-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Dragon Quest 9 |OT| Last chance* to shine
- Thread starter Aeana
- Start date
It's good, but so far not as key as it was in DQVIII I feel.Firebrand said:
In retrospect I probably would have made my main a Priest/Minstrel/Sage instead of a Warrior / Paladin / Gladiator because then I would just Egg-On on the other guy.
I do often use my Guardian (main character) to Egg-on my second front-line character, though only when I'm going for a full tension, Oomph-boosted, enemy double-Sap Uber Falcon Blade + Falcon Slash on said Warrior / Gladiator / Martial Artist. A great way to nearly one shot some tough Grotto bosses if you can keep your HP up and avoid Disruptive Waves.
I did what you did, actually. Swords, Courage, then Shields... then I went Focus (Martial Artist) on all characters for Agility...
Courage is fantastic for the HP, Str, and Res boosts. I have it on all four characters up to 90 points.
You don't really need to min-max for this game, and I say that having done so to an extreme degree.
That said, I have heard that you will need to min-max like crazy for the late Grotto and Legacy Bosses, so I'm doing well in that regard...
Oxx said:
There are other quests where it is helpful, too. Killing Atlas with Zam is not so hard when you can pump out a 900 damage Zam. :lol
From a game design perspective, though, you've got to appreciate it. Letting a single gaming boss-figure have more than one action in a row is very good way to ramp up difficulty in games with large numbers of PCs. 4 on 1 with all getting one action means that the 1 guy with one action has to be able to, in that turn, do more harm to the other team than 3 of the other team can compensate for (otherwise it's basically a 1 v 0 fight), and that can get very swingy. Things usually get too easy at this point, because the frowned-upon alternative tends to be one-shot killing your heroes.
DQ and D&D have gotten away from that though, and it's a good thing. Dragons swinging their tail as a reaction when you approach while biting, clawing, and / or breathing fire provides a scenario that is a lot more interesting / complicated / fun, and can be difficult without being swingy.
DQ and D&D have gotten away from that though, and it's a good thing. Dragons swinging their tail as a reaction when you approach while biting, clawing, and / or breathing fire provides a scenario that is a lot more interesting / complicated / fun, and can be difficult without being swingy.
So far I have no complaints about Dispelling Wave being used more liberally; you could really bring down the difficulty curve in previous games with buffs. You still can do so in this game for most bosses, but the high-end stuff is less forgiving of those tactics and requires you to bring more power to the table pre-buffs.
I would probably be less annoyed about getting killed by legacy bosses if the process of warping-out and opening/closing grotto maps wasn't quite so annoyingly fiddly.
It's the little interface things that are depressing me most after hundreds of hours. Why does it take so long to deposit/withdraw money!? Why does it take seven button presses to get on the sky train!?
It's the little interface things that are depressing me most after hundreds of hours. Why does it take so long to deposit/withdraw money!? Why does it take seven button presses to get on the sky train!?
Just on the right as you enter the Quester's Rest.
I think the maximum % for the monsters is 98% at the moment until they feature some of the remaining bosses in the DLC.
It wasn't much of a chore to complete most of the monster list, but I had to chase up the last few.
Item, wardrobe, and alchemy completion? That's going to be tougher.
I think the maximum % for the monsters is 98% at the moment until they feature some of the remaining bosses in the DLC.
It wasn't much of a chore to complete most of the monster list, but I had to chase up the last few.
Item, wardrobe, and alchemy completion? That's going to be tougher.
turnbuckle
Member
Oxx said:
My biggest issue with the game. It's terrible they don't have message speed controls. The train should work like the flying vehicles in every other DQ game - it should be on the map rather than an item in the menu. It could be both, but it should at least be on the map. Ugh.
Oxx said:
You're actually going to try completing items and wardrobe? Why punish yourself :lol
Re interfaces: I found myself wishing the alchenomicon, monster list, and map were all densely hyperlinked, so I could tap a missing ingredient and be shown what monster drops it, then where. Bonus points for giving Stella a chance to autopilot me there. :lol That would have been pretty sweet.
I may actually be dusting this off for multi again soon. I've been playing Rune Factory 3 with one of the guys I met at our local meetups; we're done with that now, and he suggested picking up DQIX again... truly the game that keeps on giving.
I may actually be dusting this off for multi again soon. I've been playing Rune Factory 3 with one of the guys I met at our local meetups; we're done with that now, and he suggested picking up DQIX again... truly the game that keeps on giving.
JayDubya said:
If you can extract your save off your game card somehow and send it my way via e-mail, I can tag you one of the legendary maps over, and you can write the new save back. I do it between two copies of the game, so it's as legit as it gets.
PM me if interested; it'll probably be at least Friday before I can get to it.
So are there actually accolades for being wiped out? I'm getting sick of Stella accusing me of cheating for never having been wiped out in my total 265 hours of play. I'm rather depressed about how the accolade for game completion works though, it being based on your completion time. The new row that appears in the battle records is rather confusing though. I think it's called "1st completion record" or something like that, so that almost makes it sound like you should be able to start a New Game + or something. I know that if you could restart the main quest while keeping all your other records intact (like hell I'd redo some of those side quests) I'd be perfectly happy to do that just to get a faster completion time.
zigg said:
I don't actually have a flash card or experience with any of that, though I was considering doing that to get the 30 tags.
Billychu said:
You kind of want to get the passive boosts from all of them along with a few weapon skills and perhaps Shield 100 on most. Focus on roles, because you won't have enough skill points to go around.
Honestly, Gladiator seems to be paramount. Priest and Mage are also fairly important, though when you get Sage some people will make their Priest into a Sage and others made their Mage into a Sage.
Just when I think I'm done with this game, I read through all the new posts, and the thirst comes back. LOL Maybe I'll hit quests again. I think I completely burnt myself out on the Hoimi/Kawasaki/Alchemiracle stuff before the holidays, but the time away from the game has helped. Golden Sun (the original) hasn't really been holding my interest, and with DQ6 a little more than 5 weeks away, this should help keep me in the DQ spirit until then.
ExtraKr1spy
Banned
My build for Grotto bosses and Legacy bosses usually
Sage-For Kazing and heal support, extra damage with the spells
Priest-support and omniheal
Gladiator-main damage dealer. Psyche up and hope the enemy doesnt use disrupting wave before I reach 100. buff with oomph and Falcon slash with uber Falcon Blade.
Paladin-I use the skill where all attacks are taken by the Paladin. Equipped with best armor I have(Mostly Metal King Slime gear) and the item that prevents you from getting hit by Crits. Also buffed with the spell that reflects magic.
Not invincible but works well for me.
I've noticed that the less team members you have buffing skills/magic on the less often disrupting wave is used.
Sage-For Kazing and heal support, extra damage with the spells
Priest-support and omniheal
Gladiator-main damage dealer. Psyche up and hope the enemy doesnt use disrupting wave before I reach 100. buff with oomph and Falcon slash with uber Falcon Blade.
Paladin-I use the skill where all attacks are taken by the Paladin. Equipped with best armor I have(Mostly Metal King Slime gear) and the item that prevents you from getting hit by Crits. Also buffed with the spell that reflects magic.
Not invincible but works well for me.
I've noticed that the less team members you have buffing skills/magic on the less often disrupting wave is used.
Everyone has a gladiator but me. I'm too far down my current path to turn back now. And I promised myself that my level-grinding days were over.
My legacy boss system is a mess of compromises and buffs that takes a few turns to set-up, but is working well so far...
Armamentalist - Oomph + Uber Falcon blade slash
Paladin - Kerplunk + Uber falcon blade slash
Sage - Twocus Pocus + Anti-critical + healing, buffing, kazammle
Ranger - Fource buff entire party + wolf whistle.
My legacy boss system is a mess of compromises and buffs that takes a few turns to set-up, but is working well so far...
Armamentalist - Oomph + Uber Falcon blade slash
Paladin - Kerplunk + Uber falcon blade slash
Sage - Twocus Pocus + Anti-critical + healing, buffing, kazammle
Ranger - Fource buff entire party + wolf whistle.
Little Green Yoda
Member
I just picked up multiple Murdaw maps in consecutive fights. Any need to keep both? I know certain items only drop at lower levels but as long as I get one of each before leveling the boss beyond the threshold, I should be good, right?
dragonballjoseph
Member
You mean that lady who takes your money at the front of the Inn where the alchemy pot is?Axis said:
Little Green Yoda
Member
Alright, thanks. I'll probably leave the Hoimi stuff (essentially RNG abuse for rare items, right?) alone until I get sick of grinding for rare alchemy materials. Fighting and leveling the legacy bosses is still pretty fun unlike level grinding against metal slimes. The level 50-99 stretch is pretty lousy when it comes to acquiring skill points, especially compared to the level 20-50 range.ghibli99 said:
Just unlocked
Erinn
Sounds good! Yeah, I just got to a point in the game where the time investment wasn't worth the weak % returns. I still screwed up a lot on timing and counting, so the process isn't foolproof... it will save you potentially days/weeks of frustration/repetition, however.Little Green Yoda said:
A'right. Finally got a map with Moai Minstrels, got the Luminary class, did its L15 quest, and working on getting to L40 for those skill points.
Besides that, I guess I need to use "Slime Hill" and get to L65-L70 or something in Paladin if I'm ever going to get a metal slime grotto. In retrospect, didn't know Grottoes worked like this or I would have focused on grinding the main character's level in a faster advancing vocation.
Besides that, I guess I need to use "Slime Hill" and get to L65-L70 or something in Paladin if I'm ever going to get a metal slime grotto. In retrospect, didn't know Grottoes worked like this or I would have focused on grinding the main character's level in a faster advancing vocation.
Axis
Member
JayDubya said:
i revocated from minstrel(never reached max) to warrior(maxed out 99) and i was getting mks maps before i even reached level 50 in warrior; not sure what the exact stipulations are for getting certain maps/certain monsters in them...maybe i'm just lucky but i haven't ran into any of the problems other people have with not finding certain monsters :/
not-so-ninja-edit: to be fair, i have like 250 hours in the game now so i do a lot of runs through grottoes :/
Little Green Yoda
Member
Good luck on the Lvl 40 Luminary quest. Most annoying quest I've completed so far.JayDubya said:
AFAIK it's just a matter of using high level maps and a high level MC to get the best base quality grottos and hope for the best.Axis said:
Damn Lava lumps. I wonder how many hours have been dedicated trying to get those. The lava lump spawn west of Alltrades gives me a single one on a very rare occasion, rest of them I'm stealing from the Admirers beneath Gleeba. Steal success rates are a bit obnoxious in this game, no matter how much deftness I have.
They're used in a bunch of fire-related recipes, Hephaestus' Flame is one. Wanted a bunch when I was making iron->steel gear, but had to settle for just the sword, helmet and shield. Now I wanted to make an Infernal Blade and Combusticlaws, and so the hunt for lava lumps began anew!