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An entire page of spoilers tags is so .. daunting. XD

[spoiler]
Reached level 30 and still can't touch Salamox. It's cool, though, I'll just keep leveling since I need to get my Beast a few more levels... even though I'm not a 100% on keeping him in the party.

I'm "stuck" at the floor 10 boss, too, which is fine since I have a small backlog of quests I want to finish.
But as I was trekking my gathering party around, I remembered the room in the first stratum that require specific classes to get through... I thought one of them was keyed to a Survivalist since it asks about 'wood and trees' But I guess not? Hmm....
[/spoiler]

OMG MOAR (2nd Stratum):
[spoiler]For what it's worth, you probably won't be killing Salamox at Level 30-ish either. At least, not without a group geared towards beating him (DH, Gunner/1st Turn Survivalist, Dampen + Revenge Hexer).

Hellion is pretty weak to Ice if you've gone an unconventional (ie, Not Overhead!) build on the Ronin for some Ice chasing; other than that, you may want to put a Wand on your Medic to slow them down enough to get Purify off after his first-turn Roar. Besides that, he's really not all that bad with appropriate Guards up. I have no idea if he has a pattern for his attacks

The 1st Stratum doors are:

2nd Floor - Dark Hunter, Alchemist, Gunner, Survivalist (starting at the northwestern door and going clockwise)
3rd Floor - Solo Troubadour ... but it's also behind a Tree Key door so I guess this is irrelevant for now.
4th Floor - Protector, War Magus, Landsknecht, Ronin (start at the northern door and going south).[/spoiler]

[spoiler]
Whaa... XD you listen more doors than I knew existed. I'll have to keep exploring.

I'm not too worried about Salamox. I was able to survive more than two rounds, so that's a slight improvement.

Good about Hellion and ice. I'm using Iai skils, so I guess that's unconventional. Everyone raves about Overhead though... I suppose Miraeba (sp?) is hella useful. I just like the Iai ones better XD It means between my Ronin and Gunner I have the three elements covered.
[/spoiler]

I like using Iai, too. Midareba may do a lot more damage, but Hyosetsu (sp?) does multi-attack damage with ice, plus whenever the one-hit kill happens it's always awesome. I've beat some tough FOEs that way.

XD and yes, I'm influenced by the cool names. I don't play much for the numbers, but more for what I think is fun. Like I think the Beast is fun even if it's not very useful yet.


ETA:
lol, Kaining! I know, right? I was in the middle of doing that when you posted XD
I'll probably learn Midareba if I have the SPs left over after I finish with the Iai stances. I'm not sure if I want to continue with the one-hit-kill-move (K-something. If you can't tell I'm terrible with names). I mean it's powerful and is great for what I need right now since it uses only a little TP.

ETA2! Got the links for the damage% in the Hexer thread. Thanks, Scy~

As for Class Skills stuff: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmes ... c=44092433

Smite:
Level 1: 10 TP, 300% Dmg, 20% Spd, 200% Acc, 20% chance of Arm Bind
Level 5: 18 TP, 400% Dmg, 120% Spd, 200% Acc, 30% chance of Arm Bind

Caduceus:
Level 1 - 20 TP, 1% SPD, 80% Accuracy, 1% Stun
Level 5 - 24 TP, 61% SPD, 90% Accuracy, 11% Stun
Level 10 - 29 TP, 430% Damage, 271% SPD, 125% Accuracy, 46% Stun

Overhead has an all-target attack too (Kienzan); all three Elements, single and multi-target, are identical. Ice, unfortunately, has the least amount of Enemies weak to it Sad as Ice is my favorite Element too.

Another topic of mine for Enemy Resists: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmes ... c=44017724

Floor 23 boss
[spoiler]"Before it kills people"? Haha. It starts killing people on the second turn or so, and then goes on doing that every turn. Someone is wasting turns (i.e. not attacking) using nectars while the WM keeps Salve2ing and Cure3ing. I ran out of nectars and TP. Also, force doesn't build up if everyone keeps dying.

So, I retired everyone, and replaced the War Magus with a real Medic, and the Dark Hunter with a Ronin. Think that'll help? The DH did good damage usually, but the binds never worked. We're now back up to level 35.

So far the Ronin isn't as fast as I expected. She's barely faster than the Medic. Trying to get Midareba because I heard that rocks. Hmm, I'd better make the Gunner concentrate more on elemental shots in preparation for Colossus. Having a Medic again (like in EO1) is a relief. War Magi are half useless if you don't combine them with a Hexer. Must not forget to put some points in Scavenge so the rare drops are a little easier to get.

And thanks for the Voltking tip. I'd killed one or two, but got no drops at all.[/spoiler]

Floor 23's again.
[spoiler]If you're aiming to Bind with the DH on a Boss, you're pretty much looking at Dominate, which isn't hard to fill up if you nabbed the Dominator Whip back on the 4th Stratum [Kill 3x Flygourds while they're completely bound]. It gives 400% Force Generation to them; incidentally, the Conditional Drop from Salamox (Kill with Fire Element for it) unlocks the Agneyastra Gun, which has the same property.

Ronin's have a decent AGI but their Katanas have a .3 Modifier on AGI; to compare, a WM wielding a Sword has a 2.0 Modifier and a Medic has a .1. And, yeah, offensively, a WM brings little without a Hexer, though they do the same damage as a Swordsknecht since they have the same Damage% Multipliers. Warmight is also pretty damn useful since it's twice as effective as Bravery (likewise, Rockskin is about 150% the effect of Shelter).

Hrm ... R - S - T / G - M. Hrm. Midareba will, sadly, probably still outdamage Orochi, plus it's faster anyway. Phys Mist + Shelter should help reduce the damage output, and it's about the best you can do to cut it down. Bravery or Ifrit / Ymir / Taranis (whichever applies to your chosen Element!) and Fire / Ice / Voltshot (damn you 3 buff slots!); I wouldn't risk the Riskshots here since even Misted / Sheltered, the Gunner would probably take something around 600-800+ damage if hit.

Incidentally, if you're reeeeally in the mood to Force Grind, which isn't too bad with those silly little Robots right outside his room, Crusade on the first turn could help along with Riot Gun / Issen. Unfortunately, Survivalist one would overwrite Bravery (or be overwritten by Crusade, depending on turn-order). You'd also be left without Mists but you would gain 100% HP from this.[/spoiler]

Scy - How is anyone supposed to know that when playing the game for the first time?[spoiler]I mean, if binds never succeed, you can't get conditional drops that require complete binding. And you wouldn't even try that unless you knew about the trick. After encountering one Flygourd I just ran away from them. Too much TP needed to kill them. And floor 17's hazard tiles aren't much fun to hang around among anyway.

Katanas make Ronin slow? That's totally counterintuitive. I'd expect Ronin to be speed demons, and katanas are their only weapons, so why make those hurt their stats?

As for Rockskin/Warmight boosting more than Shelter/Bravery, that's all fine, but they only target one character, so you'd spend 10 turns getting to everyone instead of just 2. Okay, not everyone needs the offense boost, but the defense boost is essential, so that'd still be 5 turns instead of 1. I'll stick with my Troubadour and Medic.

Anyway, we're still at level 35, so no need to worry about Colossus for a while.[/spoiler]

More~
[spoiler]It's not that they don't succeed it's just that most Bosses have such a huge resistance (50% - 95%) that it's impractical to rely on them; FoEs usually aren't so bad, but Flygourds are (probably since they have an all-target all-bind skill, I guess). There's some with no resistance, though I don't know the breakdown. Really, it's just a lot of Dominating to get the Binds to land. Like, for Flygourd, I did Riot Gun -> Dominate with a Revenge to put it at half health. Following turn was a Climax to kill it. Yeah, was annoying having to Force farm for Riot Gun and Dominate but it sure as hell beat the 40-some odd turns it took for my first drop where I used Gag / Cuffs and Immobile.

Yeah, Katana's have a .3 AGI multiplier, which is stupid really. Though, it does make them faster than everything but Whips (~3.0), Swords (~2.0), and Bows (~1.0-1.5). Like, in your group, they'd attack 3rd. Incidentally, if you want to manipulate SPD some, Troubadour with Estoc is the fastest they can get since it has a 3.0 SPD Multiplier. Not a big deal since they're naturally fast anyway but might be worth mentioning if you want to get Bravery in before the Survivalist does something.

I didn't mean to say bring the WM back; I fully support the Medic decision in a Hexer-less group. I just kind of got into typing out their stuff there for no real reason ^^;. Yeah, Warmight (I never really used Rockskin in my group) was just something I spent the first three turns on for a few bosses and never cared about it otherwise. Troubadour is probably a bigger help unless you plan to switch to WM + Hexer.

As far as really awesome Weapons go, Youtou (Harpuia) for Ronin is their best Weapon pre-Masamune, Zamiel Bow's from Chimaera (Poison him before killing to get the Conditional Drop). Sword wise, you're pretty much out of luck this early but you don't really have a Sword user. Mirage Staff (+50 TP) from Trigourd's Curse Bone drop for the Medic and Gun wise ... well ... Zamiel Gun is probably the best bet unless you want to try killing Salamox with a Fire attack >>.

Just some stuff to keep in mind on the grinding back up, I suppose.[/spoiler]

Some optional boss slaying a couple days ago.

[spoiler]First up was Wyvern. Had my Ronin, Protector, War Magus, Troubadour, and Hexer with me for this one.

It took a few tries for the fight to go my way. I wanted to grab it's conditional drop (Kill it in...6 turns I think. Or was it 8? I can't remember).

My winning attempt was going swell (Zero + Warmight + Bravery + Dead Law + Dampen on Wyvern= ~650-700 dmg a hit with Midareba. Total of ~1.9k-2.1k dmg total if all 3 hits connect).

Then, it pulls an attack out that made me cry: Sly Ray. That basically wiped the entire party...except my Protector. He was left with ~230-ish HP and in paralysis. Figuring I was screwed, I just used Smite. Wyvern used Tornado, binding my protector's legs. Smite again.

...Wyvern died. Holy crap I won ! To boot, I scored both of its drops, both normal and conditional. Also lucky that neither Smite was cancelled by paralysis.

After resting and stocking up, I went to tackle Drake. Party-wise, I swapped my War Magus for my Gunner to have an extra hand in getting its conditional drop.

Much easier than Wyvern. Freeze and 0 Point (HAH! Knew the sucker had that skill .) were both effectively nulled by my Protector's Anticold (Absorption FTW!). To boot, I got a lucky shot of Corrupt from my Hexer to connect on Drake. It meant that it got smacked for a nice chunk of damage if it used Freeze or 0 Point.

Went quite swell until the end where it felt like going on a Hexer killing spree. I needed a recast of Dampen from him in order to finish Drake off with ice elemental attacks.

Result? Drake owned by ice attack, I get both of its drops. Joy.

After that, I decided to check out 26F a bit more.

...Oh god no. Warp mania it seems.

I also ran into an Asterios. Smash pretty much killed anyone sans my Protector, but if I went first, it wasn't that bad (F.Guard saves the front row from death!). Has a conditional drop that I haven't gotten yet, but hopefully will in the next few days.[/spoiler]

Update on the great Whippet Guild!

Floor 12 & 13 (Yeah, I know. I'm slow! And I don't get to play much. )
[spoiler]Well, I made it through floors 12 and 13! It took me a while because I did some grinding to level some of may other characters. And to catch up the members of my main team.

Devere, my ronin, is really fragile, and it was getting very frustrating. I stuck some points into Vitality, and now she's a bit more durable. Tesla, my medic, goes from front to back. I have her equipped with a Mirage rod because I really need the extra TP. She needs to heal my ronin! I want my medic because of scavenge, but a war mage did join the Whippet Guild. Elphabe is level 5, but I haven't allotted any points yet.

Floor 12 wasn't too bad. Found all the snow blooms. Devere kept dying. How soon can the Helldras be beaten? My troupe is level 35. I just want to know what kind of drop I can get from her and what it opens up. I usually by the latest and (sometimes) best equipment for my main group. The ice was pretty fun. Esp. that big open patch. It was neat trying to figure out the best way to where I want to go. The 3rd stratum is so lovely.

Floor 13 was quite an interesting floor to explore and map out. The Armoth FOEs were a bit harder than the ones in EO, but I was able to dispatch many of them fairly handily. I stepped onto 14F briefly in hopes of fighting some blue gels. I guessed that they drop the blue cores which I need for the cider. Before I work on floor 14, I'm going to finish up some of the quests that I have. I need to get the innkeeper's daughter a gift! I'm going to use a secondary team for that in order to boost their levels.[/spoiler]

Overall, I'm very pleased with my team.

Devere, my ronin, is doing a bit better now that I put some points into vit up. She was just getting nailed, esp. by those damn [spoiler]crabs[/spoiler]! I have Orochi maxed and 5 points in Midareba, but I think I'm going to focus on clarity next. Str up is always good (I have 3 in that so far), and I could use the extra defense!

Tesla, my medic, has cure2 at 5 and maxed salve2 and am working on boosting her TP. She has to heal. Once I'm good with that, I'll put some points into Str up.

Onyx, my dark hunter, is awesome! Maxed viper, maxed gag, maxed climax. I'm not sure what I'll hit next. Maybe cuffs. Eventually, I want ecstasy. Or I might work on unbind. She's pretty hearty, so it'll be good to have someone who can unbind rather than use a slot for Therica A (btw, I love that they took out that extra "a"; in EO, I always called it therica in my head).

Newton, my alchemist, is working on Megido. I have ice and volt both to level 5. After Megido, I'm going to continue with the ice and volt trees. I want to get ice up to 5, then focus on the 2nd tier of spells.

Bela, my gunner, is another character I love. She has ricochet (don't know if its maxed), max medishot (awesome!), one point in wildshot, and one point in each of the elemental shots. I figure you can never have too much elemental power. [spoiler]For the mobs with multiple crabs, it's nice to have two members who can each volt a fucking crab.[/spoiler]

It was getting a little frustrating one floors 12 & 13 when my ronin kept dying, but things are starting to smooth out. I'm really loving this game.

For what it's worth, VIT Up won't have a significant impact on the Ronin's survivability. Slot more Armor for them; they have ~10 STR on most characters (Beast is the closer at 61 STR base, I think) so you don't need to "waste" slots on them for +STR. Get Armor, +STR Gloves, and +AGI Boots to round them off. Skill Points are a bit precious so I wouldn't waste them on small returns like VIT Up. Clarity and Shiraha, despite the useless LUC pre-requisite, work together so that'll help a lot for their survivability. Plus, they get to spam you with, "Ronin sees through the enemy attack!" a lot, which is always fun.

For the DH, I'd suggest Ecstacy soon; you're about to gain access to the Dominator Whip which gives you +300% Force Generation, effectively opening up Force Skill: Dominate for use whenever you need it. That or the Antisick/Antibind skills.

For the Alchemist, I highly, highly, highly suggest you pick up Volt before Ice, unless you don't think you'll get to working on it before the end of the 3rd Stratum. The Floor 15 Boss is weak to Volt so you'll want to be able to exploit that. Still, Megido packs a punch so even if you don't have Thunder, Megido would still do a lot of damage.

Thank you Scy! Hmm, I may rest the ronin then and re-allocate points. The vit up (it's at 5) helped a bit! I do get the best armor for my ronin. I can always regain some of the lost levels from one of the earlier bosses or simply leveling up my other characters. I have been going volt before ice. I find I'm using volt a lot more than ice. Thunder is open, so maybe I will go for that first. I love analysis. It's just a matter of remembering who's weak to what! Although some enemies are easier to determine than others.

Thank you for the advice! I tend to not go with what's popular, but I do like your advire wrt to the ronin and alchemist. Re. the DH, maybe I will start working on Ecstasy. It just may be tough getting the Dominator Whip (I know the prereqs).