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Torrannor posted:We'll see how difficult the game will be. The early part wasn't that difficult in the original either. But of course, one change that's generally been received quite well might be a big culprit. I did die to the FMH when I first started the game. If you're not diligent with healing and have a bit of misfortune, he can easily kill party members with his unavoidable attacks (edit: especially his poison, which you might not have a healing item for if you're new to the game). But now you can evade those, which for any halfway competent gamer will make the game much easier. I wonder if there will be any unavoidable FSTs/spells left. Will Eruption Sword, Suzaku Sky Dance, or Split Image Slice still wipe an unprepared party? What about Ancient, Double Spell or Marduk? Can they all be avoided? Will enemy werewolves and ninjas no longer be the big party killers? Being able to avoid anything has made the demo much easier then the original, yeah. I kicked the difficult up to Hard once I realized how good the dodge roll was and I think I used one candy through the entirety of the demo from that point on (to heal an AI Duran who wound up eating too many Goblin axes to the face in an encounter towards the end of the Caverns with four of them.) I think the only time either character got hit during Full Metal Haggar is the first time it used the jump attack. It looks like they're going the route where almost all attacks are intended to be avoidable somehow, which is good since the absolute worst part of SD3 is the back-half of the game involving frequent sudden death due to groups of enemies using unavoidable full-screen attacks back to back (often as a counter for you doing something like your own full-screens or casting magic- unfortunate SNES-era Square design of discouraging you from using your fun toys.)
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Mar 22, 2020 21:05
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Sapozhnik posted:I suppose resource pressure in the remake could involve rapidly switching to whatever ally is currently getting piled on so that the AI-controlled party members don't take too much damage. I did a second run-through on the PC with that strategy and that kept things suitably engaging. I also don't think I used so much as a single healing item though. Then again, in the original the regular enemies started to hit like trucks toward the end of the game, so it'll probably still work out fine in the end. So far the answer to that seems to be to use your knockback attack, since enemies you hit with it are also knocked down. For a WHILE. I wound up abusing Angela's a lot since it comes out really fast. basically letting you handle whatever you want. I'm guessing more enemies later in the game will resist/be immune to it, because for the duration of the demo the knockback combo was basically the nuclear option to cheesing fights.
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Mar 22, 2020 23:07
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Phantasium posted:The same team put co-op in the Secret of Mana remake, I imagine they could add it, but iirc they thought because it wasn't a top down view anymore it wouldn't work as well? Yeah, they'd have to either add a split-screen option, change how the camera works in battle, or make multiplayer ad-hoc/online only. The first would CRUSH the Switch version with it's current problems, I don't know how much battle is designed around the current camera to know if the second is feasible, and the third would probably be pretty unpopular since 'the original was local multiplayer.'
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Mar 25, 2020 14:55
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:Hard is a good difficulty. Most normal trash mob fights are easy enough, but once in a while you get a fight with like 5-7 enemies and poo poo gets really crazy. There’s one in Fiery Gorge right before the end with like three knights and two ninjas and a couple other enemies that was insanely hard. And then the bosses have all been challenging in different ways and most of them have been fair. Genova was total chaos by the end and I barely survived. Same with Grapplevine or whatever, that dude hosed me up. Poison bubble is no joke. In his second face he is relentless and barely gives you time to attack. I’m like 3-4 levels ahead of these bosses and still getting wrecked, it owns. Hard's been a good fit so far, yeah. Only fight so far I've felt like was complete horseshit was the triple Machine Golem fight, due to your AI compatriots just not being able to handle that many AoE markers flying around dealing 2 to 3-shot damage. I eventually just emptied Angela's MP to burn down one of them then let her stay dead while I cleaned up the fight with Duran and Hawkeye and I still emptied my entire fight's allotment of Cup of Wishes and Chocolate. (I was also like three levels below them so that probably didn't help.) That said, later fights ABSOLUTELY expect you to be holding on to your Class Strikes mid-fight for mechanics, which can be annoying until you get used to it, but then you remember the original's way of handling Class Strikes was about 1/3 of the way through the game to start having most bosses and even dangerous common enemies to punch you in the dick with fullscreen counters for even thinking about touching them, so I much prefer the remake's approach to their use.
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Apr 27, 2020 04:07
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Fister Roboto posted:Just finished the post-credits dungeon. God drat, Angela is a beast. I know Duran and Kevin are supposed to be the other two heavy dps characters, but I don't see how they can even compare to Lucent Beam+ spam. They can't. But they can still contribute to DPS in a superior way. By being Dark/Dark Angela's blood sacrifice. (Wound Magic All powering Ancient Curse is where all reason gets replaced with mad laughter)
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Apr 28, 2020 07:45
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Bruceski posted:By the way, when the King of Valcenia tella Angela "so the True Queen had a daughter this whole time..." does that ever get expanded on? I didn't notice anything. The heavy implication is that Angela is the daughter of the True Queen and the Hero King. I don't think the game ever directly spells it out though but it alludes to it a couple times (Which is weird because in most other ways the game's pretty ham-fisted about every other twist-shaped plot point almost immediately, with only the Darkshine Knight being handled with any kind of tact.).
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Apr 28, 2020 19:10
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Ferrinus posted:I actually remember the opposite - I think leveling was a bit slower in the original than in the remake, and I seem to remember farming for ??? seeds in the mirage jungle or equivalent post-godbeast areas. Like, the first SNES God-Beast is level 28 and then each one after that is +2 levels, which means that if you're merely keeping on pace with their levels (which I recall having to grind to do - I'd make a point of gaining two levels in each pre-God-Beast zone) which means you're only even getting 38 like four or five God-Beasts in, and the ??? seeds felt like they only started dropping regularly after that point. Leveling was quite a bit slower in the original, yes. You usually wouldn't hit first class change until whichever of the Fire or Ice Crystals you hit first (without grinding you'd hit 18 somewhere on either the Ghost Ship or the Island) and you likely wouldn't hit level 38 until sometime late in the Benevodon run or even early into the unique penultimate dungeons. In the remake I easily had 18 from beating the boss of Gusthall, and had 38 before ever starting the Benevodon chapter. Which is cool, because it's fun to be able to get to play with your toys and it was almost pointless to build yourself getting 3rd classe since you'd have them for pretty much JUST the last two dungeons. (Mostly a factor for Hawkeye and Angela, since they both had stinkers in their 2nd classes in the original.)
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May 3, 2020 01:04
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Yeah, I can't imagine it's too dissimilar from running it with Dark Angela/Light Duran/Dark Hawkeye like my first playthrough, just replacing Lucent Beam+ for Dark Force for Phase 1 and Ancient Curse for Phase 2. Blow up the crystals with four quick casts (3 if your AI buddies behave and tackle a crystal together) then turn on Anise and start chunking, and once phase 2 starts just throw out some casts after dodging her waves of attacks while having Hawk get the Defense Debuff out. If you can coax Duran into locking Anise into place for the end of Phase 1 with Magic Rend, great, but it's hardly necessary depending on your damage. I dunno if the spread of damage on Lucent Beam + is enough to keep up with the extra damage Dark/Dark/Dark Angela gets with Wound Magic All/II (I got about a minute even on my last run with a party in the mid 70s with Angela and Hawkeye having their class 4 weapons) but two minutes should be easily doable.
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May 3, 2020 07:33
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Arkeus posted:What skills do you have on Angela? The 0MP skill from black rabbit usually mean you can get the light 'at full MP' bonus to damage, Angela's Light style should have her critting all the time, and with weakness skills + judge + crit damage (language from crit damage is weird but it should increase the damage of your own crits) you can scale light side Angela fairly high too. Yeah, I'm curious myself- can Angela on that team be gotten to the point where she can one-shot the elemental crystals? My Angela was only like 76 or so (She did have her 4th weapon) but with all the buffs Dark/Dark Angela can slather on herself he was hitting the Elemental Crystals for around 5k with T2 Weaknesses, and Anise herself was taking 1300-1500 per hit from Dark Force, which hits 3 times. Phase 2 sounds fine-ish (Ancient Curse was killing phase 2 in about six or seven casts but it's also slower to cast then Lucent Beam+) but between the crystals and Anise herself being basically the worst possible target for Lucent+ spam (one target, mobile, no elemental weakness) Phase 1 sounds like it needs a tune-up. I dunno how much damage Lucent+ does compared to the other T2 Elemental spells to know if one that hits easier like Explode or Earthquake might not be better for that part in particular. Could also just be time to try to fish for a lucky single-target Class Skill, since those lock the opponent into place, but I think D/D Duran and L/D Kevin... don't have a ton of those.
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May 3, 2020 11:18
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Harrow posted:Any advice for how to spend my stat points on Angela? I'm level 20 now and just changed to her first light class and I have no idea what's actually worth targeting right now. I'd probably max Int, Spirit, Str in that order- Int gets you Elemental Combo as well as the enhanced Evil Gate and Glacial Spike, then Spirit nets you Lucent Beam and MP Saver, then Strength has Reclaim II and Explosion, which along with Thunderstorm is probably the most 'generically useful' unenhanced level 2 Spell barring the one you don't get.
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May 3, 2020 19:51
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Arkeus posted:Control Duran, use L/D buffs/Debuffs of the other characters. For the second phase use a light claw. I'd probably control Hawkeye instead in this scenario- L/D/L Duran lacks a lot of ways to pump up his personal damage, so using Hawk's various elemental exploits is probably the fastest way to stack damage. Weak Point II/III, throw Light Saber on him via claw and land your stat ups/downs and keep going. Equip Ninja CS Boost/II if you've got 'em, and alternate between spamming Dirt Diversion for 12% CS gain per cast while staying safe from her spamcasts, and laying into Anise with melee attacks and try to land your lv 2 or 4 CS as often as possible (I'm not sure which will deal more damage overall with the layered buffs but I suspect you'll probably get more out of the level 2. Experiment, I guess.) orcane posted:Still don't have Angela's dark class 4 coat after like 50 rainbow seeds I had L/D Duran in the run where I had D/D/D Angela and he did a great job of mitigating the damage spam, even unattended MOST of the time. If you don't have someone with MT Cure Light, Dark Angela all-in teams would probably really, really appreciate carrying as many Poto Oils as you can and otherwise just keeping a stock of cure items on hand. Mr. Locke fucked around with this message at 23:59 on May 3, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 23:56
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Yeah, I didn't have a problem of the design of Anise's Stockade, but it needed some boss fights to top off each area instead of it just being endless mooks for about 45 minutes then the end boss. The fact that by the time you unlock Class 4 the only things left to hit with it are your story boss (which is comically outclassed at this point) and Anise... well, kinda calls back to how underwhelming 3rd Classes were in the original release, except this time you can't just get your grind on if you want to cheat the curve and get them earlier then the game thinks you should have them. So, I guess same rules for original SD3 apply to ToM Remake- Don't plan your builds around Class 4 because the amount of time you are going to have them is utterly insignificant compared to how long you'll spend in 2nd and 3rd classes. Also, it's an awful shame how after this game has done a lot to rehabilitate SD3's 'bad' classes like Light Duran and Dark Angela, Light and Light/Light Hawkeye are still hot garbage. At least Rogue's good now!
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May 4, 2020 06:09
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The Happy Hyperbole posted:I'm thinking of starting my second run, but not sure how I wanna build Hawkeye for it. I am going to use Riesz, so the conventional wisdom is to have him go dark while she goes light for both buffs and debuffs. But, I was going to use Kevin for my third, and between his and Hawkeye's passives it would be pretty trivial to get attack and defense down without an actual debuffing class. So, it comes down to which classes would be more fun. Which gets to my point... Rogue is pretty much Pure Caster Hawkeye. He's not going to be doing much besides spamming Grumpkin, Rocket Launcher, Silver Dart or Hurlbat at enemies (let's be fair, about 75% of that will be Grumpkin) but he's shockingly good at those things. Hawk's already probably more of a caster then Charlotte is in the Trials Remake, but Rogue's spells are pretty comparable to Angela in terms of raw damage, while being a sturdier, more combat-capable chassis. He just, y'know, lacks some of the complete absurdism that Anglea can get to with... well, most of her builds since he lacks Light Angela's spell diversity and MP conversation or Dark/Dark Angela's absolutely absurd damage multipliers. (And, er, Rune Master exists. It's a thing too. It's... fine. It's still an Angela build, so it can't be bad, buuuuuutttt....) Ninja Master is a little less of a raw caster, but the ability to apply instant debuffs across the entire enemy spawns while generating CS while doing so gives him a kind of Debuff -> CS -> Dirt Diversion or Melee Attack play pattern in normal fights. He's a much better support character then L/D Hawkeye (which is decidedly NOT a support build) but less stable then Rogue as a main DPS (though definitely not a slouch at it.) It's a great pick regardless of team, only really having overlap with specifically Dark/Dark Reize.
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May 4, 2020 06:21
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Phantasium posted:So I'm still in my first playthrough, and it's taking a bit because of lack of time, but also because I did something stupid like see if I could get the no damage bonus on every boss. And well it's going pretty well and has actually been a pretty fun little challenge. ... I wish you all the luck in the world with Zable Fahr, I really do.
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May 4, 2020 06:47
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Oo Koo posted:One thing I'm really conflicted about is how there's way too many passive damage boost abilities with really easy conditionals. It works fine on the first play through when your ability menu isn't filled with npc and inherited endgame character chain abilities and it's possible to stack +damage and still leave room for secodary gimmick abilities. But on my new game+ playthrough both my Hawkeye and Edelfrei Duran just ignored all of their character gimmicks completely and my ability setup for both of them ended up as one mp and cs generator, broken lines for def down, the party wide attack boosts and the rest just all in on stacked +25-40% damage/crit chance/crit damage abilities. To be fair, all of that is largely a NG+ problem. In a normal game, the system works out pretty good and adds a real element to team building, trying to figure out the best ways to earn and stack abilities across characters. NG+ ability stacking gets silly but I'm not gonna hold the fact that by the time you get to your final playthrough you only have so many arms to hold ALL THESE GUNS that just exist to go even further beyond. You're not going to have MP 0 or 200% CS at fight start for any significant part of Playthrough 1 to be fretting space for them in the middle of an 6 DPS modifier pileup. If there's any post-release support for Trials (like, any at all) maybe they'll add a new difficulty intended to be played through with NG+ abilities, but even then it'd be pretty hard to balance that with any kind of reasonable success since poo poo like Unlimited Tier 3 Elemental Spells regardless of party and 300% Experience exist and would break any curve not built specifically around them.
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May 5, 2020 06:01
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I find the best way to get party members to actually contribute in moments where you need everyone punching stuff is to unshackle the AI's need to care about MP. I dunno what it is, but if the AI is asked to conserve even 25% of MP it will cast two spells in a fight in their own, maybe. But set that sucker to zero and suddenly Dark Charlotte starts raising enough undead to start a horror franchise while Hawkeye isn't satisfied until EVERYONE is on fire. Stock Walnuts, but late game that's a small price to pay to get your AI to actually contribute. Ironically this actually makes Duran and Kevin probably the actual worst teammates in the game when not in your control instead of the best like the original, since as far as I know there's no way to get the AI to actually go hit things with their sticks any more often then the leisurely poke all AI occasionally swing at things.
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May 6, 2020 21:47
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Blackbelt Bobman posted:I got my guys to lv 99 and Black Rabite was still a pain in the rear end, great boss would fight again. Almost certainly it'd be Team No DPS- Light/Dark Duran, Light/Dark Rieze, and Light/Light Charlotte. At least Nomad Hawkeye and Duelist Duran can hit stuff ok, and Vandis Rieze's summon is a fair shot better then Star Lancer's. (I am... less and less enarmored with Star Lancer as it proves to be pretty drat useless outside being buff spells on a stick. Certainty wouldn't find it worth taking to enhance Liege Duran and High Cleric Charlotte.)
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May 7, 2020 03:03
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Heithinn Grasida posted:That wouldn’t be that bad, I don’t think. Nomad and Vanadys aren’t nearly as bad as some people say. Duelist is completely inferior to Edelfrei on paper (rage and wound might be better in practice than I’m giving them credit for) but will still be able to hit 5 different elemental weaknesses with very high melee damage. Both Freya and Seraph are base 458, but I'd much rather get small then silence as a secondary effect. As far as I can tell, the only stronger one is Jorm on Dark/Light at 525. (Though further backed by Dark classes getting CS for summons.) Star Lancer is probably fine. Just, y'know, fine. I don't think team buff/debuffs are nearly as important as they were in the original because you get plenty of ways to boost damage out of skills, and the increase on the action elements in the combat system makes damage WAY more avoidable, making stat up/downs less important then they were in the original. And money is more plentiful and getting every weapon/armor upgrade less important, making the Night Market even more exploitable then it already was. I think that Reize as a character a whole suffers because a lot of her worth, especially on her Light Classes, are tied to the value of her buffs. What made her probably the best character after Kevin in the original is just a lot less important in the update. Blackbelt Bobman posted:Wouldn’t Paladin Duran be more redundant due to Holy Saber? Also I thought Paladin had higher defense but lower attack then Liege? Or does Liege trade those for group healing? My Liege Duran has less STR at class 4 then Rogue Hawkeye at class 4 which is kinda sad tbh. His Spirit also ended up being not that much higher either. drat Liege kinda sucks. And the drat AI wasn’t healing when I needed heals during the optional bosses. Paladin gets 1) A large area Class Strike that hits drat hard, 2) Guard, which lets Duran take damage for his allies when they get hit, and 3) Damage CS Boost III, which lets Duran gain 7% CS every time they take damage and stacks with Damage CS Boost I from base Duran. On average, Paladin is going to get to do a LOT more class strikes and generally hit harder with them then Liege is. On the flip side, Single-Target CS abilities have actual utility in this game (they're the only Class Strikes that stop enemy action/animation, letting others unload on the stopped target) and Magic Rend from Liege is a GIGANTIC window to beat on stuff, but Light Duran already gets a ST Class Strike at Knight, so it's not exactly unique. Mr. Locke fucked around with this message at 04:16 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 04:04
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Heithinn Grasida posted:Does small still stop enemies from giving experience? I just assumed it still does without checking. That I honestly don't know. EponymousMrYar posted:They're not simply because all of the big unavoidable attacks in the original are now mostly avoidable. Yeah. Rieze was REALLY important in original SD3 because she was a massive boost to your survivability in a game that could just unavoidably truck your entire party out of nowhere in even random fights. In Trials Remake, her better utility is her damage boosting effects, and while it's nice most characters still get a lot from equipping damage-enhancing or CS-generating skills, and even hard-to-avoid attacks rarely hit you the same way they did in original SD3 barring failing the mechanics-generating attacks on later bosses. It would probably be better if Light Rieze had ANY personal offensive utility besides her summons, but Star Lancer is limited entirely to Victory CS Boost I, a lousy 5% on enemy kill, while Vandis only adds in her own version of Damage CS Boost III... on a much frailer character then Paladin Duran with no mechanic to exploit it like Guard for Duran. Albut at least she can give herself a full stack of buffs for free when performing any CS, so that's something? (Although Oracle is much better gifted to another character who actually generates CS. Like aaaanyone else. Anyone at all. Except maybe Angela.) Mr. Locke fucked around with this message at 04:36 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 04:34
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Oo Koo posted:Yes you can, just slot a good stagger resistance ability and stack magic defense abilities and you can wade right through anything except ton annihilation while charging ancient curse and chow down on chocolate afterwards while she gets wrecked by meteors. Angela is pretty great at facetanking magic damage if specifically specced for it. If you're Dark/Dark Angela just use Dark Force on her instead. It's pretty instant-cast and will still chunk her for significant portions of her life because Dark Force is largely a Tier 3 spell hiding in a Tier 2 body. Just rejigger your skill setup going in, because you're losing Wound Magic All's potent boost for this fight so your damage is going to be less stratospheric then you're used to. And yeah, Dark Angela also gets Magic Armor/II, Spell Resistance, as well as having pretty ok Spirit, albut not as much as she'd have in a class that actually encourages her to invest in Spirit past 9 points) which all makes her pretty solid at just powering through the fight if you need to- the OP of this line was going for a no-hit run which is harder since AI Angela has player Anglea's spell timings and not nearly as much warning as most enemies give with the same cast. And as noted before, they aren't consistent across spells (which is why Thunderbolt and Dark Force are such potent T2 spells in their base form compared to any of the others- they animate faster and hit earlier)
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May 9, 2020 20:06
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Taear posted:
Yeah, the coolest beat of the game's plot is that this isn't one evil gang working together but your party getting sucked into a Evil Plot Interstate Pileup and, while I wish there was more done with the climax/fallout of it then just two of the groups giving a minor denouncement then quitting post-Holyland, it's still a nice moment to run across the losers wallowing in their losses while the winner is waiting for you with their usual smug horseshit at the end.
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May 9, 2020 20:22
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Spacebump posted:Were any games in the series worth playing after Legend of Mana? The last one I played before this remake was Sword of Mana which seems to not be well liked. I thought it was ok for the time but nowhere near Legend or SoM. I think time's been kinder to Sword then most folks were at launch, but it's still not a particularly great game. It fells into a lot of the same problems Legend did (Too many long text box exposition dumps, systems more complex then the very basic combat required to engage with) except it's not a super-ambitious unorthodox RPG with graphical and musical style to spare but just a trumped-up remake of Final Fantasy Adventure on the GBA with washed-out pixels due to portable screen concerns and GBA's poor struggling sound capabilities. Basically, if Legend was a game beloved for everything except it's bad core gameplay elements, Sword just lacks the parts that helped everyone else forgive Legend's sins. This is a trend that brings down Children of Mana, which is a dungeon crawler except it uses the Legend of Mana/Sword of Mana style combat which... does not make for a game that has any enduring merits. And then there's Dawn of Mana and Heroes which are both... just kinda bad. Dawn has potential but is held back by a whole lot of hostile design decisions and has the opposite problem of Legend/Sword/Children- the combat is complex and deep and (when it works) has a lot of ways to approach it, but... that's it. The game has nothing past it's exploration and fighting and while there was room to be good there... It's combat is an early physics engine game so it frequently breaks and doesn't work, and then there's the camera which attempts to thwart your progress at every step. It makes exploring extremely frustrating (and it already isn't terribly rewarding due to how character progress works in the game) and leads to a lot of cheap combat deaths in a game where dying can cost you over an hour of progress. Heroes is just a bad game. FFXII: Revenant Wings is a more successful take on the RPG RTS strategy and if that's what you're hankering for, play that instead. The RTS parts are extremely basic and can be completed by anyone who can memorize a small number of Pokemon-style unit-counters-unit matchups and the few times Heroes tries to throw a wrinkle in that it doesn't make it HARD, it just makes it SLOW. SLOW-er, rather, since Slow is the default speed anything in Heroes happens at. Mr. Locke fucked around with this message at 23:10 on May 9, 2020 |
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May 9, 2020 23:07
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Heithinn Grasida posted:I think the combat system really needs an overhaul. The game is just ridiculously easy and in a really bad way. Trials is too easy, but it at least always keeps you engaged. If you're gonna go full Angela carry, you might as well go Dark- Light Angela's selling points over Dark are a less risky playstyle, access to enhanced lv 2 spells, and more MP conservation tools. What you lose is Dark Force and REAL ULTIMATE POWERRRRRRRR and if you're going to build a team around it carrying, Magus Angela is going to look silly. The things you're going to need in a full hard carry Anglea team are sustain, MP recovery, and enemy softening. If it's somebody who has something to gain from what little team support Angela provides, the better. And good news, there's one really easy addition here- Ninja Master Hawkeye. A debuff-spamming menace who benefits from some of Angela's chain abilites way more then she does- particularly Reclaim 1, which can keep Hawkeye choking on MP for his own Ninjitsu spam far better then it keeps anyone else topped on MP due to his multi-hitting heavy attacks. From there, we need sustain, both HP and MP, and hey, there's a guy who does that too- Warrior Monk Kevin. Leaf Saber and Heal Light+ means he can keep refilling your depleting resources. While his own damage doesn't benefit from this team the same way Hawkeye does, he still provides appreciable damage while rounding out your support. Another option is any branch Dark Charlotte over Hawkeye. While you lose a little support, you get another character who can benefit a lot from Leaf Saber to spam respectably powerful spells, but we're here for multiplier stacking, because the right addition to completely trivialize random encounters is Quick Shot II. An additional 30% damage is enough to put Magus Angela firmly into one-shot one-kill range with normal Level 2 spells even without weaknesses on random mobs. Since she has healing covered too, you're free to pick up Dark/Light Duran, who also brings mob control via Provoke as well as Fraction and Flourish to stack on your Angela on top of Leaf Saber. (Don't underestimate how often the game throws packs of mobs that resist each other's weaknesses in the same area, especially by endgame. Fraction can be a large DPS boost on packs of random mobs.) The loss here is that you lose access to Hawkeye's one-stop pack-crippling Ninjitsu, but Dark/Light Duran and Dark/either Charlotte take advantage of each other and this Angela-focused setup more then Hawk/Kevin, even if the synergy isn't quite as clean for Angela herself.
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May 10, 2020 05:13
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John Wick of Dogs posted:I assume the third play through would be a ng+, so they wouldn't need mp recovery at all. They've probably already beat black rabite so they can just equip that ability and all magic costs 0 for her Well, if we're talking full-on NG+ skill stacking, then who cares what you stack with her? Hell, for the first part of the run you're not even going to cast spells, you're gonna keep unleashing Tier 3 spells from the Night Market items you get unlimited uses of. Just max Int and ability to soften mob resistance.
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May 10, 2020 05:31
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Heithinn Grasida posted:No NG+. I want my decisions to actually make a difference. Actually, overpowered DPS casters are something I almost always stay away from in RPGs, but I want to get a sense for myself for class balance in this game and to see whether Angela is as overpowered as everyone says. It's hard to deny that Light class 2 is probably better then Dark class 2 for Angela. They get a bigger initial Int bump, and they get tier 2 magic which more then makes up the difference from Wound Magic. Nothing Dark Angela gets in terms of unique utility keeps up with Elemental Combo and Move MP Saver either. In terms of class 2, Mysticist Angela isn't bad (no Angela is bad) but Sorceress is just loaded. The only real leg up Dark Angela gets is that Dark Force backed with Wound Magic still packs a goddamn PUNCH, and it's AoE size even as a base Tier 2 spell is pretty massive- Dark Force is simply the best base Tier 2 spell barring maybe Thunderstorm just due to it's animation speed and being one fast whack. Then Magus gets Wound Magic All, Spell Resistance, Tier 2 Magic, Ancient Curse, and Magic Armor II and suddenly all fucks are ungiven. Or you could go the other way. I guess Rune Seer exists. It's a thing. I guess it specifically could combo with Nightblade Hawkeye to just drown trash mobs in status effects and Special Effect bonuses but all those cute multiplies and gimmicks evaporate against bosses. Still, the interaction between Cutthroat, 1-Hit CS Boost, and Nightblade's cloud attacks are hilarious- Nightblade is one of the few classes that rivals Angela at murdering random spawns.
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May 10, 2020 08:53
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Hawkeye's honestly right behind Angela, at least in 3 of his 4 classes. Rogue is a caster that targets defense (making him a natural partner to Dark Kevin or Duran) and does more damage.then you'd expect with some very big spells, Ninja Master is a screen-filling debuff machine while so doing appreciable Magic Damage with some potent personal enhancents who also is the best character at refilling his CS meter in boss fights, while Nightblade Hawkeye completely trivializes trash encounters between rapidly multi-hitting AoE status attacks, 10% IK rate per hit, and 30% CS per enemy IK'd while still putting in some work in boss fights due to still having ST debuffs and pretty good damage on his class spells. No character is bad, although some lean harder on their support aspects then others, and support isn't nearly as important in this version of the game then the original. Rieze probably gets slapped with this the hardest because her personal damage is lowest of all characters across all their jobs (although Light/Light Charlotte is the lowest among all individual paths, followed by Light/Dark Duran) but she doesn't do BAD damage, especially in Dragon Master, and her debuffs in particular are damage increases that stack multiplicitivity to the buffs that you can slather on your party.
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May 11, 2020 00:14
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Taear posted:I just don't get this. Melee is superior to casting other than against trash mobs and even then only a few spells. What use is AoE against nearly any boss? A few have extra bits to target but not many. Reisz does good damage and the debuffs go on every enemy, cast effectively instantly, cost barely any mana (so you don't need to worry about running out) and work on bosses too. The problem is damage multipliers from skills. AoE Targeting and skill-based CS generation for the non-Angela casters too, but the big one is just Multipliers. Damage multipliers are just way easier for the caster characters to come across and it does a lot to push their damage past what melee smacking is doing. Angela's the most obvious example, getting several large base damage modifiers as well as the ability to hit every elemental weakness except Wood, but Hawkeye and to a lesser degree Charlotte get more, bigger ways to enhance their casting damage then melee characters (barring specifically Edelfrei Duran, who gets a fairly potent one at a tradeoff) get to enhance their own damage. You're also heavily overselling how long most spells take to cast- Angela/Hawkeye can fire off 3 Spells/Traps/Ninjitsu that aren't Ancient Curse or Dark Rain in the same time Kevin takes to do his full Light Light Light Light Heavy combo. Where melee damage makes up some of the difference is from soaking buffs. Sabers, buffs, debuffs can all help close the gap... but if the time spent setting those up were just spend casting damage spells instead from Angela, Hawkeye, or Dark Charlotte, then normal enemies might already be dead, while even with those buffs the melee punchers can't keep up on bosses that have multiple parts. Also, the answer to what bosses have multiple parts- MOST of them. Full Metal Hugger has two eyes, it's legs, and his main body. Machine Golems I are multiple bosses Jewel Eater has his body and his claws. Harcypete is a single-part boss Zehnoa is also a single-part boss, and most notably, is a boss you are ONLY going to hit on element physically through Poseidon Claws, which is important to weaken this boss specifically. Bil and Ben are multiple bosses. Gova is a single target Machine Golems II are multiple bosses. Bil and Ben round 2 are multiple bosses Beast Ludgar is a single target Grapplavine has body, two legs, a neck, and it's head. Fiegmund is body and head Mispolm's body is made of multiple parts and summons adds Land Umber is body and two hands, although the gimmick means when the hands are up, the body is not available. Dolan is head, two hands, and body. Dangaard is two heads Lightgazer is body and eye Xan Bie is a single target but frequently summons shrines- not a lot of AoE potental here. Zabel Fahr is three heads. Darkshine Knight, Crimson Mage, Tainted Soul, Belladonna are all solo target boss fights. Goremond and Malocchio are one target but summons adds throughout the fight. Dark Lich is multiple torso body parts (at least 2) Archdemon is a body and two hands Mondoragon is a LOT of parts. At minimum, body, tail, all claws, and head. Black Rabbite is.. .well a Rabbite. Anise is one part with a bunch of crystal adds. Dragon Anise is also a LOT of parts. Minimum head, tail, multiple body parts.
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May 11, 2020 10:18
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lezard_valeth posted:CHRONO TRIGGER REMAKE YOU COWARDS! I've waited 25 years and had my heart crushed multiple times through it what with Cross not being as good, the C&D of the fanmade Resurrection, the dissapointment the DS port was, and the outright cash grab mess the steam version was. I'd much rather they take a swing at FF VI first. CT at least you can't really go wrong with any version of the game currently existing (at least now that the Steam and Mobile versions have been patched into equity) Meenwhile, in FFVI town... -The SNES release is a famously buggy, mechanically explosive version that has several features not functioning properly or just not functional at all. Reminds a LOT of SD3 SNES while we're at it. -The GBA version fixed several bugs and added back in some cut content, but added some fresh bugs of it's own and filters VI's phenomenal music through a tin can and string. -The iOS version gives us the best sounding version and is by far the most actually playable of these but outside of the enemy sprites the changed artwork is bland at best and just ugly and sloppy... far more often then it's at it's best. I understand it'll never see a big splashy remake but SD3 gives me hope it'll get at least a decent once-over into finally having a definitive edition instead of forcing me to pick what sacrifices I wanna make for my next playthrough.
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May 15, 2020 19:05
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Poque posted:What is a "trap" when it comes to Hawkeye's abilities? Like he has an ability that increases trap damage by 25% and another that gives a boost to the CS gauge when a trap is successful, but I don't see what a trap actually is. Is that just his name for spells? It's just Light Hawkeye's name for his (attack) spells, just like Dark Hawkeye's spells are Ninjitsu. All of Rogue Hawkeye's spells as well as all of Nomad Hawkeye's attack spells (IE, not the buffs or utility magic) count.
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May 18, 2020 00:51
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Shoenin posted:Nightblade's problem is regular mooks die more or less immediately by that point in the game, and his boss damage is relatively low because of its damage gimmick being unable to actually work. Its still his strongest melee class even without it, but it shows just how weird his overall design is. Haven't tried Light Hawk yet but from ive heard they're pretty much just a lesser angela with some support, kinda like Ninja Master is. Duran isn't that bad, he just suffers for the same reason Riesz and Charlotte do- he's a support-focused character dropped into a game where suddenly support is kinda superfluous because the non-support characters can take a few hits, avoid the ones they can't, and can wipe the battlefield in seconds without support. That said, of the three I think Duran fares best. Even in Dark Duran's your beefiest boy and gets tools to draw attention from the other characters, making him something NONE of the other characters are- battlefield control. Light Duran can basically be your team's one stop defense shop, especially Paladin, while Dark Duran gives physical-focused team damage support and provides his own damage. He's never going to be the core of what makes a team works, just like Rieze or Charlotte, but unlike those two he's a useful piece that can't just have many of his best aspects replaced by the Night Market or another character - he's probably the one character who changes how I play the game most between him being on my team in some form and him not being on it, and I can respect that. That said, ToM's character balance is definitely split between Angela/Hawkeye/Kevin being amazing and Duran/Rieze/Charlotte being 'there' outside of Edelfrei being almost on par with Kevin as a melee point character while being able to transition to being a distraction instead as desired, but eh. Mr. Locke fucked around with this message at 03:51 on May 24, 2020 |
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May 24, 2020 03:49
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Heithinn Grasida posted:How many super low offense teams are there that you could really stumble into? Hawkeye does at least reasonable damage in all his classes except maybe nightblade, which could use a buff. It might even be fine if max HP reduction worked properly on bosses. Kevin does good damage in every class, as does Angela. For Charlotte, only L/L doesn’t really contribute much, the other classes are at least moderately competent damage dealers. Riesz and Duran in their light classes both lack damage, but I think that should be changed for Vanadys. That means to have a team with really poor damage output, you’d need to run something like Light Duran, Light/Light Charlotte and Light Riesz, which should be pretty obviously overlapping in roles. You’d still be pretty much unkillable with that kind of party, though. The game just needs more ways to up the challenge besides numbers. Even for the first half of the game when most characters CAN'T just delete enemies from the field (IE, anyone not Angela post-Full Metal Haggar) you just don't take damage at all most fights because most enemies are easy to avoid and pack very obvious tells. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, just the cost of the game becoming a fairly straightforward action RPG. Juicing their stats wouldn't do much in that world because the only time I wasn't getting the No Damage XP bonus in like 95% of random fights was Wound Magic Angela since self-damage counts against that. That said, giving enemies access to more interesting stuff without delving into old SFC SD3 fuckery like instant counterattacks could be cool. It's really weird that most enemies in the end game are usually limited to the same one or two easy-to-dodge spells and very slow melee attacks instead of anything picking up some new tricks compared to Chapter 2 enemies.. Some of the bosses get some fancy tricks but trash mobs never get more interesting outside the weird exception like the final stage shapeshifters, and that's probably the biggest thing that holds the moment to moment combat back.
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May 24, 2020 21:11
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The SoM remake is Fine. It sucks because it's a wasted opportunity because Secret of Mana is one of those games that really, really, really could use a full-on update and gameplay-wise it's almost entirely a straight port (And most of the gameplay changes that do occur are oversights in the new engine.) But a lot of people were 'this is so much worse then the SNES version' and, really, the game a very, very close mechanical remake of the SNES version with a better soundtrack and sidegrade graphics and it turns out most people just forgot how Secret of Mana actually played.
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Jun 9, 2020 16:40
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I don't believe characters had any weapon preferences in the original. All the weapons run off the same stat, which is highest on the Boy, then the Girl, then the Sprite, and they all gain weapon XP at the same rate. This generally means the Sprite and the Girl would generally prefer to be the ones with high-power weapons on the occasion high-defense enemies show up if they want to actually do damage with attacks, although the real answer is the strongest weapon goes on who's player controlled at the time because relying on the AI to attack is a non-starter. I know in the way back everyone in the group called dibs on weapons, with the Hero getting the Sword and Axe cause he was a strong lad (and the Whip if he ever needed a ranged weapon,) the one of us playing the girl got the Spear and Javelin cause they had the coolest charge attacks and they would never attack without charging fully, and the Sprite got the Bow and Boomerang because he was fragile and his player was the youngest of us and tended to play scared. But mechanically there's little difference among the three characters when it comes to weapon wielding.
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Jun 9, 2020 17:31
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Charlotte is replaceable with items in either version but she's also useful because those items are very good. Dark Charlotte fares better then light in that aspect in both games since with brings more unique stuff while Light.classes are more support bots, which is great in SNES and eeeeh in Remake. I'd probably bring Riesz in the original and Hawkeye and Angela in the remake to get the best representation of each character-. Riesz lives and dies by how useful her buffs or debuffs are as otherwise she's ok but not great at everything else, and in the original that makes her a fight-swinging powerhouse that can save your bacon in all matter of random encounters while in the remake it's hard to justify that when another character could be just dumping their own damage instead. She's the strongest character in the SNES game and the weakest in the remake so I'd get her at her best. Angela and Hawkeye, alternatively, suffer for two reasons in the SNES game- 1) They're the two characters with the most power gated behind 3rd classes in the SNES game, which you barely get access to, and 2) as the Spells and Tech- focused characters respectively, they're the two characters most punished by SD3's fondness of countering spells and techs with spells and techs that devastate your team. Also, Angela's Dark path and Hawk's Light path might not as well exist on SNES, so you may as well get more options.
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Jun 29, 2020 20:53
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Mega64 posted:I thought Reisz was incredibly popular in the original release, so I'm guessing that's more why she won. Yeah, a lot of Riesz love comes from the original release, where she had 1) By far the most unique and useful gameplay function, regardless of class, 2) had a lot of the preferred female character traits in Japan, which was the only region that got the game for some 20 years (Iron-willed in action but demure in manner- also see frequent SNK online poll winner Nakoruru) and 3) Had some very horny final classes, especially on the Dark end of the spectrum. Angela is probably second due to the rermake, where she's basically inherited 1), had always had 3), and the rest of the world is carrying her being the more interesting and fun character to have around.
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Nov 10, 2020 18:35
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Twelve by Pies posted:On more Trials based questions, are Riesz's summons supposed to be completely useless or is that a bug? I tried using Seraph when I went Starlancer with her and about 75% of the time it did no damage. And I don't mean "It did damage but it was very small numbers," I mean there were no damage numbers because it did absolutely no damage at all. Even when it did do damage numbers they were pitifully small, like 25 HP damage per hit, and it never hit more than four or five times, which means that it was completely useless compared to just smacking them with her spear. Light-side her summons are pretty middling for damage and are mostly useful when fishing for status effects (Which is a viable use for them on higher difficulties). Dark classes have better summons for damage but Riesz is never going to be mistaken for a caster, even when built for it. Int is still her casting stat too, so if you're not juicing it her summon damage is going to be pretty eh, especially for Light classes. While all of her summons look like they have some pretty juicy Power values their cast time are also pretty long and her casting strength is pretty poor compared to the dedicated casters.
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Jun 24, 2021 08:22
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