EOIII Questions thread

[eharper256]

[scy]

If you like the Farmer, you like the Farmer. 'nuff said. I just want to clear the air on the class itself so people don't pick it for something when it's not necessarily true.

For what it's worth, I have a Farmer/Shinobi as my current status bot, though I'm going to do some testing with a BK eventually to see if that +15% really does only work on their summons. Not that I particularly care about "piercing" resistances too much. I like one of the Farmer portraits (Pitchfork~) more than all the BK options so that'll probably be the deal breaker.

As for easier, BK has a better base chance of landing status effects than a Farmer and has a more practical skill set. Sort of. Shinobi clones just seem to blow most Summons out of the water which makes a lot of the BKs skill set pretty pointless if you run any kind of Clone Shinobi (or anything else taking that 6th slot).

Edit: The more I thought about this point, I'm not sure I can say the BK has a "better" skill set. At least the Farmer's can be used regardless of the party >>

And for their Utility ... just depends on how you value what they bring, I suppose. For what it's worth, I hated on EO2 Survivalists too so ... yeah.

[eharper256]

Yeah, to me, I see Warp Wire Skill + Camp Mastery + Braving the Rain + Lullaby + Mystery Seed and I'm sold. So much utility, and for all for stuff I need. I have a knack for forgetting warp wires, using Camp sites too much, and getting into a pickle with damage/mud floors, LOL. Suddenly, with these skills, I don't need to worry any more. Then Lullaby helps alot with random encounters and mystery seed helps with drops. Its all good.

And yeah, as you guessed, I found my Survivalist surprisingly good in EOII as well, though never used one in EOI.

Clone Shinobi is decent, yeah, but like anyone with summons ideally needs a party designed around him, much like Beast king and...
[spoiler]...Shooting Sniper Andro with Tri-Colour Bot spam.[/spoiler]

Of course, it does beg the question of just what your clone is actually going to do. [s]Using Clone Slash is a no-no unless the Shinobi goes solo or at most has 1-2 partners.[/s]

EDIT: Oh wait, for some reason I thought Clone Slash was a single hit. 990%- 1650% is decent, I guess, but you need to burn at least 62 TP (assuming maxxed Smoke Screen) and 1/2 your HP for that, so its not a common occurance or easily spammable.

What I'm trying to say is that the clone has no obvious role, unlike a specific Beast*, and it copies something which has only mediocre combat prowess to begin with. And whilst it can use your skills, which is going to use? (if you could only clone, it too will only be able to clone...LOL...so its not a good first skill choice).

*= Also, Beast can be summoned for free, unlike a clone, if you get your Zodiac to use Dark Matter (well, 10 TP from the Zodiac, but they can afford that...)

Though I suppose you can shoehorn the clone by taking a subclass yourself, but thats certainly a lategame solution.

[Lord Mutton Chops]

With all these talks about ninjas, I just wanna make a Shinobi specialized in cloning and name him Gemini man. Which would lead to the robot master guild with the ship, dive man. Have a farmer called splash woman (Maxed lullaby), and phalanx called hard man. Laughs all around.

So, side idea aside. I'm not sure if for my vanguard, how to invest in my Beast King. I'm thinking of quickly going for the hawk summon and just putting one point in it, then saving up to gain the owl or moth summon. Then just leveling up the summon till I can get the ox or lion.

Though, I have to wonder, what does "Decay" do? Cause I saw one of the animals had that ability but I never saw it in a previous game.

[Kaname]

A Shinobi/Zodiac clone is actually really effective until postgame. She does individually less damage than a Zodiac, but can do so for longer, and pulls past the Zodiac quiiite a bit when cloned. Which, all in all, is a pretty sweet deal, in my opinion.

And Clone slash...is awesome. I have yet to kill a certain boss without either warrior abuse, or a solo Shinobi using clone slash. Stupid 1-round limit till that jerk changes form >_>.

[Self]

[eharper256]

[Lord Mutton Chops]

So I was looking at the Princess/prince royal bell ability, and noticed they had to be at full health. So if the prince got wounded doesn't that kinda mess up the whole passive healing style?

[eharper256]

In my experience, Noble Bell is only important for the first few levels. In actual fact, Victory Song and Marching are the keystone abilities for passive healers. You're not looking to heal in combat so much as heal ~outside~ of combat.

So lets say you finish a fight with everyone having taken 40 damage. If you had Lvl 5 victory song, 26 of that is instantly healed. Then, lets say its 12 steps to the next encounter, and you had Lvl 3 Marching. 36 HP has healed just from walking about.

In total, more than enough to get you to full effectiveness.

Even later, assuming you maxxed those abilities, you're still going to get 60 + (10 x Steps) health back. A fair bit.

But yes, like I said before, a Princess if for long term survivability, not to get you out of trouble spots. Except early on, you should treat Noble Bell as a nice bonus, rather than a reliable healing solution.

If you're really concerned about in battle heals from Noble Bell, it is best to have multiple Princesses (or someone else sub-classed as one). Barring that, if you still need active heals, branch into the other type of Princess (Warlord) and pick up either Exchange or Reinforce.

[Sampson]

For the summoned beasts, are the only ones that normally attack the ones mentioned (that is, after their upon-summoning effect, like in the case of the tiger and bull) in the simulator? For example, does the owl only attempt to inflict sleep on the enemies every turn?

[Lord Mutton Chops]

How useful is a prince in a boss fight then? If they don't have any real powerful active healing, it seems like the monk is a requirement to actually get anywhere.

[eharper256]

Yes, if all enemies are asleep, the Owl literally spends its turn hooting and doing nothing. It also never attacks, just continually tries to hypnotise.

Bull and Elephant only attack single targets after their summoning, and Tiger goes into a counterattack stance (like a Monk using Counter A). This is why its pretty decent to summon spam with these creatures in conjunction with Dark Matter.

Lion just always sleeps unless its woken up (making it pointless to summon spam). I've not tried forcing it to wake up with a monk; if that works it could be interesting.

----

Prince is great in a boss fight if he takes the active heals route. The passive healer type is best for exploration parties (if your passive heal prince is going to boss fight as well, you must mix and match abilities, really, as its very unlikely a boss will allow you to use Noble Bell much).

Of course Princess has other uses in a boss fight anyway (buff, emit weapon etc.)

[scy]

[Self]

[scy]