InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Get off my lawn!"

chibikaie (chibikaie) wrote,
@ 2007-11-19 01:01:00

Entry tags:

disgaea

I think we should blame zoifox for my new ninja. His name is Steve. Yes, Steve. It just seemed appropriate, somehow. I gave him fist weapons - highest affinity for ninjas. He typically doesn't inflict a one-hit kill, but if he's fighting something with enough counter-attacks, they'll have a little counter deathmatch, where his high evasion rate brings him out firmly on top.

Here's my Disgaea party breakdown so far (parentheses mark future units):
Laharl > Blue Skull > Green Skull > Red Skull > Male Cleric > Star Skull
Laharl > Ninja > (Samurai)
Etna > Female Cleric > Rogue > (Scout?)
Etna > (Female Warrior > Female Brawler)
Flonne > Archer > (chain just like Laharl's, only female)
Violette the Prinny > Male Warrior > Male Brawler

I'm planning on including a Rune Knight, but don't know where to fit her in.

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zoifox
2007-11-21 12:13 am UTC (link)

My fault? *wibble*

Steve is a very respectable name for a ninja. =)

Aren't those counter deathmatches fun? My nekomata gets into them all the time. (Fluffy♥ doesn't have enough counterattacks for a long deathmatch, sadly, although he makes up for it by immediately annihilating any enemy stupid enough to counterattack him in the first place.)

Rune Knight, Rune Knight... Hm. I'm not sure. It looks like they only learn offensive magic up to Omega, but they've also got some of the Cleric's defensive magic... maybe Etna? She wouldn't get access to the Tera spells that way, but Laharl and Flonne are already going to have access to the Omega and lower-level spells, and it doesn't look like Etna has that.

Incidentally, a Rune Knight's best weapons are swords and staves. Staves are a bit better than swords. Axes aren't bad either, but Rune Knights absolutely suck at using guns: The base gun mastery (point per use total) for the highest level Rune Knight is four.

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	chibikaie 2007-11-25 05:13 am UTC (link)
	Well, if you don't want to claim responsibility for my second coolest unit after Laharl, be my guest ... I think I should stick the Rune Knight directly under the female Cleric. My rogue doesn't really need a long-range attack, plus I'll never be able to improve his/her staff skill. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	zoifox 2007-11-28 05:26 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, THAT kind of "my fault." Okay. I like that kind of fault. ^^ I was confused for a bit until I saw that the female cleric was one of Etna's pupils. What weapon is your rogue using? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

chibikaie
2007-11-30 05:36 am UTC (link)

Mab the rogue is using a gun - I favor missile over melee in Disgaea, and it's pointless to equip a rogue with anything but a gun or a sword. Therefore, s/he is already capable of attacking anything at four paces, better than the limited spell range when the caster has no staff skill. S/he isn't doing too badly - this is probably due more to some good glasses and a decent gun than to having a Scout as a pupil, though.

Er, sorry for the confusion. I forgot that I was planning on two female Clerics (Flonne's section of my party is seriously lagging behind - some days I kind of forget that she's even in my party). Basically, I wanted the three story characters to develop into nightmarishly powerful units, and in my mind this includes the ability to self-heal without items. So everybody gets their own personal healer pupil. Actually, now that I think about it, I should have fastened the Mage chain directly under Flonne, but I guess I'll just wait until I have a Celestial Host and stick her in that spot instead.

I used to keep Laharl and Steve at the same level, but then Steve scored the final hit on a Nekomata that I had stacked up to a ridiculous level and jumped eight levels ahead. I was trying to finish her off with a weaker character, but she was stupid enough to hit Steve, who promptly counterattacked. Boy, was I pissed.

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zoifox
2007-12-01 03:57 am UTC (link)

My melee units are languishing, too. Adell is largely getting stat gains through his pupil, Lexi, who is somewhere over level 4700 at this point; I can't remember when I last used him.

Makes sense - self-healing is good when your unit is in a jam and a healer is too fragile/too far away. I admit I've been neglecting my story characters lately.

How is Flonne as a unit in general?

At least Steve doesn't have a gun? I was trying to set up my units so Lexi could steal an enemy Wiseman's Legendary Salamander bow, and the idiot decided to fire at her. She returned fire. He promptly died, because her HIT stat is obscene and she has a powerful gun. This, incidentally, was how I found out that a distance weapon user CAN counter an enemy from more than one panel away. Oops.

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chibikaie
2007-12-05 08:12 am UTC (link)

*cough* Yeah, that would be why I did not give Steve a ranged weapon. Multipanel counter ability is sort of cool but not always useful. I am going to hold off on giving my rogue any counterattacks just for that reason - if there's something I really want to steal, I'll just field him and a bunch of others who have no counter ability. It almost makes me wish for the ability to raise fallen comrades in battle. There are a couple battles in FFT where some of the enemy units have good stuff equipped that I want to steal, but where I have an NPC ally who's liable to off them before I get the chance (*cough* Delita *cough* Olan). (Delita is the worst culprit, really; Olan can't really put immediate smackdown on anybody, but the problem there is that every single enemy has multiple items that I want to steal. So, while I spend several rounds looting guys of the best stuff, Olan usually manages to knock out a couple units, and with the topography, it's hard to get up there to raise and rob them (I can usually raise them, but then they just get killed next turn and I get frustrated). At that point, I acknowledge that the effort expended is not worth the gain and let the battle end already.)

Flonne ... er ... at this point, I could not tell you. So far, she kind of sucks. But Etna also isn't particularly noteworthy (spears do not do good damage and do not have enough of a range to make up for that lack, and her magic is incredbily bad), and Laharl used to suck before I got his pupils levelled. In retrospect, I should definitely have spread out the pupils better. I'm almost tempted to restart. Uh-oh ...

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zoifox
2007-12-09 02:51 am UTC (link)

At this point, I will increase counters for units who start out with counterattacks, but I'm not increasing counters for units who don't. Fortunately, Lexi doesn't counter often, although when she does, she generally annihilates her opponent instantly (I'm levelling up a high-rank item right now, and some of the Item Generals have more HP than she does - to say nothing of the Pirates).

Raising fallen comrades WOULD be useful, wouldn't it?

Fire Emblem actually has the opposite problem with NPC allies; they tend to get wiped out by enemy units before you can get to them, unless you deploy mounted units with very high movement and carrying strength, like Cavalry or Wyvern Riders (Pegasus Riders are a bit on the weak side).

Some of the higher-level spear skills aren't bad, and I do like that some of the spear skills will move the caster further out of range afterwards. It's particularly useful when a unit is surrounded. I like the projectile weapons better, though; if Disgaea 2 is any indication, the Totenkreuz gun skill should be very useful. Lexi has occasionally done over 1,000,000 HP worth of damage with that one.

My pupils are spread out all over the place. I kept changing my strategy as I went, and now I can't remember half of what I had planned, since I actually started the game quite some time ago. Whoops.

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chibikaie
2007-12-09 03:13 am UTC (link)

Mmm. Weaker NPC allies in FFT also get wiped out, but unless you're charged with protecting them for the duration of the battle, you don't lose anything by allowing them to fall. In fact, since in Ch. 1 you have one or two weak allies for all story battles, most people opt to ignore them and leave them dead. I tried to keep them alive, but it took an hour of scheming before I figured out how to level one of them up so that he could play an active role in battle.

There is one really annoying battle where you have to protect an ally; most unfortunately, she is fast, has relatively low HP, and poor AI. I typically enter the battle with a sacrificial ninja, whom I send out to attract enemy attacks while I work on nailing the closest enemy (battle ends when any of the three enemies are critical).

I've finally restarted Disgaea - basic strategy is remaining the same, but there are a couple new things. For one, I'm refusing to create anything less than an Average unit - yep, that means that my healers and skulls have to rack up 50 Mana before I can create a new pupil. I don't like that aspect so far (I am SO sick of Vyers Castle/Blessed Court), but it is ensuring that each new unit gets some training time before I run off and forget that he's actually quite fragile and shouldn't be brought into a boss encounter. Next, I'm disregarding the prinny. I love prinnies. But they suck. Finally, Laharl's getting the ninja pupil, Etna will have the samurai, and Flonne ... I'm trying to decide what fast-levelling pupil to give Flonne. At this point, Etna needs the Rune Knight and a Celestial Host will take forever to create.

I also don't know where to best fit in a rogue. It's hard to level one, and while I know I should be stealing stats, the success rates are so low that it hasn't been worth the effort yet. I suppose that if I concentrated on levelling the rogue, it would be a good pupil for Flonne. On the plus side, it's going to be such a long time before I get her that I'll have time to decide.

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zoifox
2007-12-14 10:24 pm UTC (link)

Saving NPC units in Fire Emblem can have different effects depending on the scenario. Some are storyline NPCs that you have to save. Some will grant you different items depending on how many you save in a given level. Some of them are potential units, and you DEFINITELY want to save those. There was one chapter in Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword where you had to save a bunch of NPCs FROM a potential unit. That one was fun. =p

Ugh. I hate dealing with ally units with stupid AI. ("Don't charge into that crowd of melee units, you stupid wizard! Move away and nuke them from a distance! GOD.")

Yeah, I try to avoid the low-skill units as well. It helps that the units I have creating new units have a lot of mana, and so can create new units who are Skilled or better. Although if you're creating units who are primarily there to throw other units across the map, I guess skill level shouldn't matter too much, assuming you're not using them for anything else. Granted, I would feel like I was wasting them if I did that...

Success with stealing depends in large part on the level of the thief and the HIT stat of the Hand you're using to steal. I did a quick search on GameFAQs and found this formula:

Chance = Hit of Hand + (Thief Level * 2) + 25 - Enemy level

Don't know if that helps. Of course, it's kind of a catch-22 in that it's hard to level up a thief to steal the stats you need to help them survive to level up so they can get better at stealing the stats they need...

Also, according to the guide, a Thief's best stats are SPD and HIT, so I guess if you have a unit in the chain whose SPD and HIT need augmenting, you could put your rogue there?

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