Herbs...!

Well, managed to get past Bravery and Loyalty on Ransatsu... Wanted to re-do the fight once to make sure that everyone survived the fight, which they did. First attempt ended with my mystic union (Perneth leading) dead... Good thing they can deal almost 7K between the 2 unions, though dealing that much for only 10 units is a little low. Doesn't help that they haven't exactly upgraded their equips, though that's mostly my fault for not keeping up. Still, not exactly sure what level I sure aim for since if their damage output is too high, then they won't get the necessary arts EXP. If the weapon stats are too low, they won't survive anything. Also doesn't help knowing that they haven't exactly improved for the past 4 BRs. Will likely have to use the Wisdom's Echo quest to get them up to speed with Liza. She starts at BR31 and comes with a pretty nice weapon. But first, I should probably get Oakes to learn Vivification Herb then beat the Dominator for recruiting Ripley for a second Bard. Will definitely aim to turn Jodo into a Bard. Maybe I'll also run into a few new rares along the way? It's definitely going to take a while before I can get everything to spawn.

Up to BR5 now, mostly due to getting a Chain50 for hiring Hematea. He's worth hiring due to having Invo/Hex (more flexible to work with), but he's not exactly spectacular for the amount of effort you need to spend just to get him. He practically needs an Enchanted Glaive, but I don't know if I can get him Mystic focused enough for it. So far, the mystic union is still asking for Balance accessories, so that's a little worrying. Maybe... Haven't exactly fought 10 battles before entering a town to change their focuses. I'll see soon enough with Marty though. There's a pretty good chance that I can get the Combat union completely focused. But first, Vivification Herb then Dominator. All while Emma's still in the party.

Got a pretty good idea of what endgame will look like, especially in terms of union numbers. Most likely end with 4 unions instead of the usual 5 because of the lack of status control. I'll probably stick Jodo in the mystic union since Ripley with the Might Javelin would be much better off in a combat union. The problem now is what kind of mystic union I should have. There's no way to use Animalcule (only 2 Hex units), Whiteout is pushing it (only 4 Invo/Evo units) and Blackout is a generally safe option. Fatal Eclipse is a possibility, but that unit comes so late in the game that I'm not entirely sure if it would be worth the trouble to use her as a Psi leader. I'll probably just spark it for the sake of completeness. Oh, noticed that I can get Crimson Flare too! Maybe I'll try for this type of run as well. Only managed to do it a few times with the uniques and it's impossible with the soldiers because there aren't any with Psi.


Normal mode is on hold for the time being. Trying to kill that Steamroller in the Mines with everyone alive before moving on to the other things I should be doing, like recruiting more people. Funny thing about all the attempts? The Steamroller kept picking on David. Probably because the game recognizes that he has the lowest defense out of everyone...? Thought that Emma would be targeted, but I guess not.


More later. Once I get some time to play. Should be able to get some in on Friday and Saturday.

Well then.

I might end up with an X360 at some point, if only to play around with programming. Might as well pick Last Remnant on that system since I'm still poking at various things and would like to compile an accurate max stats chart. Along the way, noticed that the weapon strengthening is different between the versions, with the X360 getting better boosts. Well, depends since some of the weapons have much higher stats on the X360 but are more balanced on the PC. Then there's also the units themselves since stats are also part of the damage output equation. There are a few things I want to test such as the style change thing. The PC version does have class restrictions when it comes to style change within battle, so I want to see if it's not present in the X360 version. Just to satisfy my curiosity.

Since I restarted the game on both modes, looks like I'll be rare hunting like crazy again. Need to compile a rather large list of HP values for graphs, and to maybe fix the layout over at the wiki... I want help damn it! There's about 260 rares, and I'll be going at both modes. That's a lot of rares to poke at! Still, there's info to gather.

In terms of progress, not much has been made. Both modes are past Namul Niram, but the Ransatsu run is around the Nest of Eagles part and is thus further along. Need to go to Athlum Castle for the scene, but I still haven't done Emma's quest. The recruits I have are doing OK, but it could be a lot better. Oakes still hasn't learned Vivification Herb and that's worrying me. What's even more worrying is the lack of units on hand... Haven't gone back to the Numor Mines to kill the necessary Quien for Vega, don't have Union of the Golden Chalice Rank 1 for someone else, etc. I should probably get moving on that since I'll need the team completely outfitted and ready for that fight. Will keep Emma around for a little while longer as a crutch, just in case. For the Normal run, it's not as bad. Everything is proceeding smoothly, but I do need to upgrade the mystic units' equips soon since they need to be able to defend themselves with CAs. Perneth is fine since most of the enemies will be in unions and Hexes hit unions pretty hard. Think that's about it for now.

Nom nom nom

I've been devouring souls lately... Restarted my game (again) and actually finished it! Admittedly, I had help through the PWWT event, but at least it's done! And now I'm suffering through NG+, which isn't as bad as I thought. I initially complained because I lost a large number of souls early on and the fact that my Crescent Falchion +5 wasn't quite cutting it anymore. Until I started abusing the Clever Rat's Ring to boost my attack, then switched over to the Crescent Uchigatana +5. It was unusually easy to upgrade that weapon, and I'm not sure what else I should make. There are still a bunch of upgrade paths that I need to complete for trophies.

Phalanx went down really quickly, though I did play around with it while blasting it with Soul Ray. Tower Knight gave me a little trouble because I couldn't lock-on to its head about half the time. Ended up rescuing Biorr for the Penetrator. Couldn't take it down fast enough alone... Can get him to about the halfway point before getting overwhelmed because I generally hate going around in circles just to kill something. Haven't gone against Allant because doing so would place my status as endgame. Not something that I want to do just yet since it would block off talking to the Maiden in Black for gaining Soul Levels. Stonefang went down really quickly. Didn't take too many arrows against the Armor Spider, though I did end up getting hit a few times. Took off about half my HP while in Soul Form. The Flamelurker was a funny little fight. I actually managed to get it stuck in a loop for a bit, then got a little too trigger happy and got it unstuck. Died in a swipe. Since I didn't exactly want to melee against it, I decided to poison it from behind. Sure it took forever, but it was the safest way to do things. My build probably sucks for PvE. Dragon God died in one go. For once. Tower of Latria wasn't too bad either. Didn't have the Anti-Magic Field when I went through the first 2 areas, but didn't need them for the most part since Poison Cloud worked just fine against everything there. Decided to spam it for the third section to go "Happy Squid Head Stabby Time!" against the BPs there. Played against the Old Monk offline since I don't like dealing with PvP. Shrine of Storms went by OK... Had some difficulty against the Adjudicator since I couldn't quite remember how I dealt with it the first time around. Ended up jumping down to melee the damn thing since I couldn't shoot it from above or below. The Old Hero was easy while sniping, but getting there was the hard part. What was it again...? It was the opposite of the Kirby Type boss run. The Storm King was pretty fun. A little aggravating because I couldn't find the little nook for hiding against its assaults. Ended up using my Sticky Composite Bow +5 to kill off those Storm Beasts. The sword was too weak(?!) and took too long to swing. Also, I suck at using large swords. Only thing left? Valley of Defilement. Keep dying at certain parts, so it'll take a little while before I'll get through it. Will probably need to tag along a weapon that could be enchanted with fire damage... or using that Lava Bow or tagging along an obscene number of Fire Arrows. Good thing my DEX is 40... But the biggest problem is that I'm going to need a weapon that scales with my DEX and can also be enchanted for higher rank runs.

While online, ended up meeting a few players. Many were quite nice, while one was rather... annoying. He kept summoning me in 4-2, to the point that I was quite happy to see someone else summon me. I don't like summoning others, mostly because I don't want to be invaded and that I'm not exactly the most careful player around. At least my ranking's been improving quite a bit. Got a bunch of S ranks through helping others get through the final parts of World 1 (Penetrator and Allant). While helping out, managed to kill at least 1 BP, which helps in shifting my CT back towards white. Had it Pure Black to deal with a sidequest to get the Talisman of Beasts. It's pretty amusing to kill Ariona/Ostrava in a second with Poison Cloud, stopping him from suicide. Or was it assisted suicide? I'll never know... but at least he's alive this cycle so that I can listen to his little bit before he kills himself.


Anyways, also got in some SenBASA while I was at it. Finished Mitsunari's Grey route (100%!) while having only the most basic weapon equipped. It was pretty interesting testing out some of his properties. Turns out that he can do quite a bit of damage while using his delay. Found that it was easier taking out bases using the delay property than using a bunch of his skills. Seems like he requires a little zoning as well, though not as much as Oichi. In the meantime, also started up Motochika's, and hopefully I'll get through it soon. All of the allies he can recruit are very straightforward to get; just playing the route is enough.

And for a little added fun, restarted Last Remnant. Well, more like restarted the Athlum-only runs because I don't quite remember what I was doing. Added a little extra to the Normal mode run; fresh Athlum-only. Ransatsu gets the bonus of NG+ goodies, though it won't do any good anyways. Along the way, I'm going to have to gather rare monster HP values since quite a few of them are still missing.