuron into using Bifeo for that purpose. So, while it does not reflect all that great on my own smarts as a player, it reflects amazingly well on the game itself... in my opinion.

i've also started judiciously planning out uses of the alchemy invisbility spell, Bulfei (or something like that), as it grants any character that has the spell cast on them 1 'Surprise Attack' (i.e. the same type of sneak attack done when other classes are 'hidden'). those surprise attacks carry a considerable dmg output bonus if they hit (no Accuracy bonus that i know, and i tested); and i had never before thought of simply making the samurai who's going to use his flame heresy bow to kill Polyete invisible so as to make sure that not only does she not target/kill him beforehand but that the attack does approximately 20% more damage (but that is only an estimate purely based on the numbers i have seen and compared while playing; wiki doesn't have the data on the surprise attacks).

oh, and random finding: i have been testing the effects of the alchemy spell which raises party "speed", which i've always found a weird spell description as the attribute itself is clearly AGILITY, but from my unscientific testing using a souped-up training officer as a practice dummy an extreme of low AGILITY attribute points results in APPROXIMATELY (i.e. this means it was just me counting aloud) around 40, probably a cold 50% more melee attack misses or low-dmg blows; and when you cast Sockhei on the low-AGI char they will 100% guaranteed immediately begin landing every other attack on the enemy.

so... i guess/think either AGILITY attribute has some undocumented relationship with the two different formulas the game utilizes simultaenously for melee attack resolution.

long story short now instead of always stacking ORATH i stack Sockhei first, and then later throw in 1 orath if needed. also, obviously the inverse holds true: casting Losckei on the enemy and lowering their "speed" results in a lot less dmg on your party. of course it depends what enemy it is i mean stargazer doesn't give a fuck either way.

this game is a fucking masterpiece.

yeah I often forget to use that spell, but it's a good one when you have something that take a lot of dmg. the floor master for the last main story dungeon is a nice one...
3 cast of summon spell may seem enough but later monster like the black dragons will kill your summon instantly...

 

[Castozor]

So I hardly played the last 2 days but at least I'm slowly learning to get my bearing in the dungeons without checking a map every few doors. One thing I did find extremely annoying so far is that sometimes the HP of monsters does not seem to match their bestiary description and instead of a fixed value it is randomnized. Is this true or am I imagining things? Because choosing to not double nuke a backline just to have them turn my casters into (dead) pincushions is not fun.

 

[Dorarnae]

is the final dungeon worth it?

yeah it's nice. a bunch of boss to kill, and couple gods too. it'll be more challenging than the main game.
then when you're done you can go on new game+ and get to dragons fang without using/gaining any fame and kill the true final boss

 

[aweigh]

BTW, perhaps you all already know this but i finally figured out conclusively how E: Gothic differs from 'Original (and 2 and 3) in how it treats the chance of resurrection from the spells:

e: Gothic takes into account these simple things:

- the dead char's VIT total. if it is low (less than 15) high chances he won't jesus.
- how high the ATTACK ATTRIBUTE: "LIGHT/HOLY" is on the char that is casting the resurrection spell.
- i did some testing and yep, my Lord with holy sabre equipped (that op piece of shit has 200% holy attack) has only failed resurrecting a party member once in the last two days of playing, and the reason that failure happened is because his recipient was a 12 VIT faery bishop at that moment.
- unequipped the holy sabre and yep, sure enough resurrection success ratio plummetted DRASTICALLY.

the only detail i'm still unsure about is this: in the japanese wiki they state that a character's HOLY DEFENSE ATTRIBUTE % actually works AGAINST THEIR CHANCES of being resurrected, and that a char with a very high HOLY DEFENSE % will probably turn to ashes.

i've tried testing this but unlike the HOLY ATK testing it has proven... unconclusive.

EDIT: btw, i almost forgot: yes i checked the game's files on the spell classifications and the two resurrection spells are 100% classified under holy element.

 

[Dorarnae]

So I hardly played the last 2 days but at least I'm slowly learning to get my bearing in the dungeons without checking a map every few doors. One thing I did find extremely annoying so far is that sometimes the HP of monsters does not seem to match their bestiary description and instead of a fixed value it is randomnized. Is this true or am I imagining things? Because choosing to not double nuke a backline just to have them turn my casters into (dead) pincushions is not fun.

yeah monster hp varies, the amount listed is their max they can have

 

[aweigh]

So I hardly played the last 2 days but at least I'm slowly learning to get my bearing in the dungeons without checking a map every few doors. One thing I did find extremely annoying so far is that sometimes the HP of monsters does not seem to match their bestiary description and instead of a fixed value it is randomnized. Is this true or am I imagining things? Because choosing to not double nuke a backline just to have them turn my casters into (dead) pincushions is not fun.

Enemies in traditional Wizardry, and thus Elminage, utilize a random HP die, i.e. a virtual dice is rolled that operates within parameters established beforehand for said monsters and sometimes a Chaos Demon will have 200 hp, and sometimes he'll be unlucky and the game will spawn him with 174 hp.

the bestiary's best use / main purpose is for memorizing the weaknesses of difficult enemies: such as for example going into the bestiary and learning that this tough son of a bitch fucker, Skillving, only has 20% resistance to the Confusion spell (Makaracha, or something like that), whereas he has 90% versus everything else.

Suddenly the player notices that the game's designers are actually fully at the wheel and are not simply making "difficult encounters" without any thought whatsoever. It's up to the creative player to figure out how to win, of course.

The best, easiest example of good bestiary usage is the 1st dungeon's over-powered Floor Master, the cricket monster that will behead your entire level 5 party with zero fucks given. If you look him up you will notice he has a huge gap in his defenses versus being Charmed.

a Bard using the Tarot card 'Lovers' will almost always, ALWAYS (!!), charm the cricket fuck right away and the git will actually behead himself when he attacks himself while charmed it is quite funny.

obviously an enemies bestiary entry appears only after their defeat...

(that obviously means the designers fully expect you, the player, to use every tactic, including having a bard you perhaps never thought to use whip out the Lovers card and having it work).

the philosophy is basically to provide enough elements, systems, scenarios, tools, resources, etc, so that the player can if they want to engage write their own story so to speak of how they defeat X or Y enemy or whatever. these are simplistic subject matter but in the end it is incredibly elegant game design philosophies at work!







EDIT: oh, also the bestiary lists the loot enemies carry so keep an eye out for swag for your Thief to steal from them! btw, i still to this day can't fathom what use or purpose absolute barrier has. it is truly... a mystery. the only legit thing that comes to mind is that using it might buy your party the round/time for them to snap out of status ailments.

however i have not tested this and do not actually know if chars are allowed to shake off ailments during an absolute barrier. if not, then it is 100% useless.

 

[aweigh]

Dorarnae
met the floor master in floor 9 i think, the one who won't take no for an answer. killed two peeps, petrified two more, and i just finished executing a daring tower escape with only the ninja and the lord.

every battle the ninja would hide and the lord would use alchemy spell Bufei to turn invisible and then use alchemy spell that slows down the enemy. primary reason was: when you slow them down you can always flee safely; but in case it was winnable then finishing them off worked too.

lord bit it around floor 5 and my ninja fucking fled/hid/beheaded his way to the tower exit w/ only 34 hp at the end. most noteworthy moment of his solo escape was in the last floor, the 1st one, reaching the exit motherfucking Skillving surprise ambushes me and and that's when he got me down to 34 hp and confused; but i decided to use the hide command and it worked, then fled that battle.

i almost want to say 'hiding' is almost fucking broken and OP it single-handedly beat the floor master of the 9th floor twice in a row (couldn't get petrified while he was hidden! natch) and it also single-handedly allowed me to manipulate every encounter while escaping. awesome shit.

...then i didn't have enough money to resurrect all the other 5 assholes so will need to grind some gold to do that, heh. couldn't get any more wizardry'er than that.

anyway, here is a video showing exactly how the ex-skill 'Avenge' works in battle. it surprised me a lil to be honest as it is actually conceivably a good pick in incredibly specific scenarios i thought it was 100% useless but it's not, it's just... not well thought out. makes me think i'm missing some crucial detail about the how/why of 'Avenge' as i just can't imagine something so obviously second-fiddle to the superior Chi-Wave pass through.

i believe it continually rises in damage output every time you keep using the Avenge attack during the encounter, and you can see in the video that the 2nd 'Avenge' attack does almost 200 points of dmg more than the 1st use.



EDIT: now the ones i really, really want to dissect are LAST STAND (char "grows stronger" the more companions are dead, and... absolutely no further details/explanation are provided on this); and the one called MAGIC RESTORE/RESTORATION.

i did some prelimenary testing (i.e. i used it while playing) of MAGIC RESTORE and immediately i realized it is a 100% perfect fit for an end-game Alchemist character. Everything those end-game / post-game enemies throw a party-wide Enterook Mista or whatever the fucker recharges his castings of POMEDOON!

the thing i want to "test" is whether or not when MAGIC RESTORE triggers whether the spell that was cast by the enemy is completely nullified and absorbed as both scenarios happened to me while playing: sometimes the enemy spell was simply absorbed by the char with MP RESTORE and he'd recharge his lvl 1 spells, easy-peasy, and other times the spell would actually hit full effect and THEN the MP RESTORE would trigger.

 

[aweigh]

Dorarnae Courtier

poke-balled the 9th floor floor master, heh



and, btw, these type of summons... jesus the tower is turning ridiculously easy, especially now that everyone has 70+ % behead resistance.

the holy sabre + these OP summons well i'll just say i hope floors 10-20 bring eet. it does make me wish my bishop was an actual summoner with the ex-skill master therion just to see him mighty morph all of these op enemies into a single beast.

the one that makes it the most auto-pilote (for the moment) is actually Sammael the skeleton with behead-arms on the 6th floor and onwards. it is because he has a super high Swallow Return % so when enemies attack me he immediately parries them and does dmg. it's ridiculous.

stopped rolling with the 2 angel twins because whenever i run into the dopplegangers fighting doppleganger versions of the angel twin summons is the single most tedious thing evar

 

[aweigh]

STARTED this new game with tons of changes, basically all of the shit ton of shit i've been detailing in my post(s) about modding Gothic.

super summation of the changes are simple just: rebalanced all race attributes (YA GOTTA TRUST ME ON THIS ONE ; made all weapons that were traditionally M-range in Elminage 1-3 (such as M-range Flails and Morningstars and Staffs as the most easy examples) into M-ranged once again; completely because i think it is historically "fitting" i made the majority of 2-HANDED weaponry such as 2h swords and axes and 2h hammers and the like also M-range, such as for example now the EMPEROR'S AXE is M-ranged (oh yeah, axes too).

most recent touch i've put on it is was thinking carefully about the sorry state that axes and hammers and clubs find themselves in Gothic when competing against everything else, i mean, there is literally no reason whatsoever to ever use one of those things instead of a sword/katana/etc so:

i expanded all of the axes, clubs, maces and hammer's dmg range (the min number and the max number) by 2 points on each end, to boost the damage these weapons deal (which was comparable to swords/etc BUT unlike those these axes/hammers/etc featured atrocious accuracy modifiers and laughable # of atks for whatever reasons); also increased the # of atks of almost every minor and major club, mace, 1h and 2h axe and 1h and 2h hammer.

did not mess with their to-HIT modifiers though as that is waay too tricky. better to give them 2 extra points of total dmg and 1 extra attack (seriously, a Mixer Blade does almost 8 atks per swing but in the same dungeon floor you find the comparable crystal cudgel which has a negative to-HIT modifier for starters and tops it off by doing only 3 atks per swing, so yeah, +1 was needed).

and finally, probably just solely to make anyone who is reading this wince, heh, i thought that sub-weapon types, specifically the game's Daggers and the Katana-Daggers and the Axe-subs (there are tons of sub-Axes) should feature some type of possible incentive for a player to ever, EVER, deign to use them: ergo i gave each of those weapons a bonus to armor class specifically +1 (i.e. -1 AC) to each one.

so hey, it's like in spain when they'd use that little dagger as a parrying sword! right?

btw, making all 2h weapons (2h swords/hammers/axes/etc) be M-range completely makes up for their complete worthlessness in terms of damage output compared to dual-wielding because it allows these weapons the extra strategical dimension of allowing the front-row meathead fighter to execute rudimentary targeting strategy. heh.

also the game itself has many 2h weapons that are M-ranged, like the holy saber. it was from the game itself i thought, hey, they should've done it to ALL OF THEM.

the other recent thing i tried out to see if it worked was i made the Shop have for sale 1 copy (and only 1) of every single item, yeah every single one of the 700+ items in the game including monster fangs and stuff like that, and shit like Avi's Buckler, and some insanely weird shit i don't think is even implemented onto any NPCs/enemies.

(there's a frying pan +2 for sale)

so obviously to balance that shit i multiplied every item's buying price by 20 times. Then I went through all of the game's Enemies and slashed by half the amount of GP they give you when you win an encounter. This guarantees the player (i.e., me) will have to work like a DOG if he ever wants to buy anything from the shop and/or he/she can simply play the game and get it as a drop.

example: the Flamberge costs 175,000.

however he/she now has complete knowledge of absolutely every single one of the 700+ items the game has locked away behind the shop counters and i actually find it super motivating to continue playing after browsing the never-ending items/weapons because it's like, oh yeah!, THAT'S what i wanna go get right now!

seriously i think there are easily 50, probably closer to 100 weapons that don't appear anywhere "in-game" but there they are for sale at a ridiculous inflated price. weird stuff like the frying pan, and to my surprise the entire list of all enemy natural weapons (teeth/claws/etc). the game did not have them flagged for player usage so i went through every single one of them and typed in the required numbers so that they can be bought from the shop and used by players (mostly brawlers, in keeping w/ Original).

i can also make it so you can just Steal those items off monsters but haven't gotten around to it yet.

rejected the earlier post/idea of an extreme form of class "individualization" by taking the universal ex-skills and making them locked down to some specific classes. at the time it seemd a good idea, realized later how dumb it was.

finally, i did a quick pass on all of the enemies and raised (i.e. lowered) their AC by 2 points. it really makes a huge difference. the 1st dungeon is a fucking challenge to beat anything.

 

[aweigh]

Dorarnae

just trying to clear floor 10 rite now and in the past 10 mins i got the GRAM sword (lord sword), the TOKUGAWA (or something like that) ninja sword, and the DGYOURBISHINI (or something like that) samurai/shaman sword, and also got the FREEZE sword. i didn't even imagine that something like the holy sabre would get outclassed... jeeeeesus. these next floors coming up must be... hard.

 

[Dorarnae]

Dorarnae

just trying to clear floor 10 rite now and in the past 10 mins i got the GRAM sword (lord sword), the TOKUGAWA (or something like that) ninja sword, and the DGYOURBISHINI (or something like that) samurai/shaman sword, and also got the FREEZE sword. i didn't even imagine that something like the holy sabre would get outclassed... jeeeeesus. these next floors coming up must be... hard.

hard? damn just wait until you reach floor 15-20.

 

[aweigh]

Dorarnae
Courtier

hey! i finally got Skillving as a pet, aaaand I also got both the Blue Wisp floor master and the Red Wisp floor master.

my sights are dead set on getting a Belial, who i am fighting for the 1st time(s) right now (as i am playing). i am on the 10th floor i believe. and yep, the Belial enemy initiated our very first encounter by flat-out murdering instantly a companion haha

i have everyone with 60-75 % behead resistance, buuut every other resistance is from my Lord's Court of Sanctuary, which is around about to 33 % ATM.

i am getting Petrified and Slept a lot in the 9th and 10th floors and am beginning to think i should start doing a Warehouse run to enchant sleep resistance ASAP. It's harder tho to get a high % versus Petrification, though, because AFAIK the only item that offers any significant boost is a Ring that has 45 or 50 % on it, i believe, and the other item is the Blue Belt that offers 40.

whereas for sleep the White Ring offers 60%, plus sleep is 1-point-cost to enchant, as you know, unlike Petrify.

i finally noticed that the primary reason a flurry of melee attacks from an asshole enemy like, polyete or a Skillving (specifically, is because they land 1 hit and they Sleep you; that means their next hit will land with you with a huge penalty to your Armor Class basically guaranteeing they will hit you a big amount of times.

even with 75 % behead resistance those onslaughts will still usually kill or leave almost dead basically any char w/ less than 1k HP at that moment.

i had never actually realized before that it was Skillving's sleeping you with the 1st hit that allowed him to rape one so hard.

this is the floor i'm on right now:

 

[aweigh]

Dorarnae
Courtier
Dorateen
Mustawd
Celerity
Shackleton
GhopTheConqueror

i... i used to think games were fair. that they were things. things made by man and therefore were... goddamnit, they were fair!

until i reached the floors with the infinitely spawning Pheonix birds and the indestructible Belial demons. that was the day. it didn't matter that my boys had broken past the -40 AC barrier, every single one; and i was damn proud. a testament to the the great Nippon and their unique ways, i thought, unaware that it was the last time.

the day i saw... the fault in our stars.

 

[Dorarnae]

Dorarnae
Courtier

hey! i finally got Skillving as a pet, aaaand I also got both the Blue Wisp floor master and the Red Wisp floor master.

my sights are dead set on getting a Belial, who i am fighting for the 1st time(s) right now (as i am playing). i am on the 10th floor i believe. and yep, the Belial enemy initiated our very first encounter by flat-out murdering instantly a companion haha

i have everyone with 60-75 % behead resistance, buuut every other resistance is from my Lord's Court of Sanctuary, which is around about to 33 % ATM.

i am getting Petrified and Slept a lot in the 9th and 10th floors and am beginning to think i should start doing a Warehouse run to enchant sleep resistance ASAP. It's harder tho to get a high % versus Petrification, though, because AFAIK the only item that offers any significant boost is a Ring that has 45 or 50 % on it, i believe, and the other item is the Blue Belt that offers 40.

whereas for sleep the White Ring offers 60%, plus sleep is 1-point-cost to enchant, as you know, unlike Petrify.

i finally noticed that the primary reason a flurry of melee attacks from an asshole enemy like, polyete or a Skillving (specifically, is because they land 1 hit and they Sleep you; that means their next hit will land with you with a huge penalty to your Armor Class basically guaranteeing they will hit you a big amount of times.

even with 75 % behead resistance those onslaughts will still usually kill or leave almost dead basically any char w/ less than 1k HP at that moment.

i had never actually realized before that it was Skillving's sleeping you with the 1st hit that allowed him to rape one so hard.

this is the floor i'm on right now:

eventually those wisp become normal mob in the tower.

 

[aweigh]

(the 1st video is all you need to watch, btw, second one is just showing my ninja tricking Belial into deadly combat of PEEK-A-BOO! NOW U SEE ME! NOW I'M HIDDEN!)

Dorarnae

NIGGA PLEASE i got those wisps on lockdown. only enemy i am trying out different ways on how to beat him better is none other than good ole homeboy BELIAL.

MAH MAANNN...

Belial, and stargazers if it is a very big grouping otherwise i can kill them before they kill me (they're much slower on the draw than Polyete!)



EDIT: (right now uploading) a 2nd fight immediately afterwards w/ Belial again this time i went to town and bought the Angelstrike Falls Bow (2x Devil bonus dmg, 250% holy attribute in attack, comparable damage to any post-game / top-tier Lord/fighter 2H Sword; wanted to test FOR REAL how big a difference would a bow with a big 2x DEVIL on it make compared to the simple "cross shape" (i.e. 1.5 dmg bonus) of the Holy Sabre i was using.

video is still uploading but the verdict is: inconclusive. some hits w/ the bow did twice the dmg of the previous hit w/ the sword, and vice versa. MEH. the real take-away from the 2nd encounter testing out that bow is simply that fighting Belial when he has his homies w/ him w/ War Ritual = immediate execution of anyone he hits in melee.

oh, and CHI-WAVE, which is seen being used by the ninja Steve (who basically deals 80% of all the dmg on belial with the CHI WAVE ability) is simply and utterly amazing. insane dmg output that bypasses all "natural defenses" on any enemy. ending dmg resulting from a CHI wave is calculated directly off the same "type" of formula that would dictate optimal-condition melee attack output from said character. And yes, the CHI WAVE takes into account the weaponry used by the char: higher "numbers" also factor into higher chi-wave dmg.

considering taking out the Lord's "Brace" and just spamming CHI WAVE all day long w/ everyone.

EDIT: btw, it also revealed just how critical high (i.e. low...) AC is for these enemies. Steve survived simply because he has like 55 -AC. Everyone else is 35-40, and that's being generous. The difference in how little dmg Steve receives from Belial compared to everyone else is INSAAANNEEE.

 

[aweigh]

jeeeesus FUCKING christ. he REALLY does have -94 AC.

I modded him to replace the Training Hall Knight of the Realm so I can test out all of my pet strategies and boy oh boy has it been informative.

everythingon his sheet is true. -90~ AC which proves legitimately insurmountable for any sort of even expert player to undermine in the span of not only let alone 1 encounter w/ him, but several encounters and also facing cohorts.

it takes approximately 5 rounds of having 2 or more chars casting Robuki spell on him (lowers (i.e. raises) enemy AC by 4, no saving throw) while the other 4 party members did their absolute best to keep him not insta-gibbing someone by: casting invisibility spell on someone and then casting taunt-spell and siccing him on said person; throwing out the alchemy spell that progressively lowers enemy spell resistances 3 rounds in a row to finally try and attempt a MISAMA (sleep) and it fucking worked. FOR ONE ROUND. he has built-in status restoration (it is an actual legit enemy ex-skill it is called RESTORE).

so after keeping him chasing ghosts for like almost 12 rounds of bullshit (lowering his AC, i.e. raising it; lowering his spell resistance and landing 1 misama and 1 confuse spell and having him restore out of it immediately upon that round ending; etc) i decided that i've probably lowered (raised) his Armor Class enough: let's wail on him.

three heavy hitters, a lord w/ holy sabre specced for 2x vs. Devil; a Ninja using demon ring shuriken (comes specced vs. Devil) and in main-hand the "Ninja Sword" with 2x bonus vs. Devil as well on it and lastly a Samurai with the Murasama in main-hand enchanted with 2x VS. Devil and in sub-hand using the GOD SLAYER sub-type Lance which comes pre-specced Vs. shit.

i thought for sure they would kill him in 1 or 2 rounds i mean i lowered his AC by exactly 32 points, which you can actually see for yourself by pressing one of the buttons during your turns. (says what spells are in effect, how many spells have been cast for purposes of letting you know whether to let fly a neo zadaar or not; and it mentions as well enemy armor class decrease or increase to the decimal point)

after lowering it (raising it) by fucking almost 40 points 1 round should do it right? nope, he wiped me that round.

next attempt i don't do any prep-work and instead simply spam him with all 3 hitters, sam/ninja/lord, now specced with the ex-skill CHI BLAST (hex-edited the save file quickly and just changed their currently active skill to chi blast) and lo and behold: all three of them, each one individually blasted Belial for 500+ dmg. he died in 1 round.

i do not know what is the moral here. i wanted to prove to myself it can be beaten at the level you reach the enemy and without meta-game knowledge of ex-skills... oh well. I GUESS HIS AC REALLY WAS A TYPO AFTER ALL AND THATS WHY 3DS VERSION LOWERED IT!

so i'll just lower it myself and continue. btw, Dorarnae , you'll be pleased to know that this tactic of spamming chi-blast skill was nerfed in the 3ds remix! i know you've finished it already but just wanted to point out that Starfish really does pay attention: in Gothic 3DS remix the same tactic i just used would not deal near enough the type of dmg it does on the original version of Gothic (psp/pc).

it IS too OP for a skill. it is the best skill in the game, period.

EDIT: OH! PART of the way they "balanced" the chi blast skill is in 3ds version remix enemies will SWALLOW RETURN the chi blast! whoaaa

 

[Courtier]

OUR BOY AWEIGH HAS MADE IT TO THE BIG GUY ZONE LADS, THE JOURNEY TO THE TOP OF THE TOWER IS ALMOST OVER

ENTER THE ELEMENTAL PLANE OF ASS PAIN

 

[aweigh]

as a personal thank you for sharing your time viewing that/reading that:

the sexiest beat down ever comitted on crawl:



and yah that's rite i got my Thief using a WELSH CANE, millerstone-enchanted w/ 2x anti-FIGHTERS, 2x anti-THIEF, 2x anti-GOD, the pre-included WELSH CANE 2x anti-DEVIL (!), and to top it off had enough points left for one final 2x anti-Mage, as although i have no proof of this i forsee tough "Mage-types" standing in my way in the tower.

turns out a back row char not usually typed to weapons like a staff does damn well with some of them, namely the welsh cane, the rib-breaker, the chacellor's staff (that one has comparable stats to the High King's Sword).

obviously only tweaked them to make them M-range, a la Original, nothing else w/ those staffs.

trying to salvage the hopeless situation hammers/clubs and maces are in isn't working out, btw. they should have differentiated from the ground up with seperate vision docs for each inter-related branch of itemization! merely making a 2h axe have -3 AC as a bonus doesn't make up for it's horrible to-HIT and horrible atks per swing compared to its same-tier swords/spears!

starfish needed to go much deeper and present emergent gameplay system integration that could dovetail neatly into the discovery and use of all weapons. to this day i don't know why the fuck default Staffs all have horrible -3 and -2 and even -4 negative to-HIT modifiers... also aren't traditionally IJN LIKE THE FAR ORIENT LANDS i have heard that staves are defensive tools and some faggot chinese even say they are not weapons but tools SPLOOSH

why would starfish have all staves have bad to-HIT and implement a penalty to defense? LEWL

why did Starfish decide the best way to create "personality" for the groupings of Axes/Hammers/Clubs/Maces was to have them all be unbearably god-awful in Accuracy compared to their same-Tier swords, spears and shit like that. AREN'T AXES PROVEN SINCE LIKE TIMES OF COLUMBUS THAT THEY WERE THE PREMIER GO-TO WEAPON FOR ANY BATTLE FIELD DUE TO THE ABILITY TO UTILIZE A SIMPLE HATCHET TO BOTH MOUNT INCREDIBLE CLOSE QUARTERS OFFENSE BUT ALSO SIMULTAENOUSLY MAINTAIN A DEFENSIVE PERIMETER FROM WHICH THE OPPONENT WILL/MUST FEAR HAVING THEIR CLOTHING OR WOODEN SHIELD SNAGGED ONTO THE HAND AXE AND PULLED; and or the famous quote by french knights that they always beat the germans because the germans didn't realize axes beat everything else (in axes it is included: Mauls, Bills, and many types of Poles but not "Polearms") so the germans would continue designing 80 pound plate mail torsos only to have it obliterated by fucking wooden clubs and hatchets

the axes/maces/clubs/hammers weapons in all Elminages should be way more accurate (better to-HIT modifer) and also instead of presenting alternative damage, or going the super boring route of creating arbitrary distinctions of slashing/penetrating/afterbirthing, etc; and just do logical things such as allowing armor class bonuses on weapons that merit them like a sub-type Dirk, which was historically first used more like HOOK and it was to literally CATCH PEOPLE RUNNING AWAY. how cool is that. And, btw, a real Dirk is about the size of what a LotR short sword looks like on the movies. Daggers were daggers, dirks, and sabres were the mainstay of the uncouth warrior who wasn't a knight in Spain and France back then and of course the trusty hatchet slung at the side, and if fighting came about inside a city the use of the RAPIER is what historically shaped the later English-driven literature and production of what is now considered a short sword.

originally a short sword did not exist; there was an EPEE and later a generic RAPIER. the spaniards called them, translated into english, "side-swords", and their only use was to be small enough to shank people in the streets. For some reason English looooved side-swords and decided they were now going to "invent the short sword".

i mean it's NOT THAT HARD. quick and dirty "type" for the Dirk group? UMMM OK DIRK TYPE GROUP OFFERS HIGH # OF ATKS PER SWING (SPEED/SIZE) BUT LOW BASE DMG !!! ALSO OPTIONAL TO INCLUDE DEFENSIVE BONNII ON SOME OF THEM AS YOU KNOW-- etc.

instead we getthe sub-weapon type the POWER AXE, as a quest reward i remember, it has -8 to-hit LOL. -8. its damage is good, as it is simply a variation of same-Tier sword dmg. except those swords have positive to-HIT numbers and more # atks.

to this day i refuse to do the quest ever again. and yes i know the axe gives 1 STR pt when used so what.

aren't Staffs like, THE single most important and also crazy accurate in trained use from the middle ages? i seem to recall there is 25 thousand stories of a brave farmer killing 20 knights who wanted prima nocta on his his land and died to his uber-WELSH CANE skills while brandishiing and flopping about w/ their useless in comparison arming swords.

that shit is history.

 

[aweigh]

I FOUND THE SEKRET FOR BELIAL. Elnam.

An Elnam bolt from a character with at least 30% and upwards in Holy Attribute Attack ( in the video the chracter casting the Elnam bolts has 61% for purposes of helping resurrections succeed); and each goddamn Elnam bolt deals 150-200 dmg.

i recorded a 2nd fight, and a second video, of my party just killing Belial by spamming Elnam and helping others not die (making them invisible with Bufei, taunting him to target the Summoned Creature with Bulawei or whatever it's called; or simply having everyone "hide" all the time while the others pelted w/ Elnam).

sure, 150-200 dmg per Elnam blast on Belial, who has around 1200 hit points or more (probably a bit more) may not sound like much but it's guaranteed non-melee dmg that can be further boosted by pumping the caster's Holy atk attribute %.

in copmarison an attack from my level 160-odd Samurai results in usually 30 or less dmg, and sometimes a "critical" of like, 90 or 100.

 

[Courtier]

Always remember to use BIFEI - your brawler/ninja will start to approach Belial in ridiculously low AC at this point, and this decoy spell causes enemies to waste all their attacks on them. It's what helped me defeat these guys and the two final bosses.

 

[aweigh]

yep. i have literally, li-te-ra-lly, discovered about a nicely-sized 40% chunk of all of the spells that i have never used before and have now suddenly been forced into surviving party-wiping encounters with, well, not my usually plethora of nicely stocked resources via DIOMANTE stop-and-go runs. pretty brilliant really, if they had allowed teleporting Ibag's would've been a joke by the time the player finishes it and would have only been left asking themselves why starfish would go to so much effort and undermine themselves in such a way.

but there is no diomante, so every trip into the tower is meaningful. more can be said, sure, but i think meaningful covers it. not many can claim even that as part of the lure of their dungeons or whatever their game is about.

so yeah, as you say i've discovered the invisibility spell had never used it until a few days ago out of necessity because i simply did not want to get wiped so i cast it; then made the next logical leap to casting it on the summoned creatures and taunting enemies into targeting them instead with the other alchemy spell i have never, ever used until the past few days.

i have also discovered that the brain-dead "formula" of an alchemist only being at peak performance in battle by mindlessly spamming ORATH on rounds to be the best way to increase offensive power to now be 100% DE-FUNCT. DED. Orath is OVER folks. Good once and again but it is OLD NEWS.

keeping this short: the two alchemy spells that control speed either making enemies "slower" or making the party "faster" (the beauty of all this is that the game never actually details what the fuck this means exactly since it is not referring to AGI... or it would say "AGI", right); yes the new brain-dead Alchemist battle plan is this one:

- slow down the enemy with the slow-jam spell 1st things 1st playa
- this makes them miss a lot more when they use their melee. why? i can guess very well why, but do i know exactly the formula of this relationship? nope. (same applies vice-versa to you too).
- slowing down the enemy also decreases their ability to "roll" better dice in situations where they are contesting the player's actions such as: thief is stealing/disarming (a slow enemy will "roll" way, way worse dice contesting the formula that the game uses to determine this: btw, this is in the wiki)
- it also does basically the exact same thing for making catching SUMMONS like, 100% easier. slow them down until they can't staaaaand it no moooe, and then strip every layer of magic resistance as well round after round, round after round, and then, speed it up baby speed up your party for a while and then slow 'em down again just to make sure and then

BOOM SUMMON.

- oh, losing "speed" also affects ability to "evade". i have no idea if this decreases or increases Armor Class; all i know is that during battle you can press one of the 4 controller face buttons (by default square i think) and it shows you a table dictating exactly how many spells have been cast (i assume for purposes of when to use neo zadaar?); it shows player on left and enemy on right side and it says exactly how much (if any) the Armor Class is either up or down, so i knew very certainly that the game said: Belial's AC has been changed by 35 points. Super clear to me! (it also shows other stuff like active buffs but it's not as exciting to type about).

- so yeah, it states EXACTLY and by PERCENTAGE how SLOW or how FAST each "party" is currently at the moment you bring up the info box during one of your turns. I remember I slowed Belial down by 65% and i was literally attacking him w/ standard melee atks and he would often times not do anything back to me at all, and instead simply take my meaguer 45 dmg attack, not retaliate as expected, get hurt by mark of cruelty and boom start of next round. I do not fully understand how/why all this but it is 100% related: speeds and ability to "evade" or perhaps "trigger" one of their abilities such as perhaps he was so SLOW he could not trigger his 2nd Turn Action! I think that makes sense, right?

- speeding up, however, while on first thought the benefits sound obvious after typing all that but to be honest speeding up helps to get that enemy summon contract and absolutely for stealing shit, but i have NOT seen increased melee dmg output/results while "fast". probably Starfish thought it would simply turn the game into cast speed 10x then obliterate any enemy. Wise on their part.

EDIT: also discovered that most of the EX-skills are actually worth using. the clear winner in the WINDOWS PC and PSP version is CHI BLAST however in 3DS Remix version they nerfed it by allowing enemies to Swallow-Return the chi blast. I actually approve of that decision as it is simply way too good.

perhaps you can help me test "LAST MAN STANDING". it is the only skill i have not come to a conclusion about and i've tried testing it but i honestly can't tell if it's me donig it wrong (not noticing what i should notice, for example) or if the skill is actually straight up not even working/glitched.

it says it makes the char harder to take down or something like that and once again does not say any details like maybe it gives you more HP? lowers your armor class? WHAAT? how many in the party have to die in the encounter for it to "trigger"?

if so, does it increase in its benefits to you, it's POWAH, if you are literally the LAST MAN? theoretically that would make it incredible OP. yay, no party wipes ever. heh.

 

[aweigh]

OH, i learned that the main benefit 2h weapons have over dual-wielding is higher number of inflicted hits, in short. that means higher chances to inflict on-hit ailments.

the main problem 2h weapons have in GOTHIC (this is not the case in original) is that there are simply way too many non-2h weapons waiting for you to utilize that can reach almost, aallmoosst, the same dmg output as the 2h one in question except it's only... the 1st blow out of 2. so you understand why i wished to understand, that there HAD to be a legit benefit to the 2h ones, not even taking into account the fact that dual-wielding can kill 2 enemies per round versus only 1 per round from the 2h weapon.

and then i reached ibag's tower and played it for real and realized i had been wrong. the above is 100% true when the game/the enemies are designed to be something people call "easy". this is a term that is applied when the game will always throw the same underpowered enemies at you and the player will never, ever realize that it did not make a lick of difference what weapon he used as it was so "easy" the result was predetermined.

in ibag's tower enemies have very, VERY good armor class. this means that now you want a good weapon with a HIGH NUMBER for the to-HIT MODIFIER; for enemies like Belial? you need for the chars attacking him to be using weapons with 5 or higher number in the to-HIT modifier slow.

the # of atks now becomes completely irrelevant because of 2 reasons:

- player is super high level ergo all number of attacks have been swung. there is no difference for a level 150 thief to choose between a 5 atk per swing boomerange, and a 7 atk per swing boomerange. That thief will hit 10 times with his "swing" every time, so it is irrelevant due to the post-game high levels.

- however, remember ibag enemies have ultra high (i.e. low) armor class beginning with enemies like Skillving sporting a flashy -22 AC and moving onwards to Polyete with her -33 AC and so on and so forth. Every single number of armor class is a percentage detriment factor that is substracted from the total of melee dmg you dealt; as in the Armor Class effectively NEGATES what you did AFTER you do it. When the AC is so high (i.e. low) it means you will not and will not hit Belial 10 tims w/ that boomerang when you first encounter him. you'll hit him 1 time, or 2 times in the swing, and the dmg will be PITIFUL.

- why? because of his -90~ AC. To test the difference change that hypothetical boomerage to a weapon with a super high to-HIT modifier and a low # of atks, and also pick one also with super high to-HIT modifier but this one with a HIGH # of ATKS.

- you have suddenly been magically transported back to the very beginning of Elminage the game! WOOOOO! ONCE AGAIN EVERY SINGLE MINUTE NUMBER ON THE WEAPON STATS ACTUALLY MAKE TANGIBLE DIFFERENCES AND THUS MAKE POST-GAME OF GOTHIC INSANELY ENJOYABLE. All weapons live twice!

 

[aweigh]

oh, forgot the only super-easy example i first noticed from casting speed spell on ur party: it increases by a lot the chances of abilities like the samurai's counter-attack to trigger and to trigger way more often. stuff like that.

 

[aweigh]

 

[aweigh]

BTW, have right this moment ascended the stairs to floor 13th. i was stuck almost 2 hours straight, obsessively squinting at my monitor, trying to figure out floor 12.

actually was able to resist googling its map as that is the kind of "nagivational puzzle" i think starfish does really really well. i enjoy finding my way around much more than fetch-quest type NPC puzzles et al.

raised my lord character's holy attack attribute % now to 300 flat, 100 more than the 200 that comes with the super OP lord weapon the holy saber. with 300 % i have to miss resurrecting someone today's entire play time! so yeah, supposedly the recipient having high amount of holy attribute DEFENSE % counter-acts it but so far he's like jesus chrsit.

since EXP is so abundant in these floors i just Miracle some new spells for my team when needed, heh.