Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[aweigh]

Skill calculation formula †
About calculation formula of each ability. Let the current level be L, sqrt () be the function to find the square root.

Physical Attack Power UP (Battle) Sqrt (L - 25) * 5
Physical Attack Power Power UP (Burglary Warrior Shinkansen) Sqrt (L - 25) * 2.5
Physical Attack Power UP (Kimiobu Shinobu) Sqrt (L - 35) * 2
Spell powerfulness UP + 1 (Witches) Sqrt (L - 25) * 10
Spell power power UP + 1 (monk) Sqrt (L - 25) * 25
Spell power power UP + 1 (Tsukasa) Sqrt (L - 30) * 5
High purity synthesis (refining) Sqrt (L - 25) * 3 + 100
Number of haste (hunting) Sqrt (L)
Struggle instinct (fight) Sqrt (L - 31) * 2 + 50
AC (Punishment) 10 - (L / 3)
Blood coalition (call) Sqrt (L - 31) * 11
Honen reserve protected area (you) Sqrt (L - 35) * 3.5
Special resistance UP (you) Sqrt (L) * 5
Swallow return (Samurai) Sqrt (L - 35) * 1.6 + 15
※ Haste times and AC are rounded down to the nearest whole number. Otherwise rounded off to the second decimal place.

ALSO

STR past value of 14

- values 14 and upwards each = approx. 3-5% additional DMG.

INT/PIE past value of 16

- values 16 and upwards each exponentially increase dmg done by spells or healing achieved by cure spells; unlike STR however each point past "16" does not increase by a linear %, and here shit gets real crazy if dealing with Elves or Goblin races which can reach 20 points in INT/PIE.

(mage = int, alchemy = int, cleric = pie)

VIT = affects chances of resurrection spells working (i.e. determines % of char turning to ashes) + obviously affects level up Hit Die calculations

AGI = affects turn order + thief/hunter/ninja/bard's HIDE skill success % + thief's chance of success at stealing shit

LUC = affects _every single thing, plus other shit no one has documented_ in extremely incrementally small ways. Not even the jap wiki(s) have specifics here...

 

[aweigh]

other stuff that i think is extremely important but only realized around 2nd playthrough:

- two-handed weapons have max number of "swings" (hits per attack) = WEAPON'S "SWINGS" MODIFIER (example: high king's sword has "3" value as lowest possible number of swings-per-atk) + NORMAL CAP OF "10" SWINGS

- this means a HKS can reach up to 13 hits per one normal attack. The hard-coded cap is "15", and no 2h weapon in-game has more than '4' as a swings-per-atk modifier, which means using ORATH is the only way to reach 15 swings.

HOWEVER...

- SINGLE-HANDED weapons all have hard-cap of maximum 10 swings-per-attack. Orath increases that to 15, as normal.

Yes. Yes... I can literally hear your brain grinding out calculations right now. This means exactly what you think it means:

- Among many, many other factors one immediate "takeaway" is that 2-h weapons end up making best candidates for landing a status ailment due to higher possible swings-per-attack.

- each swing from a weapon's attack is an individual calculation, which means versus enemies with low AC (i.e. good defense) you want 1 weapon that has highest amount of swings-per-attack to maximize chances of one of the dice rolls succeeding versus that enemy's AC value + d100.

SPECIAL NOTE:

- Bows, or rather: any weapon that is L-ranged (doesn't matter whether 1 or 2 handed) is hard-capped at 10 swings, period.

Yeah... means, just to use 1 example, that music insutrments suck even more than you previously thought possible being 2-handed and l-ranged, yet being capped at 10 swings-per-attack. Sure, their "point" is to be used as implements but... whatever.

 

[Haplo]

BlackGoat

btw, almost no one knows this but 1 of the 3 ways to change a dragonewt's breath element, and really the only practical one (the other two require an almost impossible to get item that must be stolen, and the 3rd option is loot dropped from an ibag's tower enemy which is too late for anyone to give a shit about their breath element):

- the item DEVIL CLUB's SP invocation changes the breath element of the char using it to DARK BREATH. Obviously the character has to be Dragonewt race, and this Dragonewt has to be one of the classes that can equip the Devil Club, so:

good news, devil club is universal! it's cursed (obviously).

benefit of having dark element breath is that the DARK SEAL(s), versions Regular, +1, +2, and and +3 (there is no +4 version of the holy/dark seals) Increase their respective attribute element % by almost TWICE what the other "regular element" Charms do.

- a normal dark seal raises the % of the dark attrib. ATK by almost twice what a normal flame/ice/thunder charm raise their respective elements. this proportionality carries over the successive seal/charm upgrades; which is why unlike holy/dark seals there are actuallly +4 charms for fire/ice/thunder.

plus there's a rainbow charm in ibag's tower that raises all attribute elements to 200%.

now, the benefit of having DARK BREATH is good:

- majority of NON-DEVIL, and NON-UNDEAD/GHOST type enemies will almost never, EVER feature much Dark resistance; especially compared to the fire resistance almost all enemies will come packing soon enough.

drawback...:

- devils, undead and ghosts (although of these 3 types only Devils matter) will sometimes even nullify or absorb your new Dark Breath.

tl;dr you'll inflict more DMG with the Dark Breath on majority of the game's enemies, and the devil club can be found way early, like, near around the time the royal Tomb opens up.



EDIT: I've actually never tested this but i seem tor ecall in earlier Elmi games (i.e. elmi: Original) that dark breath comes with % chance to "behead" the enemy? can't remember if it's a seperate, ENEMY-only breath, called death breath i think.

if this is legit, which i doubt, (for Gothic i mean), then imagine a Ninja-Dragonewt using devil club to change to dark breath hahahaha...

doubt this is in Gothic though, and p. sure the thing i'm remembering is enemy-only death breath.

Well you have inspired me to check. As I felt you're both overestimating how common is the fire resistance and how rare is Dark resistance. I mean Dark resistance = death spell resistance in E:G and I always felt it was very common.
I still believe that fire resist isn't THAT common. BUT, as it turns out, not everybody has Dark either.
Even such annoying enemies as Black Dragon, Stargazers, Phoenix and Wisps are vulnerable to Dark (although 50% resist for Wisps... still might be better then risking a Swallow Return). This means that I should be using WAY moar Death spells.
That's a valuable lesson. Although I guess levels factor into spell/status effect chance and I'm currently fighting enemies 50+ levels above my guys...

other stuff that i think is extremely important but only realized around 2nd playthrough:

- two-handed weapons have max number of "swings" (hits per attack) = WEAPON'S "SWINGS" MODIFIER (example: high king's sword has "3" value as lowest possible number of swings-per-atk) + NORMAL CAP OF "10" SWINGS

- this means a HKS can reach up to 13 hits per one normal attack. The hard-coded cap is "15", and no 2h weapon in-game has more than '4' as a swings-per-atk modifier, which means using ORATH is the only way to reach 15 swings.

Actually there are two-handed weapons with more then +4 attacks, only they are quite rare and most are Brawler weapons. The World, obtainable very early has +10 Attacks (for a total of 20). Also +10 to Hit (so it rarely misses). Sure it has shitty damage, but it does x2 damage vs every enemy type except gods. With Alchemy you can EASILY double it's damage output, if you slot in a great ore (I used the best one I've had). Oh and it's cursed, so unless you have a Devilish Brawler, you may need to waste ore AP on removing curse, which would lower its attractiveness. It's clearly made for devilish Brawlers. It allowed my Brawler to dominate all content up to the Ibag's Tower. It worked there great also, except for God encounters, for which I've used Aura Punch, smithed with x2 damage vs Gods. Still was inferior to World's damage due to the capped number of attacks on ranged weapon. I used it for a VERY long time despite the "small" malus of -90% Charm and Confusion resistance.
But then halfway, trough the tower, I've found another awesome weapon with +10 attacks: Dark Claws. This one has very few disadvantages. Well, it's cursed and has -50% Holy resist, but that's hardly a problem. And it rocks!

Then there are the end-game spears: Blue Gale (+6 attacks) and Mirage Lance (+10 Attacks). Though I don't expect to get the latter (especially that I have no Thief). But even Blue Gale is crazy. It deals nearly 2000 regular damage. But I nearly fell from my chair when I saw what it can do to dragons (x3 damage). Yesterday my Valk has been dealing 3800-3950 damage vs Emerald and Gold dragons. Hm, wonder how high it could go with War Rite... and if she had Mark of Ruin....

 

[aweigh]

yes, in gothic there is little room for argument about which weapon type received the most love: it is the spears. i can't think of a bad spear, to be honest, and it really makes the Valk class pop throughout the entire game.

post post-game items are indeed crazy: the mirage lance, the mirage shield (which, like Avi's Shield, is the 3rd other shield in the game that functions as a Sub-Weapon and attacks the enemy as a bashing attack); the Syphon Ring, the philosopher's stone, the aura punch (which can become as deadly as your Ore/smithing will allow basically), and too many other shit to list.

the gear i have special places in my heart for are the ones you will be using in CotA's and throughout the Tower though:

- the fighter-only Golden Axe: the undisputed king of all 2-handed weapons (sans mirage lance). A 22 STR dragonewt fighter can easily deal 2k ~ 2500 thousand dmg to the normal enemies inside the Tower.

- the Aas Shifter hammer. It is truly an awe-inspiring 2-handed hammer that will make any cleric weep for joy.

- the holy sabre, the best weapon in the game for a Lord. it has to be stolen from the Apostate enemies (jedi wannabes) inside the Tower. You have to smith away the gender restriction (can only be used by "?" gendered chars, heh); but this puppy is on par w/ the fighter's golden axe but has many, many , MANY more bonuses and shit to bring to the table like, for starters, it makes that lord the healer in residence automatically because it has some shit like 75% if i remember correctly in Holy Attrib. "Attack" %.

the holy sabre also comes stock with 2.0x Effect DMG versus every single enemy type, including gods.

- my personal favorites are two unique, Tower-gotten 2-handed Katanas which are Shaman-only and no exceptions. One of them is cursed but, again, features dmg output "on par" w/ the holy sabre and the golden axe--; the other one is also 2-handed and is not cursed and comes with -4 ac bonus but has slightly lower DMG.

- ah, can't forget about the best "non-Hunter" BOW in the game the good ole FLAME HERESY. that baby will give you the option of having your Sammie use it and switch to the back-row, freeing up a slot in front. it fights hard for a place in the top 3 samurai weapons.

etc.

NOTE: remember that any enchantments (double damage-wise) a weapon has, stock or wrought by yourself, is always overriden by whatever damage modifiers the character's armor pieces are packing.

this requires paying careful attention to exactly what pieces of gear, armor and especially accessories your damage dealers will be equipping because you don't want to override a double-damage enchantment you might/will need.

This is basically Starfish's way of replicating the Armor Class / THACO trade-offs that were one of the hallmark details of their 3 wizardry empire games. in those games each armor pieces would always come with a balancing act, as the better the AC (i.e. lower) it would usually also come with a penalty to the THACO (accuracy modifier) for the character equipping it.

instead of doing that again, they instead made it so that armor/gear pieces' all come with modifiers (having "normal dmg", the = sign, is indeed a modifier; there is no such thing as literally having no modifiers)-- and those modifiers automatically override the dmg mods on the weapons.

i think it's a good system, but then again i also think the wiz empire way of armor pieces directly impacting accuracy was good too. Both are good.

any system is better if it forces player to strategize armor loadouts instead of brainlessly equipping best pieces and being done.

 

[aweigh]

oh, i've never actually used it (never managed to make it to the end of the tower, i.e. the "penthouse floors", with a Hunter actually in my party)--

...but the hunter's final Bow is crazy ridiculously powerful. i won't even bother posting its numbers but the thing is, i think, at least twice as good as the golden axe for example, except it's a l-range 2-h bow so it can't reach the same number of swings-per-attack as other shit can.

but what makes it so ridiculous is it comes stock with 2x versus every enemy type and good resistances to the more annoying Ailments as well as also an insanely high % of inflicting its own ailments (forget which ones it comes stock with).

it is truly a thing of beaty. probably reason enough to actually, for the first time ever, keep a hunter in my party. just to use the last two bows for hunters. it's a real shame for such good weapons to go unused

EDIT: funny story...

i once modded Bows to be a different "type" of weapon so the game wouldn't read them as bows but as 2-h melee weapons in order to be able to reach 14 swings-per-attack but...

i then ran into a pack of Stargazers, and of course my mod also affected their Silver Bows. LOL, oh the massacre man. it was fucking insane. i immediately reverted them back to normal.

 

[Haplo]

I wouldn't treat Flame Heresy as anything but a backup weapon for the Samurai to reach the back row.
It basically provides less then 1 hand damage of a good katana/sword. My Samurai with Muramasa + Full Body Swing does more then twice the damage he deals with Flame Heresy.
Bows really suck in this game.

 

[Dorarnae]

I wouldn't treat Flame Heresy as anything but a backup weapon for the Samurai to reach the back row.
It basically provides less then 1 hand damage of a good katana/sword. My Samurai with Muramasa + Full Body Swing does more then twice the damage he deals with Flame Heresy.
Bows really suck in this game.

wasn't there a bow that had like 10-100 dmg? I thought it was pretty good but never really tried it, haven't tried much the hunter in gothic. but in other elminage bows are pretty good.

 

[BlackGoat]

wasn't there a bow that had like 10-100 dmg? I thought it was pretty good but never really tried it, haven't tried much the hunter in gothic. but in other elminage bows are pretty good.

Garndiva. It just dropped. Should I turn my innocent Fighter into a Hunter?

 

[Haplo]

Only if you don't want to use the Golden Axe with 21-120 damage, +2 Attacks, +4 Hit, -3 AC, boosted by the Fighter's highest Physical Attack ++ mastery, by far highest between all class damage bonuses.

Although if you use alot of aoe status affliction spells, you may get a lot of mileage from Hunter's Machine Gun Pursuit. And the Lightning Strikes can also be very useful to preemptively strike and hopefully eliminate/disable some tricky priority targets.

 

[aweigh]

 

[an Administrator]

So i got this "Demon Spear" on my Alchemist's inventory. She can't equip it because it can be only equipped by Samurai, Fighter and Valk. But i can select it and use it from the inventory and my character can hit enemies with the spear. How does it work?!

 

[aweigh]

huh-wha?

is that the one that can cast "Elnam" when used as an item during battle? also, if i remember correctly, that spear also does 2x versus devil-types, correct? Please elaborate on what you mean though?

remember, the only thing that CANNOT be removed via enchantment is the Class-restriction. If you're saying your Alc can somehow equip the Demon's Spear normally... then i dunno man. Glitch! Shouldn't be possible.

if he can use it in battle as an item in order to cast Elnam then that's 100% normal.

 

[an Administrator]

Well nothing on the screen says that it casts Elnam. But judging by the damage bonus against Devils and the fact that the spear breaks after a few usage then yeah you are right.

 

[aweigh]

btw, other than the 2x versus Devil-types (EXTREMELY USEFUL in the "story dungeons": Igdra Underground Church; Ulmik Zir Hall; Inner Sanctum, and of course the devil-infested Cave of the Ancients dungeon and Ibag's Tower, but obviously by the time you reach, hell, even the Inner Sanctum you'll have long, long ago forgotten about that spear) -- right, so other than that modifier that spear is not that great.

The one you get as a Quest Reward, the spear "Killer", has +3 extra points of "Accuracy" (can't stress enough how important having a good Accuracy modifier is throughout the entire game), and it deals about the same damage.

I personally roll with Killer instead of that one for the (for that beginning portion of the game) amazing +4 Accuracy modifier on the weapon. Both Killer, Ice Devil's Spear and Demon Spear (the 3 spears you likely have available to you right now) are all only 1 swing-per-attack, and all 3 of them do comparatively the same damage to enemies.

Sure, keep it around for using it to cast Elnam (very underrated direct-damage spell, and if the person using the item or casting the spell has a high Holy Attack % bonus then it will annihilated devils/undead/ghosts-type enemies).

Oh, and yes, Elemental/Attribute %'s, i.e. Attack ones, (such as Holy Attack %, or whatever), do absolutely affect spells that occur from using an item in battle! The game doesn't use special shit for this stuff: that Demon Spear literally has the game call the Elnam spell code, and the resulting spell is 100% identical in every single way to the spell cast by someone, including it receiving a bonus from %'s.

Yes, this also means a char that has high Holy Attack % will heal more Hit Points when using healing items/herbs, and a Bard with a high Dark Attack % will wreak instant-death havoc when using Fissure Drums (argeiss spell).

A magic map, for example, simply casts dumapic, etc, etc.

I recommend spending 1 hour or so mining Ore inside the Ice Cave when you reach it (Diomante yourself right back into the same floor of the cave and the Ore spots re-spawn themselves). Some ore tips:

- Millstones are completely useless if less than 10 points. If you get one less than 10 points drop it. (10 points and onwards is good for removing curses from items; the other use for a Millstone is to increase the Status Recovery Rate).

...the true point of Millstones only reveals itself when you reach the dungeon "Soldier of the Giant God" and its +1 Ore mining spots. The third and final thing Millstones are good for (and best used for) is for enchanting DOUBLE DAMAGE on weapons.

- Sensolites are only good for when you want to increase a Special Attack % or Special Resistance % (i.e. Sleep, Poison, etc); and for boosting Atk/Def %'s of the "Elemental" attributes.

- Vectoriums are very nice, but they are only good for increasing AC on armor pieces or for increasing damage on a weapon.

- The best Ores are: Devil Iron and Elvish Iron.

...1 of those (can't remember which of the two) covers everything EXCEPT double-damage enchantments, and the other one covers everything EXCEPT special attack / special attack resistances. Basically they swap double damage in 1 of them for having the special atk stuff in the other one. However BOTH can release Curses, BOTH can enchant Inf. Range, and BOTH can remove the gender and racial limits on weapons and armor.

Rememeber that the classes gain +1 swing-per-attack like so:

Ninja, Samurai, Lord, Valkyrie, Fighter, Brawler and Hunters gain +1 swing-per-attack every 5 levels.

Thieves, Herbalists, Bards, and Shamans gain +1 swing-per-attack every 10 levels.

Clerics gain +1 swing-per-attack every 15 levels.

Bishops, Alchemists, Mages and Summoners never gain an extra swing-per-attack naturally.

I mention this because if you're rolling with "intermediate classes" in your party (i.e. Herbalists, Thieves, Shamans, etc), instead of giving the uber-weapon with +4 swings-per-attack to your Samurai, instead give it your Shaman, who will need those extra swings much more; then just give your Samurai a not-so-uber weapon and rest assured his higher Swings will more than make up any difference.

Also, finally: the Phys ATK UP and Phys ATK UP+ abilities (learned by every class except mages, alchemists, and summoners) -- this ability's % bonus affects both the character's "to-Hit" roll when attacking, AND it also boosts/affects the DAMAGE done if the attack(s) hit.

BTW, the Magic (any of them) ATK UP and Magic ATK UP+ abilities function identically, except they affect chance-to-land ailments, and they affect damage dealt. (and also amount of hit points cured, chances-of-not-turning-into-ashes, etc).

Also remember that a weapon you have equipped in your OFF-HAND will operate under a hard cap of 50% of the weapon/char's potential abilities. Always make sure to have the "best" weapon in the main-hand.

Example: having a weapon with multiple swings-per-attack (say, 3 or 4 and onwards) in the off-hand is a complete waste because it cuts those swings down by half. Same with that off-hand weapon's Accuracy modifier.

NOTE: of course the actual DAMAGE SPREAD is untouched! only the acc/swings modifier is cut by half when in off-hand. the damage will be lower, obv, because of that, but the actual DMG spread of the weapon is not touched.

 

[Exbelion]

Blue gale is one of the best spears for valkyries, but you have to defeat Eternal Puppy to get it, but only until you reach 18F and fall through a chute all the way to 2F. Which means you wont be using that spear for too long

 

[Haplo]

True. But it's quite nuts nonetheless.
Plus if I would like to play with some high level summons (say, Stargazers), I would need to grind 50+ levels anyway before having any chance to capture one (currently my summoner is level 120+).

 

[Haplo]

I meant to write that the Blue Gale would get to see plenty of use

 

[janior]

Finally started(for realz this time)

 

[an Administrator]

Nice framerate

 

[aweigh]

yah PC ver. of E: Gothic doesn't have any sort of built-in frame cap, so if you play with v-sync off (as everyone should, always, any game) your FPS can reach like 500+.

And it may be a "mind thing" but I remember playing the game with the FPS capped at 75 (i.e. my display refresh rate; using dxtory to cap it) and I distinctly remember the game feeling much faster than at 60fps.

though in a game like this, graphically/animatically speaking, that's really nothing worth much, heh.

3ds version is capped at 60 fps but only during battles. inside dungeons it's 30fps. (for anyone curious).

just janior pretty pretty please.

my man, please feel free to blog-post your playthrough as much as you want right here, i love vicariously playing through this game through newcomers to it.

 

[aweigh]

I know, i keep saying how how i've clocked (by now) 1k plus hours of elminage gothic... and yet it is only now on this current playthrough that i have ever bothered to do the quest inside Ulzir Hall Mansion where the reward is an L-range, any class, any race weapon that is sub-type; not only that i also went and did for the very first time ever the un-marked quest of learning the language of the future inside the mansion.

I've read that if you seek out the future-language pages inside the inner Sanctum dungeon after doing that in the Mansion dungeon it says you receive a message from the future: this was supposed to be the "next generation" code the player would enter in future versions of the game, or in the sequel.

Sadly...

1. translation team never got around to properly translating the message(s). probably due to lack of documentation.
2. thus in the eng. language ver. of elmi: Gothic (i.e. the PC version) that unmarked quest goes nowhere.

At least in elminage original they managed to properly translate the next generation code message (which can be used in elminage 2; the code works in both DS/PSP versions). it gives you 1x Power Medal and unlocks all classes for choosing regardless of bonus point roll.

- in elmi: original said msg. from the future is found by playing the post-game dungeon then going back to the dragon's fang's top floor.

Another quest i've never bothered doing (which i'm planning on doing on this final playthrough) is getting the staff of transformation in cave of the ancients. Hell, if Courtier hadn't mentioned the existence of this thing I don't think I'd ever even know it exists.

Not related to any of that but, in current 3ds playthrough, i edited the spells to make all of them do more damage, and tripled the damage done by enterook mista. Right now if an enemy casts enterook mista it's a possible party wipe for my party; with the only safety net being i have 1 character who is a Magic Doll and they have natural 50% resistance, so it has already been the case that he's the only survivor.

Really puts the fear of fucking god into me knowing I can get wiped by 1 enterook mista from the enemy so if i know that they can cast that it makes the fight much more intense.

(All told, the damage is basically back up to where it was in elminage: original, a bit higher. In E: Original, in dragon's fang / post-game dungeon, Vampire Lords will wipe out your party with 1 enterook mista or two. I wanted to have that feeling again).

Also QUADRUPLED the Elnam damage and since most devil/undead/ghost enemies can cast it I am constantly getting fucked with that spell. Have needed to smith holy resistance on everybody.

Obviously this means my own party's Elnam/Mista also do that kind of dmg but it's not the same: player fights millions of enemies so the danger far, far outweighs any possible benefit for the player.

 

[BlackGoat]

Is Elminage as a series dead now? Is Gothic going forward? Is regular going forward? What are these folks up to

 

[Exbelion]

I cant wait to see a sixth elminage game, looks like i am one of the few elminage fans who enjoyed Elminage Ibun since I love japanese mythology :D

 

[pippin]

Nice framerate

just halfway into greatness

 

[aweigh]

Exbelion

i've recently been (slowly) playing thru E: Ibun using a few wiki/dungeon capture websites I googled and... well, the game isn't bad. It's fucking Elminage, i mean, of course it has good game play.

It's simply that it's an Elminage game with the same ingredients that make them so amazing except this time, for this game, they decided to use HALF the ingredients. get my drift?

i no longer think Ibun is "unplayable"; it plays just fine, and plays exactly like any other Wiz-clone for that matter. It's just makes me sad that Starfish had to waste time/resources in making this cash-grab game to stay afloat.

(from what I read Ibun has sold very very well... probably on par with Gothic, probably less units, but their top seller is still E: Original).

i wish i could find exact sales figures. speaking of: steam has Gothic reg. price right now @ 3.99 USD.