rpschamp

Call me old-fashioned, but I like a good rare item farming session every now and then. Forced grinding is no good, but a treasure hunt can be fun, as long as it's optional.

Ahh Bucca Island Cave.... My favorite spot to farm ??? seeds! Papa Poto rare drops are 50% ??? seeds and 25% Poto Oils. Spend a couple hours farming at the second gold statue, get your class change items and sell the rest for 1000 each, then head right over to Sultan's Secret Shop to purchase few choice accessories. Light Angela makes this a breeze, and the jazzy cave music keeps things upbeat. Speaking of farming, I'm planning to take full advantage of my Luck stat with my Rogue playthrough. Moon Coins for every major boss, including Full Metal Hugger (the drop in boss difficulty will make it easier for me to pump all my stat points into Luck). ??? seeds at Bucca Island until I have enough for Dragon Rings and Magatama. W/A seeds at Moonreading Tower right after the third Godbeast. Battum's Eyes, Slime's Eyes, Specter's Eyes, Shadowzero's Eyes; all the eyes. Also, I'm glad that Manpower is working out. It seems to be kind of the mirror image of my Femmes Fatales; surprisingly strong in most situations but annoyingly difficult in a few. I haven't completed the final area with mine yet as I got kind of bored of them, but I look forward to hearing how Archdemon goes with your group. With this next group I'm looking for more variety and I'm excited to have Hawk at the helm again.

Another reason I tend to prefer light Angela over dark; she gets access to Curse as soon as you get the Pihyara Flute, which can make the section of the game between your first and second class change a good deal easier if you are still waiting to learn Heal Light :-)

Yes I actually meant Protect Up instead of Power Up, thanks for catching that. The buffs that keep you alive. Because you can't benefit from your Power Up if Dolan is knocking you flat on your ass. I was also thinking of that Transshape shield combo; I didn't get to use it last time I played Grand Divina because the update wasn't out for Lise yet. Rune Master might be an interesting choice. Marduke is slightly more useful than her Level 3 Air spell, but Snowman should be a definite upgrade from Sleep Flower, and Petrify would be great for werewolves and other annoying mobs. My Holy and Dark damage would be limited to my Rogue though.... It's a tough call. Maybe I'll branch off at my first class change and try both!

Thanks for the quest info; it's more or less what I assumed. Also, on second thought, I think I'm going to be lame and go with light Lise as my third teammate. I was hoping to replace her with Kevin or Carlie for some variety, but MT Mind and Power Up may be just too useful to go without. Maybe when I'm feeling braver. So, we have: Rogue, Vanadis, Archmage: Great final weapons on Rogue and Archmage, but with no sabers, Vanadis's final weapon would be wasted on this team. Rogue, Vanadis, Grand Divina: Either eye farming with the Rogue or scales and invert armor on the Grand Divina to make up the Mind and Power Down. Apart from this, the sabers make this team much more fun. Grand Divina would generally not be as powerful as Archmage after reaching the final weapons, but perhaps more useful all around. With two healers, Grand Divina can pick up some of the MP burden to leave room for Vanadis's summon. Rogue, Star Lancer, Grand Divina: Aura Wave, Energy Ball, and Marduke would all be useful for this team. More physical than the previous; Star Lancer would be more geared for tech damage with Aura Wave and her ST Level 3 tech than Vanadis with her summon. She would also not be dependent on Whitelight Ring which unburdens her for other roles. A simpler, cleaner team than the previous, but with one healer, perhaps not as adaptable. I honestly don't think I can lose with any of these three, but I'm leaning towards Grand Divina to take advantage of the sabers.

Very interesting. From anyone who has tried it, is the Mirage Palace route still much easier than the other two? I'd love to try it, I just don't want to play all the way to the end of the game and be stuck without a challenge. I always thought it had the coolest concept of all three final areas, and Dark Lich is pretty cool visually with the shifting backgrounds.

Rogue, Grand Divina, Dervish is interesting. Protect Up is a must for Rogue and Angela, and being dependent on invert armor prevents Dervish from using more defensive armor when he needs it. But Kevin and Hawk would make great use of all the sabers and Fireblaze; this team would be both a physical and magical powerhouse. And I would only need to keep two types of scales stocked; Kevin would use them as Power and Mind Down and someone else as Power and Mind Up. I could only really do this for boss fights, since the defensive effects alone would cost at minimum five scales.... At least I'd have a purpose for all that late game money! I can predict the Dervish build being difficult; with competition between Whitelight Ring, Fireblaze, Sage Stone, invert armor, and elemental weakness/resistance equipment, there would be a lot of compromise. Maybe I ditch the Sage Stone at least and put stat points into Intelligence? Plus, no Mind Up for random fights in the late game might occasionally be in issue (not as much as no Protect Up would be, though). Just checking: Dervish keeps Bloody Wolf and Suzaku Sky Dance in this mod, correct? I have never played dark Kevin to the end. Also, what quest do people recommend? I have only been to the final areas of Hawk/Lise's quest so far in this mod; with this team, I could choose any of the three. I think Nesouk commented that the Dragon Emperor is a bit of a letdown compared to Archdemon, but I'm curious about Kevin/Carlie's quest. Of the three final areas, Mirage Palace definitely looks the coolest, and I like the mirage theme. How do the final areas and bosses compare among the three quests in terms of difficulty? Have they been rebalanced in this mod?

I'm starting a Rogue/Angela team and I need help picking a third teammate. I've been wanting to run Rogue for a while to see how well physical casting can work, especially with Fireblaze around, plus Luck is such a great stat. I'd like to pair Angela with him for elemental variety and MT damage; plus this will allow me to directly compare the most powerful physical caster directly against the most powerful magical caster. I'm thinking of running either light Kevin or dark Carlie as the third. (I'm not interested in Lise or Duran for this team.) Light Kevin would give me two double hitters, open up my Fireblaze potential, and allow me to run Archmage or even Rune Master, but I would be missing some important skills like Protect Up no matter how I choose the classes. Dark Carlie would stick me with Grand Divina, but the casting potential of this team would be unreal, plus the buffs/debuffs may work out better, especially with Evil Shaman. It seems though that Angela's sabers might be wasted on this team.... Any suggestions from people who have played or thought of similar teams?

Team Manpower, I like it. I expected Tzenker to be a difficult battle since she's hard to reach half the time but I guess not? Also, for deathless players, do you think it's possible to beat Gorva before he casts Deathspell? I'm wondering if you can use Heal Light to damage him.... Otherwise with only Shuriken I just don't see it happening without stocking up on tons of projectiles at Byzel. Which might be a good idea anyways since only one of your characters can cast for damage through the majority of the game. I took a break from my ladies for now to work up a Rogue/Archmage team. I want to test the efficacy of having a physical and a magical caster vs. having two magical casters.

How about this team: Duelist, Vanadis, God Hand. This team takes full advantage of having all sabers at hand. Final weapons all work well together here. During fights when you need magical damage, Vanadis comes through with her sabered-up summon, while your fighters heal and whittle away physical defense using Fireblaze. All buffs, defense debuff through Fireblaze, and either Mind Down or Power Down with invert armor, depending on the boss. Two healers, a shield bearer, and tons of MT tech damage! (A team without Angela is almost inconcievable to me, especially on her quest with Duran, but it may be time to branch out.)

Yeah, I read that in the mechanics, I just didn't realize it was repeatable! So Hawk and Kevin can add two debuffs per counter with their double hits.... The fact that they're permanent is great for Death Hand who eats everything else with his final weapon. I can definitely see Death Hand outpacing Duelist for single targets now, especially during boss fights. In general this mechanic makes melee/tech damage a much more viable strategy.

Wow. That's amazing and not at all obvious from the included files. What exactly do you mean by "defense down reduces defense by 10"? Is the minus 10 or half your Strength stat the additive part of Protect Down, meaning you can cast it multiple times to increase the effect? More importantly, does a counter with Fireblaze lower just physical defense or magical defense too? The item description just says "defense". If not, is there another way to multiplicatively lower magical defense, or is physical defense special in this regard? It was my understanding that the most you could get out of buffs/debuffs was 25% plus or minus from the basic Up/Down spells or other spells/items that replicate their effects. Can other buff/debuff spells apart from Protect Down can be cast multiple times for additive effects? If so, this changes the game considerably and is crazy to learn after a year or so of play.

So now Nesouk has me excited to run a Duelist group; I haven't played him since the original game. I'm thinking casters for his teammates to take advantage of his Leaf Saber and because he probably supplies enough physical damage already. God Hand might also be a fun teammate but I can't get the buffs/debuffs to work out. Any ideas from recent Duelist games? Duelist, Vanadis, Archmage sounds great since it can hit all the buffs/debuffs except for Speed Down by using Fireblaze. Or I could take Carlie and someone else with buffs and just manipulate the RNG to collect Bottles of Ashes from ??? seeds for bosses. Before I forget to ask again: Is the Fireblaze defense debuff functionally the same as the Protect Down spell? Also, can Vanadis's final weapon give her summon its element from a weapon element accessory, or does it have to be a saber spell?

My guess is you were thinking Spiral Moon without the damage. I am not skipping spell animations - I generally like the down-time to plan my next attack (or take a sip of beer). If I play Grand Divina again though, I may reconsider.

I like your tabulation, but it also depends on how the resistances fall; e.g., if I run into three enemies, each with different weaknesses and resistances, what is the least number of spells I can cast to blast through everyone? One interesting thing about Holy and Dark from your table is that most of those monsters are weak to no other elements, so you can't compensate with other elements when you need to prioritize these enemies. Some of these are especially annoying, like Cockabirds for Holy or Silver Wolves for Dark. I admit I may have some left over bias from the original game and maybe need to try to work in other elements more regularly, especially Water and Earth. I think everyone has their tolerance for number of spells cast per battle, especially with random encounters. If I can cut that number in half, I can save half my sanity (and as a regular Angela user, I think I have a pretty high tolerance for this sort of thing). But also remember that the more spells you cast, the more chances you have to be counter-attacked and the more chances enemies get to sneak in extra spells or techs due to lag issues. Spells aren't cast in a vacuum, as much as we'd like them to be. Still - I love the Grand Divina - my first true love in this mod. Yes, I did mean Agility for Necromancer. With Rune Earrings, revive armor, and her final weapon, Necromancer could split time between buffing Death Hand when her HP are high and direct damage spells for extra damage when her HP are low. This might make quite a strong team with Vanadis for a third. Extra damage for Death hand is in the tech damage mechanics file, and it depends on the buff. With Black Curse, the multiplier should be (3+2+1+1+1)/3 = 267%, so pretty substantial. Also, I'm not sure if that multitarget Lunatic is a typo - Ninja Master's jutsus are also exclusively multitarget. That would be a nice bonus for Death Hand. Praetarius, can you confirm?

Grand Divina: Your numbers look good, I'm just saying that DPS isn't the whole story. Having to cast twice as many spells is a handicap itself as it sucks up attention and down-time. With Heal Light and Tinkle Rain, I still think she's a great choice for many teams. Magus: One handicap that hasn't been mentioned is that she lacks Holy damage. Despite weaknesses being rebalanced, Fire and Holy still seem like the big two, and without Carlie (or Rogue) to make up for it, Magus teams will be missing that direct Holy damage that comes in handy in so many situations. Rogue: Counting Physical as an element, he actually casts as many elements as Archmage, they're just not as useful and mostly stuck as single-target. Still, he get's Fire and Holy, and with his final weapon he's the best caster in the game to hit against physical defense. I'm now more seriously considering running him with Archmage as a teammate to see just how useful physical casting is compared to taking Carlie as a second magical caster. Death Hand: I thought about Black Curse as well, but that spell sucks up 15 MP (in general, Necromancer spells are MP heavy), and MP drain items still seem to slow to win that back to keep up with his techs. Rune Earrings might be a solution with maxed out intelligence and cast-time gear. At some point, though, you might as well just be casting damage spells for less MP rather than feeding Death Hand's tech damage. Rogue might actually have the quickest and cheapest methods to feed debuffs to Death Hand through Land Mine (MT, 5 MP) and Cutter Missile (ST, 7 MP); teamed with Vanadis, though, you'd still be missing Mind Down. Death Hand vs. Duelist: Duelist is certainly easier to set up, doesn't eat debuffs, and his Leaf Saber can be nice for his teammates. Death Hand, though, should have an advantage in speed. With his final weapon, Mistscreen Charm, and Aura Wave, Duelist takes three attacks to reach his Level 3 tech. With the same setup, since Kevin hits twice with each attack, Death Hand takes 1.5 attacks, meaning two attacks with the option to miss one hit. With only the Mistscreen Charm or Aura Wave, Duelist takes five attacks and Death Hand takes three. So, Death Hand can throw out more techs, but since his tech eats the Protect Down debuff, you will need to find a way to reapply it if you want it to factor into the tech damage. Death Hand can reapply it himself with Fireblaze equipped, but this will use another two attacks, plus require that one of these be a successful counter. All things considered, Duelist certainly seems like the safer and more consistent bet, but since Death Hand is certainly racking up more damage between Level 3 techs, it's still not clear to me who can reach a higher DPS, especially with team support for debuffs. Someone can try to calculate it but it might be more reliably tested. I imagine that Death Hand might be more useful for setting up really quick combos, like MT damage/debuff spell - Level 3 tech to take out a room full of enemies, while Duelist might be better for coralling a crowd of enemies with his shield aggro and throwing his Level 3 tech right before or after a caster nukes the field. After this discussion, the Duelist strategy appeals to me more, but I'll leave it to a physical team specialist to correct me if my impressions are wrong.

Before the Lise-shield update, I tried a similar team of Ninja Master, Star Lancer, and Grand Divina. This team had a ton of damage options, though in the second half of the game I found Grand Divina more difficult to crank out damage than I expected; she would have to cast three or four spells where Archmage with her weakness bonus could get away with one or two. In theory, this isn't so bad, since her spells come out so fast, but in practice I found that she sucked up both time I had to control the field and do other things with my lead character and MP from throwing out so many spells. Fenrir Knight could help with the latter, but honestly it's tough to use your lead character to the best advantage when Grand Divina is just constantly on the spell menu. I don't see a way around this except with a more advanced system where shortcuts could be assigned. On a different topic, I contend that between Sage and Bishop, Sage is the better healer, her final weapon providing an alternative to Holy Flail for situations where passive healing is advantageous, especially if you want Carlie casting spells other than Heal Light more often. Gigas Flail is so much better than Mad Beast Fang, healing at more than twice the rate but also affecting the entire group. Interestingly, because its HP gain is static, it encourages the use of defense boosting armors rather than HP boosting armors, each HP being much more meaningful for the former. I'll admit though that I haven't really given Magic Shield a fair chance, and if its physical defense bonus stacks with Defense Up, it may be quite useful for a magical focus team. Between Bishop and Sage, I see the main difference being a physical fighter versus a more versatile caster/healer by the end game, aside from minor differences like MT sabers versus Leaf Saber and Life Booster. Spells like Turn Undead never appealed to me because, like you, I'm almost always under-leveled. Which brings me to Magus, the only Angela class I haven't tried. Death Spell, like Turn Undead, never appealed to me. For direct damage, I'd go for Archmage; for damage type versatility, I'd go for a light class with holy damage; for recovery options, I'd go for Grand Divina; for crowd-control options or low magic-power function, I'd go for Rune Master. Apart from the fact that all Angela classes are pretty much awesome, I can't think of too many teams where I'd see an advantage in choosing Magus, unless you plan to be over-leveled or don't have another way of casting Mind Up. In the team you suggested of Dragon Master, Magus, and Bishop, however, I can definitely see her potential, but not from spell damage: her combined +30% damage from neutral spell armor and +20% MT damage would just equal the normal +50% damage from hitting a weakness, considerably below the +100% MT or +140% ST damage Archmage gets from hitting a weakness, which she almost always can, especially with Dragon Master around to help when necessary. Her advantage would instead be in her buffs, as everyone would benefit from her Mind Up, and both Dragon Master and Bishop could use her Power Up for an alternative damage source against magic-resistant bosses like Dolan. Plus, Dragon Master wouldn't be stuck on invert armor for boss battles where you want a better defense boosting armor as well as the group Defense Up. Also conveniently, Bishop would supply the missing Holy element for spell damage. This team has the potential to be quite powerful and versatile for a team with two casters, and I'd love to see how it would play out. Concerning Rogue: How often does his double-spell damage hit? From what I can tell from the mechanics files, at max Luck it should be about 1/3 of the time. In this case, Rogue and Archmage should do about the same damage on average for ST spells: (150%+150%+300%)/3 = (200%+200%+200%)/3 = 200%. Archmage would still have him beat on MT spells since she can hit six elements at Level 2. Rogue and Archmage together, led by Vanadis, should make an awesome casting team, capable of dealing both physical and magical spell damage at the highest level, hitting all the buffs and debuffs, and having shields, healing, and Anti-magic. No sabers, but not a big loss with magical damage. This is one of the magical focus groups I'm considering for my next playthrough. Concerning Death Hand: He looks like the only class who could compete with Duelist for tech damage. I've been thinking that if I ever need a break from playing magical focus teams and decide to try Kevin/Carlie's quest, I would build a team around Death Hand to take full advantage of his tech power. With his final weapon and Fireblaze, he could combo his own Level 1 tech counter into a debuff-powered Level 3 tech, and fast as hell, since Kevin's hits come out so quickly. Dark Hawk, Rogue, or Evil Shaman would make good teammates to feed Death Hand group debuffs for his Level 3 tech; of these, I think Evil Shaman would be best since she also provides both Anti-magic for those enemies with physical immunity and, more importantly, magical damage for those with just really high physical defense; this is why I think she edges out Hawk whose spells all hit against physical defense. Your other teammate would ideally provide healing and buffs, so basically Vanadis. She could also help Evil Shaman with magical damage in some cases, her final weapon lending another purpose to Death Hand's saber spells.

Following Nesouk's example, here's a review of my current group and favorite to date, Les Femmes Fatales: Lise as Dragon Master, Angela as Archmage, Carlie as Sage. This group is the strongest magical focus group I've played. For random encounters, Lise controls the field using a shield when necessary, and Angela and Carlie clear screens with MT Level 2 spells. For bosses, Dragon Master uses her invert armor for buffs, Archmage covers the two most important debuffs, Power Down and Mind Down, and nukes, and Sage provides Leaf or basic elemental sabers, healing, and extra nukes when necessary. What's particularly great about this team is how it scales with the increasing difficulty of the game: at the first class change you get MT damage spells and Heal Light, at the second class change you get spell level upgrades and increased access to buffs and debuffs, and at your final weapons you get Spirit Cane, which gives Archmage an extra 50% damage boost against weaknesses, Gigas Flail, which provides another option for group healing, and Dragon Lance, which through empowered Anti-magic almost guarantees the double weakness boost for Archmage and the weakness boost for Sage, who otherwise only has access to two elements. Dragon Lance also helps for those situations where a boss otherwise resists everything, i.e. DOLAN, allowing Archmage and Sage to continue their work and preventing your magical focus group from resorting to melee. I've taken this group up through the God Beasts, and Mispolm has been the only battle where I've found an advantage in abandoning casting for an alternative damage strategy, and here the low melee damage of your casters actually helps you to accumulate tech points while minimizing thorn damage. Strengths of this group? Combat is nicely streamlined: Lise distracts while Angela and Carlie slaughter. Learning the weaknesses of every enemy is actually kind of fun, and it's satisfying to figure out the shortest path through a group of enemies. Treasure hunting is super easy: this group gives you a ton of control over which enemy you kill last, and since Angela and Carlie provide most of the damage, Lise can be pumped full of Luck to increase your rare item gain. Lise's shield enables her to pull certain melee-heavy bosses like Bill and Ben, the Machine Golems, or Lugar away from your casters, leaving Angela and Carlie free to knock the bosses around the field, one spell after another. Bosses that rely on swarm damage like Genova and Gildervine are a joke. Also, surprisingly, you are immune to most status effects while casting, so you can use this to your advantage against Cockabirds or Frost Dragons if you want to keep that accessory slot for something else. Weaknesses? Since it can be seductive to pump most of your early stat gain for your casters into Intelligence or Spirit, especially with thorn armor to take care of heavy melee-ers, high physical damage from Level 2/3 techs can catch you off guard. For this reason it's important not to ignore your Vitality stat or at least be willing to change up your equipment for added protection when necessary. Also, DOLAN. Because he has no weaknesses, the best you can do is remove his resistances with empowered Anti-magic or use equipment that neutralizes your element. Because you can't get the weakness bonus that gives Archmage such an advantage on pretty much every other boss, this battle can take some time. It doesn't help that he's primarily tuned for big group physical damage, this group's main weakness. I clocked the fight around 20 minutes on my current playthrough, though it seemed more like 30 or 40. Similar groups and substitutes? A similar group that wouldn't depend so much on empowered Anti-magic would be Lise as Vanadis, Angela as Rune Master, and Carlie as Necromancer, as Rune Master's Rune Staff and Necromancer's Great Demon offer ways around elemental resistance without having to rely on neutral spell armor. Rune Master would not be able to exploit weaknesses as powerfully or consistently as Archmage, but she would get some helpful status effects with her Level 3 spells, and Necromancer would help out more with single-target weakness damage. Lise would also not be reliant on invert armor for buffs. Dark Hawk could be an interesting substitute for Necromancer as well to bring up the melee damage, or even Rogue and Archmage. I may give some version of this group a try after I finish my current playthrough. For my current group, I tried Fenrir Knight as an alternative to Dragon Master, more focused on HP/MP recovery with her final weapon than casting damage. Not being able to hit a weakness or bring down resistances was a disadvantage for certain bosses though, and I found that I didn't always have the option to go for counters (again, DOLAN). In the end, I would rather rely on Leaf Saber and Magic Walnuts than give up empowered Anti-magic. Thanks again, Praetarius; your great work on this game and consistent updates (especially the recent Lise-shield update) have made this a thoroughly enjoyable experience with every group I play.

Weapon element effects seem to overwrite each other, as do HP/MP drain effects, but is it possible to cast a saber on top of a Dragon Ring or Tree Spirit Ring and keep the HP or MP drain effect along with the weapon element? What about proc effects; will these stack with sabers and HP/MP drain? (Sorry I'm not able to test this at the moment.)

Back to playing this after a small break and making a decision on the Sage. Gigas Flail looks awesome. Does its HP recovery effect stack with Mad Beast Fang, meaning a max recovery of 17 hp/s? Also, are these effects additive (i.e. cancelling) with Fiegmund's HP drain effect?

So what is your main purpose for doing the LP? To show that any team can win or to show off the new features of this mod? If it's the former than I think that a poll like you have is a decent approach; if it's the latter then you should come up with a list of features beforehand and select your team based on which features you want to demonstrate. An LP is a lot of work so I just want to see you get the most out of your effort. My main reason for asking is that I was introduced to this mod through an LP, but at the time I had no understanding of how the team I was watching was chosen. I was just amazed at how distinct the gameplay was from the original game; at least several of the changes I had wished for when I played the original game were on display. I'm guessing that if you post this on YouTube then many more people than those who voted on this poll will watch the LP without being aware that your team was decided by a poll, and instead will be attracted or surprised by the features that are obvious from your gameplay.

I used to run Grand Divina quite often, but the thing about her and screen clearing is that she casts so fast, there is little time in between spells to do much else if you don't want her running all over the screen. There are some advantages to her staying put, e.g. she's out of enemy reach, and she's impervious to certain stat effects while casting. Of course this is not much of an issue if you have a second human to control her.... Plus she has more chances to be countered, the more spells she unleashes. I've been running Archmage more often because of this (that double weakness staff is too much!). Also, you had best be directly controlling the character you want to be countering often, like Fenrir Knight, but this should be obvious.

I think you could probably do it without the Mind Down, but another option would be to swap Kevin for Hawk and go Lord, Ninja Master, and Archmage. Invert the Archmage and you would have healing, stat recovery, all the stat ups, all the stat downs with Anti-Magic (or even better, Black Garb) support, Aura Wave, and several crit spells. This team would be fun since they could handle both strong melee and heavy casting; Ninja Master and Archmage Fire Jutsu followed by weakness spell one-two punch would wipe out screens, especially with Archmage's final weapon (Archmage could throw a quick Mind Up to start the chain for an extra boost). The only thing this team lacks is sabers, and you could stock them for boss fights for your melee fighters without too much trouble. Also, if you want to take more advantage of the Lord's final weapon, Fenrir Knight would make an interesting substitution for Ninja Master, though it wouldn't be as effective at screen clearing. Finally, it would be better to lead with someone like Duran who can hold shields to show off the new shield/aggro function. Running enemies around the screen while your casters bomb away is just too much fun.

God Hand with invert armor already has Power Down; go for Rune Master instead for the sabers (which this team would love) and the level 3 spells with silence, snowman, and petrify. Snowman in particular would be fun for this team with Duran and Kevin around to pound them into snowballs afterwards.

Duran, Kevin, Angela would be a great run; this party was used rarely in vanilla.