rpschamp

It's funny, but in terms of the update, I think that Bishop got the best bonus; her final weapon is now more important due to new counter power against physical resistance. Also, even though I've always liked Sage, I've always hated Rainbow Dust and almost never used it; I get that it fits thematically (philosopher of the elements; a doctor of Ancient Greece, perhaps), it's just that it's rare to find a situation where it's actually effective, and at 11 MP, it's way less useful than Black Rain, which costs 8 MP and can add Curse. With the update though, I'm wondering how much it can be boosted with Leaf Coat (I couldn't find it in the mechanics). If it's at least a 50% boost, it might be nice to throw after Nightblade hits the target enemy with a Poison Breath; this will help the damage modifier come out positive in those situations where the enemy has both a resistance and a weakness. In this way, spells that can add Leaf Coat may helpful in enhancing Rainbow Dust's ability to actually kill enemies it can already damage, rather than using Antimagic to reduce immunities to resistances in enemies it might not kill anyways. This is all conjecture though; I haven't seen anyone posting about Leaf Coat yet.

I did forget about that level 1 tech bonus for Bishop's final weapon. I assume that it still applies in the case of a counterattack? Regardless, it should help, but you could also just use Sage's Saint Beam or Dark Force against physically resistant enemies instead. EDIT: Just confirmed that it does; tech bonus and counter bonus are added cumulatively, so yeah, it should be quite good against those enemy types.

Yeah, this team is really just great regardless. I think Star Lancer is the only definite choice. I do think Ninja Master pairs particularly nicely with Star Lancer, but keep Curse in mind; you can only get that here through Sage and Nightblade. It's also possible to just wear reflect armor for random fights, and you'll get a 175% reflection instead of the 100% you get from Curse. My play style leans towards spell casting, so I may have a bias for Sage, so keep that in mind too; I know Bishop is well loved. I just don't think Bishop's final weapon advantage should be the deciding factor; Sage with her Agility weapon can hit almost as hard (30/light medium vs. 32/medium). Plus, you'll probably be using her heal weapon half the time. For this purpose, I like that Sage gets two options for heal weapons: the normal heal spell/item enhancing one, and her passive 15 HP/s one.

On this team in particular, I think Sage has more to offer than Bishop, since Star Lancer already covers your stat buffs pretty completely. Two spell damage elements are much better than one, and I don't think there are any enemies resistant to both Light and Dark, so your Sage should always be able to cast something. Also, you'll get these spells 20 levels earlier than Bishop's final weapon; Sage will be fully functional before you get to the God Beasts. Sage also gets a final weapon that gives passive healing (20% stronger in this update) which can be nice when plowing through dungeons. Leaf Saber has it's purposes too. If you take Bishop, then Nightblade is important for Curse if you don't want to wear reflect armor all the time. If you take Sage though, Ninja Master vs. Nightblade is more a matter of preference/style, since Sage can Curse and Star Lancer can Silence. In general, I think Ninja Master is more complimentary to Star Lancer. As you mentioned, Ninja Master gets Analyze which is nice with Energy Ball if you're going for critical hits. Ninja Master also gets Transshape, so if you're leading with Star Lancer and using a shield, you can use her to draw and evade all melee. MT Fire Jutsu will also help boost the damage of Saint Beam, Dark Force, and Marduk. On the other hand, Nightblade has good elemental spread, and his Poison Breath should now be able to enhance Rainbow Dust by adding Leaf Coat. In summary, I would go for Star Lancer, Ninja Master, Sage, but you won't go wrong by choosing something else.

I completely agree, to the extent that after I started playing Sin of Mana, I played teams focused on dealing spell damage with Angela and Carlie (or Hawk) almost exclusively, since I never used this type of team in the original. Revised enemy counters, aggro shields, and new spell strategies (like Curse) all contribute to the new balance. My current game is the first time I've run Kevin in years. Missing Angela, I'm trying to come up with a new team for her to play after my Wanderer/Warrior Monk/Necromancer run. I was originally thinking Dark Hawk/Dark Angela/Light Carlie to take advantage of the shared fire resistance; Nightblade/Magus/Bishop sounds strong, but I've never really enjoyed playing Magus or Bishop. Vanadis/Nightblade/Rune Master could be fun, but this sounds quite similar to the team that you just played. What I'd really love to do is come up with a killer spell-damage team for Grand Divina. I used her extensively in older versions of this mod; to me, the most interesting thing about her is how she transforms into an instantaneous elemental spell-damage dealer by the second half of the game (after building up her Agility). One way to really properly use this would be to transition her into the lead character and set her partners to spells that require cast time while she fires off instant damage spells one after the other, keeping attackers occupied by knocking them about the screen. Her first partner might be someone like Light Lise or Wanderer (or maybe Paladin) with access to buffs, damage spells, and possibly shields for the early game, and her second partner either Dark Hawk or Dark Carlie with access to debuff and damage spells. Someone with a saber spell would also be nice if you want to go for shared resistance. Some ideas: - Grand Divina, Star Lancer, Evil Shaman: Femmes Fatales reboot. Evil Shaman gets some nice MT damage/debuff spells, while Star Lancer gets Marduk to add to the damage and Saint Saber to go for an easy shared Light resistance with Dusk Dress on Angela. Lise can keep the team safe in the first half of the game with shields. - Grand Divina, Star Lancer, Ninja Master: Similar to above, but with more debuff range, Analyze to support Star Lancer's Energy Ball, and an exchange of Evil Shaman's raw spell power for Ninja Master's melee capability and versatility. This team is harder to get shared resistance, but it is possible through Saint Saber, Dusk Dress, Utsushimi Cape, and Silver Wolf Garea. The lack of Antimagic should not be a major problem. - Grand Divina, Wanderer, Necromancer: I played this team through the first few God Beasts and can confirm that it is awesome, even more so in the current version since Wanderer now gets Magic Shield. Shared Dark resistance through Dark Saber, Mananan Robe, and Eremos Crown. No Mind Up or Power Up, and more importantly, no shield user, so it takes some practice if you're used to the aggro advantage (the first time I tried these three, I gave up, but I found them easier the second time).

Since I'm planning to run Necromancer in my current game (and considering Rune Master for my next game), I have a few questions about your Paladin/Rune Master/Necromancer team when you have some time: 1) Rune Earrings have been changed in this version so that they subtract max HP x MP cost/32, and Necromancer's spells generally have a high MP cost; by this formula, Black Curse costs almost half your HP. I assume that for longer battles, you would constantly rely on revive armor to keep her from dying. How did you manage keeping her alive to recover the 15 MP between revives? I'm wondering whether it's worth it to build up her Intelligence stat to keep her MP regeneration high for this purpose. 2) Did you notice whether Rune Earrings still lengthen cast time? I notice that this text was removed from the documentation. 3) Did you find Black Rain to still be useful, now that Necromancer's neutral element spell armor can no longer be used to bypass absorb/reflect? 4) Did you try the petrify resistance/reflect armor/Stone Cloud strategy with Paladin and Rune Master? If so, was it useful? Thanks!

Well, after playing a few bosses and the Seashore Cave with Dark Hawk, Dark Kevin, Light Carlie, I've found myself too often wishing for a caster. As much as I'm enjoying Bastard Slam, I'm going to backtrack to the first class change and give Light Hawk, Light Kevin, Dark Carlie a try like I originally intended. EDIT: This team is going very well so far. Thanks to Bill & Ben's corrected weakness, Hawk and Kevin wearing Siren's Claws and Carlie throwing Unicorn Heads took them down in a way I have never experienced. This is usually one of the hardest fights in the game for me, but the corrected weakness (along with the HP rasping weapons) makes a huge difference. My fight against Gorva was also a lot of fun; just to challenge myself, I let Carlie enter the spirit world and took him on with Hawk and Kevin. It helped that they were both resistant to dark, but I managed to get their Arrows and Heal Light up to around 200 damage per hit. Gorva went down not too long after one spell cycle. One more thing to note:

Thanks guys, I feel stupid, it's right there in the change log, I should have reviewed it when I ran into trouble. I also think that I was too under-leveled here; they were basically one-shotting me before I even got a chance to counter. I do like the mini-boss and agree that it fits well thematically; now the appearance of you-know-who does not feel so random at the end of the cave. One weird thing about the mechanics of this fight:

I hope this doesn't reveal too much, but after this new Seashore Cave mini-boss, I'm no longer excited about a No Heal Light team. In fact, this is a problem for teams that don't get Heal Light at the first class change.... Is there another strategy to beat this boss, apart from over-leveling? (To be fair, I was level 26 versus mini-boss level 32, but I'm not sure an extra six levels would have made much of a difference.) Or maybe this is a way of giving an extra advantage to teams that learn Heal Light at the first class change?

It may also be that I'm running Hawk, Kevin, Carlie instead of X, Angela, Carlie that I've been running for the past year, so I'm not locking myself up with spells as often. Speaking of which, I'm loving Hawk, Kevin, Carlie on the new update; the new HP rasping on yellow damage weapons are great for Hawk and Kevin if you pump up their luck, and I've rediscovered the simple joy of the Bastard Slam. Bill & Ben were tough without Angela though.

In this case, Dervish might be worth a try. I'm thinking a Nightblade/Dervish/Sage team should be able to finally get some use out of Rainbow Dust with the new Leaf Coat effect, among other cool things. By the way, I'm really feeling the code optimizations during battle. Maybe I'm just noticing them because my hardware is over a decade old, but battle is now running near normal speed for me, maybe 50% faster at times. Your work on improving this game over these years is really appreciated :-) I'm probably going to go Dark Hawk, Dark Kevin, Light Carlie this time, but I agree this one would be a lot of fun, especially on the hardest difficulty where Half Vanish is often your best damage source; Wanderer and Necromancer casting back to back while Kevin uses tech points for either final weapon or Beastman Collar healing, two double hitters, Dark Saber and dark resistance, and pretty much every support spell in the game (except for elemental sabers).

much more attack than regular wolf form at cost of defenses. Is the +25% attack, -50% defenses listed in the documentation correct? Your comment above leads me to think it may be +50% attack, -25% defenses instead.

Yeah, after giving this some more thought, it seems a little crazy, and a No Heal Light run without Fenrir Knight feels like it's missing something important. I will probably stick with Hawk, Kevin, Carlie for now (though I miss Angela) and either go Wanderer, Warrior Monk, Necromancer or some Dark Hawk, Dark Kevin, Light Carlie. Dervish looks interesting to pair with Ninja Master and Sage (Energy Ball and Analyze; invert armor on Kevin for Protect Up, Speed Up, and Mind Up; Gigas Flail and Moon Saber to keep HP up), but his final weapon looks a little crazy with its 50% reduction to defenses. Death Hand's final weapon looks A LOT more useful. I can think of a No Heal Light run with Fenrir Knight in the future.

I'm now thinking of a No Heal Light team myself; I've wanted to run one for a while but with the recent update I have some new inspiration. After thinking of these same base resistance teams, I'm considering: Ninja Master/Night Blade, Death Hand, Rune Master Defensively, all three characters are resistant to Earth, and Angela has Diamond Saber, so I can keep melee/tech damage down significantly in the late game. Hawk and Kevin can get a lot of mileage out of Dragon Rings and their HP rasping weapons with their double-hits to keep their HP up, and I can use heal hurts armors/accessories for random enemies and use heal items between battles when necessary (Mad Beast Fangs may be useful too). For boss battles, I find that I mainly use items anyways rather than Heal Light until very late in the game, so I think I can make this work. Offensively, this team will be a terror: I'll have two double-hitters with powerful level 3 techs/debuffs (with Beastman Collar for Hawk) and Rune Master to cast MT status spells. I can also use status reflect effects like Stone Cloud (convenient here since everyone resists Earth). It may also be interesting to explore some of the weapons and armors that strengthen on death (I usually run deathless, so this will be completely new territory for me). The choice of Ninja Master vs. Night Blade is interesting: Ninja Master adds defensive options with MT jutsus and Transshape to keep Rune Master safe, but Night Blade brings two extra elements with Pressure and Curse and a final weapon that might actually get some use in an often low-HP environment. I quoted Nesouk to get his opinion since he ran an No Heal Light team recently. Does this sound workable? I will be playing on Normal.

One question on how Beastman Collar interacts with Warrior Monk's final weapon: When casting Heal Light, would his tech points count towards his healing power, or would they get removed by the Beastman Collar prior to the Heal Light calculation?

This explains my results.

That's what I'm thinking; I can confirm it worked really well on Lugar. Ninja Master, Dervish, Sage is also possible, trading Death Hand's final weapon, Magic Shield, Aura Wave, Lunatic, and Dark Saber for Power Up, Moon Saber, Antimagic, and Protect Up when inverted. The colors work out particularly nicely; I call this team "Purple Reign". I'm not actually sure about this and would like it confirmed. IIRC, when I put Mananan Robe (Shadow resistance) on Light Angela (weak against Shadow) and cast Evil Gate on her, it seemed to do less than neutral spell damage, but not quite the 50% damage reduction I was expecting.

I've been brainstorming more teams for Death Hand, and I came up with a variant somewhere between your team and my Wanderer, Warrior Monk, Necromancer idea: Nightblade/Ninja Master, Death Hand, Bishop/Sage This team can go for all Earth resistance/Diamond Saber if Carlie wears the Golden Robe, or Fire resistance/Flame Saber if Kevin wears the Blue Uniform. With Bishop, you get close to the three strongest hitters in the game with Power Up/Down and Death Hand rasping physical defense and the six main sabers. With Sage, you lose a saber and your third attacker but get two strong MT spell casters with Mind Up/Down and Death Hand rasping magic defense, as well as Leaf Saber and a passive heal (20% stronger in version 1.2). Either way, you can go for physical or magical damage depending on the situation. You also get all debuffs, most buffs, Heal Light, Tinkle Rain, Aura Wave, Lunatic, and Life Booster (with Sage). Ninja Master can be substituted for Nightblade to trade Black Rain (Sage can already set Curse if you pick her) and some ST elemental spells for the MT stat downs and some extra support spells. This is also close to the Death Hand, Archmage, Bishop team Nesouk suggested, sacrificing some magic power and Antimagic for a second double hitter. That team can go for all Earth resistance/Diamond Saber in the same way. In general, I've become interested in these shared base resistance teams. Here's how it plays out for each element: - Fire: Light/Dark Hawk, Dark Angela, Light Carlie (for example, the Nightblade, Magus, Bishop team Nesouk suggested) - Ice: Light/Dark Duran, Light Kevin, Dark Lise - Light: Dark Duran, Light Lise, Light/Dark Carlie - Shadow: Light/Dark Kevin, Light Hawk, Dark Carlie (for example, Wanderer, Warrior Monk, Necromancer) - Earth: Dark Kevin, Dark Hawk, Light/Dark Angela - no Diamond Saber or no Heal Light, so either not strictly possible or not favorable - Wind: Light Duran, Light/Dark Lise, Light Angela - no Thunder Saber, so not strictly possible Many more teams are possible than this by using elemental resist armor; for example, Light Carlie can sub into the Earth team by wearing the Golden Robe. I like this because the melee/tech damage reduction is significant (approaching 45% at higher damage), and it makes use of the elemental resist armor that has typically been underused.

Thanks! Aura Wave should be more important in this version since the tech weapons have been kicked down a point. Rune Earrings have also been changed to suck up more HP, so Leaf Saber should be more important as well.

I didn't say Beastman Collar was an upgrade. It should still be great for Light Kevin since he accumulates tech points faster with his double hit, also with Warrior Monk's final weapon in addition to the weapon you mentioned. As far as I can see, Beastman Collar is the only way to cast an instant Heal Light, but he needs to tech up before he can do it again. Of course, plenty of other casters can cast Heal Light reasonably quickly by the second half of the game, so I'm not sure it matters too much, but it may enable a low Intelligence build for Kevin. I did say that I thought Heal Light should be "upgradable" to Sudden, but this was just to keep the terms straight, since Sudden is listed in the skills file under "Possible Upgrades". Although with Sage Stone, this would also obviously be a tradeoff :-)

Another thing to mention: The new Beastman Collar now gives access to an instant Heal Light at the second class change. Should be great for Light Kevin! (I always thought Heal Light should be upgradable to Sudden....)

Here's an alternative that takes advantage of a base resistance/elemental saber strategy: Wanderer/Rogue, Warrior Monk, Necromancer Every character here has a base resistance against Dark, and Necromancer has Dark Saber; cast Dark Saber on enemies and melee/tech damage goes down up to 45% for all characters without needing any resistance equipment. I tried this with my Wanderer, Grand Divina, Necromancer team, with Mananan Robe on Grand Divina; it worked wonders against werewolves, knights, and the like; Lugar was a joke. With Wanderer, this team gets all debuffs, all buffs except for the offensive half of Mind Up and Speed Up, two double-hitters with Power Up, Energy Ball/Analyze for critical hits, Heal Light, Tinkle Rain, Aura Wave, Antimagic, and Leaf Saber to support two casters. With Rogue, you sacrifice Aura Wave, Antimagic, and Energy Ball, but pick up a better offensive caster and all buffs by inverting Necromancer. The missing thing with this team is the basic elemental sabers, but with heavy damage already coming from two double-hitters and Necromancer, you should be fine just collecting/buying them for boss fights or going with elemental accessories instead. EDIT: Actually, I may run this team instead of the Wanderer, Fenrir Knight, Grand Divina team I mentioned above since I haven't started that game yet. I've run Grand Divina in pretty much every team I've used recently, and I'm always looking to replace Lise, so this might give me some new perspective.

To commemorate the new update, I'm starting a new leafy moony "Flower Power" group of Wanderer, Fenrir Knight, and Grand Divina. I'm also trying to think of a killer team for the new Death Hand with his crazy physical/magical defense rasping final weapon, Magic Shield, and sharable Aura Wave. Please list any ideas!

Just an idea: Based on tests I did with my previous team, Rune Master should be able "charge" Paladin wearing reflect armor and the appropriate shield with a level 3 status spell off-screen, Stone Cloud for instance, after which he can heal up and enter the next screen. Then, any enemy attacking Paladin will have Petrify reflected back onto them until Paladin is hit with new spell, even after entering new screens. I was able to do this with Sleep Flower, but Stone Cloud or Cold Blaze would be even better. The Dervish has changed a bit in 1.2 and now has Antimagic, but no Dark Saber. If you're planning to use the new update, I'd suggest reviewing the classes again since some of the skills have changed.

Two questions about the mob-scaling patch before I decide to apply it: 1) Is it based on the highest or lowest level of your characters? This could be important for Angela's Deathspell and other level-based magic. 2) Does it include bosses or mini-bosses as well as random enemies?