Okay chaps, so here is the promised write up for the
Automatic Skill/Loyalty/Augment Elemental Rank-Up Exploit. Not sure if it's worth updating the OP or not, but this will be very useful to most of you!
What you will need:
- Your hardest hitting character, but NOT equipped with ANY Field Alchemy skills. I used Ninja Denam, for high evasion and Double Attack.
- At least 1 Cleric. Whichever character heals the best.
- The Subject that you want to increase the Skill/Loyalty for equipped with the WORST weapon available but the BEST Armour and Evasion skills you have. Parry and Dodge work wonders. Also, absolutely make certain you have Counter Attack on. We'll be using Ravness, Ozma and Hobyrim today.
- Rhea Boum Aqueduct unlocked.
- 1 unlucky Golem.
- Optional - Another character that hits hard but heals. White Knights are perfect, if you've got them.
Weapon Skill & Loyalty Tactics:
- First things first -- have your Ninja (and possible additional character) kill every enemy on the map, except the Golem. This is actually a lot easier than it sounds. Use high-level AoE arcana if you've got them, as this will weaken multiple enemies at once. Just don't kill the Golem! You're going to need this punching bag later on.
- Next, you're going to be exploiting the terrain to your advantage. The Aquaduct is perfect because it has water separating your units from the Golem. One thing worth noting is NOT to use classes or abilities that let you walk on water. This breaks the method (avoid Valkyries/Rune Fencers and
). Position your units so that The Subject is alone with your Golem. You'll be using your other Cleric as bait, but obviously we're not going to let them get hurt. Instead of trying to explain how, let me just show you a picture to give you an idea:
- Here's where it gets fun. Turn all your characters AI to Melee. But wait, won't they all rush the Golem and destroy him? Not so. They will basically try rushing him, only to be stopped by the Terrain. Your Golem won't move from that spot. Thus, they block him from getting to your Cleric and he blocks your other units from hurting him. This is also why I asked you to turn off Field Alchemy. With the melee AI, your characters WILL try using item to injure the Golem (even things like Shots, which will ultimately damage your units too). What's more, the Melee command will mean that when your parties HP gets low, they will automatically heal that person.
- The Subject will now begin whizzing around your Golem, hitting him with all their might... for 1 HP. Because you've got the naffest weapon equipped, they're doing almost no damage to him, BUT, increasing their weapon skill each time they attack and counter attack. Pro-tip: Making The Subject a Ninja will make this go even faster. Two crappy weapons with Double Attack will make them hit the target for 2 HP, doubling the efficiency.
- Okay, time for some numbers. Each REGISTERED hit, without amplifiers (Sword+1, etc) will increase your Weapon skill by approx. 1.3. I've read that daggers and katana only get 0.6, but upon a single attack with a dagger, I went from 32.8 to 34.1. A difference of 1.3. Where possible, Ninja makes this quicker. You'll be getting roughly 2.6 each time, which is just under 50 attacks per Rank. 2-Handed weapons will obviously take longer. But at least you're doing it without paying attention!
- But what about loyalty? Well, each time you increase your rank, your Loyalty increases by 10 points. That means even if The Subject DESPISES you, by the time you're done, you'll be best friends. This is a great way of keeping units who're threatening to leave you!
- Oh yeah, and Parry will also level up, helping increase Loyalty and overall evasion. It's much slower to increase though -- I estimate around 0.3 each time. Might be lower than that.... but still, you'll probably get it to rise a rank during the process.
- So, go make a cup of tea, eat a sandwich or just hang around reading NeoGAF while you're little dudes make good. Check back to heal the Golem if his health gets low and then watch as your units become GODLIKE without the tedium of doing it yourself.
The only negative aspect is that even with Melee as your AI, The Subject will not always hit the Golem. Sometimes they will just move around him without taking any kind of action. While this makes the tactic a little slower than it could be, it still beats the snot out of doing it manually. I estimate that you can increase your Skill ranking from Rank 1 to Rank 8 in 70 minutes or so. I've had it happen as quickly as 45 minutes with Ozma and double-daggers. Ravness took the longest as I wanted her to be a spear wielder (cummon, tell me she doesn't look the part in the
artwork). This is an even bigger factor if you're trying to increase your Augment Element. See below for more info.
Augment Element Tactics:
- Okay, this is ONLY for the most hardcore Ogres out there. This method is much slower and becomes increasingly more challenging as the fight goes on. I've found a couple of work-arounds using the same method as increasing weapon skill, but the positions are different.
- You will need the same team, only this time The Subject is a magic casting unit. Make sure your unit has NOTHING equipped. That's right. NOTHING. You want to be a prime target, whilst making sure you aren't increasing your magic damage output in any way. You can wear an accessory if you want, but be smart about your choices. Also, having Magic Accuracy and Mediate will help you enormously!
- Originally, I made The Subject an Enchantress using the Melee AI (trust me, Caster will not help you) and this worked SO WELL... until I got to about Rank 3. Then the damage output started to climb from 1 HP per hit to 20 HP per hit. If you see this, you're going to have a bad time.
This, obviously made it very tedious as I had to keep healing the Golem every ten turns or so. HOWEVER, this was remedied by making her a Witch instead. My Witch was only at Level 5, as opposed to my Level 18 Enchantress. If your units are over-leveled by this point, you might have a difficult time.
- By switching to the lower-damage magic user you will start doing 1 HP damage again. However, they will cast magic far less often. In fact, I saw that the only guaranteed time she would cast was if the Golem wasn't Ice Adversed. When he was, she would only cast 1/3 of the time. This made the process much slower, but it definitely made it more Hands-Off then when she was hitting him constantly for 20.
- Just to give you an idea of the numbers, I estimate that each successful spell will increase your rank 0.48~0.5. Sadly, there isn't a way to double-cast, so, as I warned you, this is a much slower method and only for those who want to take their magic users or Elemental Weapon users to the next level. I'll report the difference when I am leveled up enough to actually equip 2 Predator Daggers, which give an Ice bonus. That should clarify if it's worth doing. Regardless the length of time this takes, you will undoubtedly be grinning like a madman when you see hear this noise while you're busy doing something else:
So, hopefully this will deliver some of the hype I've been generating. I love this method so much. I'm trying to figure out a way to do this with ranged units, but I've encountered more problems than I'd hoped for. It's slow and the AI simple doesn't like the Archer attacking. If I nail it, though, I'll post a similar strategy. I did get the best Archer in the game to Rank 5... and gave up after then.
My plan is to eventually get Lord Denam dual-wielding Rank 8 Dark + 15 swords, with Rank 8 Augment Dark with 100 Base strength. Can't think of anything more badass.... (or game breaking)
