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 Rank E is yet another stepping stone on the path to greatness.  The first battle is against cats.  As you might imagine, they aren't very threatening.  Alright, next!  Also, yes, I have Jessica in the lead.  Round 2's opponents are as dangerous as their AI lets them be. Do they fling special moves a lot? prepare to lose a lot of health.  Well, Swoosh isn't that dangerous to be honest. Hackzilla and Snap Case resist it anyway.   And Snap Case is immune to instant death. But points for drying.   Enemies only united in knowing dance moves. In practice only the tap devil uses the  Oh gently caress me.  ...     Enemies only united in knowing dance moves. In practice only the tap devil uses dangerous ones.  Underpants Dance is a shocking move that's more likely than War Cry. I think. It's the upgrade to War Cry in Yangus's Humanity skills, anyway.  The Volpone has dances but it mostly has Boom. As the monster arena is bullshit sometimes, it's the last thing your monsters will attack.  Most monsters don't even have MP so the magic marionette isn't a big deal.  Once the tap devil falls it'll stop loving with your action economy/livingness, and unless you're about empty on HP you have the fight in the bag.  The Volpone getting targeted last though means it could Boom away a lot of HP, but Memento Morrie gets out okay.   A fair defense increase with a massive boost to Fuddle resistance.  "Bimba" as far as I can tell literally means"baby". Given the way he pronounces it, he's using it in the "hey there, baby" sense. He's hitting on Jessica.  It wouldn't be Morrie without really, really unfortunate wording, would it?  "What GUSTO! Now I give to you the prize."  Doesn't matter who's in lead, Eight gets the skill. Still, it's a useful toy. A good monster team is one that can take and deal out damage, and sometimes that might be helpful in a fight.   "He's roped me in, an' all! Mind you, I reckon I could give 'im a run for 'is money when it comes to a monstrous pit! Hah hah!"   "I'm half his age and twice as good looking! Where's the justice?"  "I still can't figure out that Morrie guy, though! What a character." I take up a little adventurin' to the west of the Swordsman's Labyrinth because I read the directions on how to get a swell monster wrong.  Since it's at the dead of night, I encounter an enemy I haven't before. Isn't this exciting? I'm excited.  It isn't this witch, though I'll beat her up anyway.  Jessica learns Oomph at level 19. It doubles the damage of physical skills for three turns. It's really strong, but has quite a few caveats. First, that's damage, so only the hit after defense and resistance are done with it gets doubled. Second, it only applies to the first hit of attacks that hit more than once. Angelo and Eight are all about attacks that hit more than once. Still, Yangus loves it, and if Eight can Dragon Slash it then Oomph will make it crazier, and maybe I'll just pump Cherub's Arrow with it to be sassy.  The Femme Fatale is a fine example of how AI control can make monsters godawful in the arena.  She can boost her tension. A lot. This happened in one round.  She has terrible attack and can wase the tension outright with Puff-puff. Sure she has a mean Swoosh but what does it matter when the chances of her psyching up then Swooshing are too low?  And thus she is not very good for arena combat.  So first I find this chest is locked.  And then I read that it's west of the mountain range, and that's a part of the continent I cannot access.  So, whatever, let's just get rank D over with. Memento Morrie is good enough as it is.  D is one of the harder ranks, especially this early, as one of the best monsters around is unlocked by clearing rank D. In fact, that monster is the entire reason I'm stopping at rank D for the moment.  They all have night in there name. Geddit?   So uh fuddle is the game's confusion status effect. Normally it's cleared like sleep by getting smacked in the face.  Here's Potbelly getting hit by it. He then never gets smacked in the face.  Oh goddammit potbelly  ...   This time it misses. You don't get to gate robots behind this rank and have the first fight demand status resistances!  Geddit because they're all corpses and this lady is kind of macabre.  Another reason I have to wait to get to C rank and beyond is that this is already the border of what my monsters can handle.  In fact, they get Hackzilla before the final round.  A thing about monsters that take more than one turn is that stat chanegs last by turn, so they wear off faster.   Luckily, the AI is really dumb about psyching up. One stage is a 70% boost, and you break even on two. Only with three psych-ups do you get ahead compared to just hittng multiple times.  The other thing is that brownies waste a ton of turns failing to connect and have rather low attack.  That's before Potbelly's sand actually hits for once.  Unfortunately the Brownies can also use desperate attacks, and Potbelly can't last forever.  It seems like we're in trouble, but...  1 HP is still more than zero!  And he gets a hit in on the Hood!  It's 1 on 1 now!  Unfortunately for the Hood, Snap Case can act more than once and is pretty good at dodging.  And that's rank D!  +15 attack, ingredient in several high-end recipies, mighty armlets are more valuable than they seem.  "You become the incredibile monster team owner already! What can I say!? Soon maybe I be running out of prizes! But not yet! "  Extra reserve space is always handy. "As they say, variety is the life of spices! I wish you the buona fortuna for your next fight, ay, ragazzo!" Well, like I said, my goal was to clear rank D to unlock a certain monster, but we can't actually reach the spot where it stands. So, instead, it's time to actually progress the story.  It's time to go home.
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| ← # ? Apr 15, 2015 22:40 |
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