__ . _ . / / _ _ ___ _ _ _______ ___ |\__/ \__/| / / | | | | / _ \ | | | | |__ __| / _ \ | _ | | | | |_| | | | | | | | _ | | | | | | | | | / \ | __| |__ | _ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | \_/ | |__ __| | | | | | |_| | | |_| |_| | | | | |_| | \ / | | |_| |_| \___/ \___^___/ |_| \___/ \ / |_| V ______ _______ ______ _______ _______ _____ _________ | ___ \ | _____| | ___ \ | _____| | _____| / ___ \ |___ ___| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_| | | | |___| | | |___ | |___| | | |___ | |___ | | | | | ____/ | ___| | ___ < | ___| | ___| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | _ | | | | | |_____ | | | | | | | |_____ | |___| | | | |_| |_______| |_| |_| |_| |_______| \_____/ |_| _______ _________ _______ ___ ___ _____ |__ __| |___ ___| | _____| | \ / | / ___ \ | | | | | | | |\ \ / /| | | | |_| | | | | | |___ | | \ V / | | | |____ | | | | | ___| | | \_/ | | \____ \ | | | | | | | | | | _ | | __| |__ | | | |_____ | | | | | |___| | |_______| |_| |_______| |_| |_| \_____/ With the extreme kind of powerleveler that I am, I knew that the Disgaea series would be my RPG dream game when I first heard about it. Right away, I began studying the game's mechanics to a fine degree of detail. One mechanic that I studied was how mystery rooms worked which eventually led to the process of item perfection, especially once I gained access to the Land of Carnage for rank 40 items. Perfecting items is easy to do, but it requires a lot of patience due to the frequent need to quit and reload (about 400 to 500 cases of quit and reload are expected per item) to force the game to give you what you want on demand (rather than chance) - bonus levels and item assembly chickens. How long the process takes depends on several factors though you can expect, for true perfection 11 to 14 hours of real world time for the most part. See section 2.3 for more details on the time needed. This guide is split into 5 phases and 18 stages (stage 19 is perpetual and doesn't count) to help guide you along the way. Much of the process can be done at any time and in any order - read the first paragraph within each phase to know how to make the most of the routine. In addition to true perfection, there are 2 other grades or degrees of perfection, for those who just can't stand waiting to force so many bonus levels. At the end of each phase is a brief summary of that entire phase, and all 5 summaries total less than 1000 characters each. Use the summary for a quick refreshment on the process or to quickly get started - refer to the main headers for in-depth details. ___ ___ ___ _ _______ _____ ___ _ _______ ____ / _ \ / _ \ | \ | | |__ __| | ___| | \ | | |__ __| / ___| | | |_| | | | | | |\ \ | | | | | |__ | |\ \ | | | | \ \ | | _ | | | | | | \ \ | | | | | __| | | \ \ | | | | \ \ | |_| | | |_| | | | \ \| | | | | |___ | | \ \| | | | __\ \ \___/ \___/ |_| \___| |_| |_____| |_| \___| |_| |____/ ######################### #### #### # 0 Table of Contents **000000** # #### #### ######################### Tip: use control+F to use your browser's find feature to jump to the specific sections (the string you search for is in the "search" column). +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | Section | Title | Search | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 0 | Table of Contents | **000000** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 1 | Introduction | **010000** | | 1.1 | My history with Disgaea | **010100** | | 1.1.1 | Starting with RPGs - extreme powerleveling | **010101** | | 1.1.2 | Disgaea 1 and my extreme playing records | **010102** | | 1.1.3 | Disgaea 2 and my current status | **010103** | | 1.2 | About this guide | **010200** | | 1.3 | A narrated video walkthrough | **010300** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 2 | The basics of item perfection | **020000** | | 2.1 | Reasons for perfecting items | **020100** | | 2.1.1 | What you're up against | **020110** | | 2.1.2 | Just one look at my ultimate wizard... | **020120** | | 2.1.3 | A dreadnaught's insane HP - invincibility | **020130** | | 2.1.4 | All those multipliers... | **020140** | | 2.2 | Choosing an item to perfect | **020200** | | 2.2.1 | Getting rank 40 items | **020210** | | 2.2.1.1 | Getting legendary rank 39 items | **020211** | | 2.2.1.2 | Getting a high stealing chance | **020212** | | 2.2.1.3 | If all else - dealing with the 1% chance | **020213** | | 2.2.1.4 | Going through a rank 39 item | **020214** | | 2.2.1.5 | Accessing the Land of Carnage | **020215** | | 2.2.2 | Notes on rank 39 items | **020220** | | 2.2.3 | Know your needs | **020230** | | 2.2.4 | My example - for fast and efficient skill mastery | **020240** | | 2.3 | The 3 degrees of perfection | **020300** | | 2.3.1 | True perfection | **020310** | | 2.3.2 | Near-perfection | **020320** | | 2.3.3 | Quick boosting | **020330** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 3 | Phase 1: Preparation | **030000** | | 3.1 | Stage 1: Remove unrelated specialists | **030100** | | 3.1.1 | Specialist basics | **030110** | | 3.1.2 | The method | **030120** | | 3.2 | Stage 2: Transfer unrelated specialists | **030200** | | 3.3 | Stage 3: Get 8 weak specialists | **030300** | | 3.4 | Stage 4: Get a specialist container | **030400** | | 3.4.1 | Preparing the container | **030410** | | 3.4.2 | Finalizing the container | **030420** | | 3.5 | Summary of phase 1 | **030500** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 4 | Phase 2: Get to floor 90 | **040000** | | 4.1 | Stage 5: Learning how to force bonuses | **040100** | | 4.1.1 | The basics of forcing bonuses | **040110** | | 4.1.2 | Utilizing specialists and teachers | **040120** | | 4.1.3 | Going through a junk item | **040130** | | 4.1.4 | Forcing the bonus | **040140** | | 4.1.5 | The important mystery rooms | **040150** | | 4.1.6 | The statistics of forcing bonuses | **040160** | | 4.2 | Stage 6: Floor 10's item general | **040200** | | 4.2.1 | The first item boss | **040210** | | 4.2.2 | The benefits of double-defeating item bosses | **040220** | | 4.3 | Stage 7: Pass first "more [stat] growth" bill | **040300** | | 4.3.1 | Forcing the item assembly chicken, Vandam | **040310** | | 4.3.2 | Choosing which bill to pass | **040320** | | 4.3.3 | Dealing with the dark assembly | **040330** | | 4.3.4 | The statistics of forcing item assembly chickens | **040340** | | 4.4 | Stage 8: Floor 20's item general | **040400** | | 4.5 | Stage 9: Pass second "more [stat] growth" bill | **040500** | | 4.6 | Stage 10: Floor 30's item king | **040600** | | 4.7 | Stage 11: Transfer another weak specialist | **040700** | | 4.8 | Stage 12: Pass last "more [stat] growth" bill | **040800** | | 4.9 | Stage 13: Transfer last weak specialist | **040900** | | 4.10 | Stage 14: Reach and process floor 90 | **041000** | | 4.10.1 | Slight changes in the process | **041010** | | 4.10.2 | Other notes for stage 14 | **041020** | | 4.10 | Summary of phase 2 | **041100** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 5 | Phase 3: Spawn a lover | **050000** | | 5.1 | The basics of lovers | **050100** | | 5.2 | Stage 15: Get a lover to spawn | **050200** | | 5.2.1 | The effortless method - throwing prinnies | **050210** | | 5.2.2 | The most beneficial method - Cave of Ordeals 4 | **050220** | | 5.2.3 | Telling when a lover has spawned | **050230** | | 5.2.4 | Notes on reincarnating | **050240** | | 5.2.4.1 | Making the most of reincarnating | **050241** | | 5.2.4.2 | Recovering weapon and skill mastery afterward | **050242** | | 5.3 | Stage 16: Subdue the lover | **050300** | | 5.3.1 | The basic process | **050310** | | 5.3.2 | A warning with non-generic characters | **050320** | | 5.4 | Summary of phase 3 | **050400** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 6 | Phase 4: Force bonus levels | **060000** | | 6.1 | Stage 17: Force bonus levels until level 198 | **060100** | | 6.1.1 | The big task ahead | **060110** | | 6.1.2 | Part 1: Go through a junk item | **060120** | | 6.1.3 | Part 2: Force the bonus | **060130** | | 6.2 | What to do in the meanwhile | **060200** | | 6.3 | Summary of phase 4 | **060300** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 7 | Phase 5: Finalize and enjoy | **070000** | | 7.1 | Stage 18: Floors 99 and 100 | **070100** | | 7.1.1 | Forcing rarity | **070110** | | 7.1.2 | Notes on the item god or item god 2 | **070120** | | 7.1.3 | The statistics of forcing rarity | **070130** | | 7.2 | Stage 19: Enjoy your perfected item | **070200** | | 7.3 | Summary of phase 5 | **070300** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 8 | Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) | **080000** | | 8.1 | My situation | **080100** | | 8.2 | Item perfection basics | **080200** | | 8.3 | Item perfection process | **080300** | | 8.4 | The item world | **080400** | | 8.5 | Specialists | **080500** | | 8.6 | Special situations | **080600** | | 8.7 | Other questions | **080700** | | 8.8 | This guide in general | **080800** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | 9 | Legal stuff | **090000** | | 9.1 | Contacting me | **090100** | | 9.2 | Copyright | **090200** | | 9.3 | Credits | **090300** | | 9.4 | Version history | **090400** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | A | Appendix A: List of specialists | **0A0000** | | A.1 | Stat-boosting specialists | **0A0100** | | A.2 | Elemental specialists | **0A0200** | | A.3 | Ailment defense specialists | **0A0300** | | A.4 | Ailment-causing specialists | **0A0400** | | A.5 | Other specialists | **0A0500** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | B | Appendix B: List of mystery rooms | **0B0000** | | B.1 | Shops | **0B0100** | | B.2 | Treasure rooms | **0B0200** | | B.3 | Bonuses | **0B0300** | | B.4 | Others | **0B0400** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | C | Appendix C: List of rank 39 and 40 items | **0C0000** | | C.1 | Rank 39 weapons | **0C0100** | | C.2 | Rank 40 weapons | **0C0200** | | C.3 | Other items worth perfecting | **0C0300** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | D | Appendix D: Explanation of the stats | **0D0000** | | D.1 | HP (hit points) | **0D0100** | | D.2 | SP (skill points) | **0D0200** | | D.3 | ATK (attack) | **0D0300** | | D.4 | DEF (defense) | **0D0400** | | D.5 | INT (intellegence) | **0D0500** | | D.6 | RES (resistance) | **0D0600** | | D.7 | HIT (accuracy) | **0D0700** | | D.8 | SPD (speed) | **0D0800** | | D.9 | Counter | **0D0900** | | D.10 | MV (move) | **0D1000** | | D.11 | JM (jump) | **0D1100** | | D.12 | Elemental defense | **0D1200** | | D.13 | Ailment defense | **0D1300** | | D.14 | Level | **0D1400** | | D.15 | EXP (experience) | **0D1500** | | D.16 | Mana | **0D1600** | | D.17 | Felonies | **0D1700** | | D.18 | Weapon mastery | **0D1800** | | D.19 | Weapon proficiency | **0D1900** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ | E | Appendix E: List of perfected values | **0E0000** | +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+------------+ _____ ___ _ _______ ____ ___ |_ _| | \ | | |__ __| | _ \ / _ \ | | | |\ \ | | | | | |_| | | | | | | | | | \ \ | | | | | _ < | | | | _| |_ | | \ \| | | | | | | | | |_| | |_____| |_| \___| |_| |_| |_| \___/ #################### #### #### # 1 Introduction **010000** # #### #### #################### ----------------------------------------- | 1.1 My history with Disgaea **010100** | ----------------------------------------- ............................................................ 1.1.1 Starting with RPGs - extreme powerleveling **010110** ............................................................ Since 2002, I've been actively playing RPGs, starting with Final Fantasy 7. With level 99 being too easy to get, limits on stats and even damage, and many other things that I see in other RPGs, I didn't get strongly involved with them. I've always been an extreme powerleveler. 4 plays of Final Fantasy 7 and I've never been on disk 2 without someone on level 99, level 70 with paladin Cecil in Final Fantasy 4 without leaving Mount Ordeals, never been past Jahara without everyone on level 99 in Final Fantasy 12 despite 4 plays, you get the idea. Through my numerous videos on YouTube, I read in some of the comments about Disgaea having a maximum level of 9999 and it being possible to do damage into the billions. When I saw that, I was stunned and knew I wanted to get Disgaea. .......................................................... 1.1.2 Disgaea 1 and my extreme playing records **010120** .......................................................... And so I did, with Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2 version). Things started off very slowly as I was attempting to figure out what the specialists and things were. I was level 28 (Laharl only) about 30 hours in, real slow. This was before first reaching episode 3. I had the high level because I struggled with a certain area map in Vyer's Castle, due to "enemy boost x6" and "attacks+1". I thought it would've taken several years to reach level 9999 which didn't bother me. Since that day, I've really taken things to an extreme in the original Disgaea, even doing over 1 3/8 billion total damage*. This was all achieved in less than a year, racking up an insane 625 hours in 3 months and a really crazy 845 hours in 5 1/3, an extreme that I've never encountered in any other game, not even close. Once I finally reached the start of episode 3, where the item world became available, all story progress stopped... for over a year. I especially enjoyed the part where my wizard did over 20 million damage to super heros. Not a single enemy in that game can withstand that amount of damage, not even the item god 2 with its 15 million HP or Uber Prinny Baal. When I did advance the story, I was disappointed in how weak the enemies were, even with all 20 "stronger enemies" bills passed. If even level 9999 enemies with a +3 combo not being able to do damage, then level 400 story enemies won't. The one battle you were supposed to lose is where I did well over 150 million total damage. The extreme powerleveling, at least, provided a monster of an advantage - I could rush the story and get more enjoyment out of it. Today, with 1425 hours on Disgaea 1, I've rendered Uber Prinny Baal completely helpless against my level 3000 main fighter due to having such a crazy high DEF and RES (7.5 million and 3.5 million respectively), making him pretty much invincible. Despite 1425 hours of play, I still have 3 major goals I'd like to accomplish. The closest one in reach is getting a 9-figure damage popup. The second closest, almost around the same time as the first, is becoming invincible to Uber Prinny Baal before level 1000, even before level 500. The third and most distant goal, likely a decade away, is getting at least 10 billion total damage. I'll probably need 6 maxed out wizards with 20 maxed teachers each. I've already got 16 3/4 maxed teachers in the 1425 hours of play I have, so you can tell how extreme this goal really is. ................................................. 1.1.3 Disgaea 2 and my current status **010130** ................................................. Loving Disgaea 1 very intensely, I got Disgaea 2 a year after I got Disgaea 1 (PS2 version again). I didn't like it anywhere near as much at first, but, like with the first Disgaea, once the item world became available, I stopped all story progress and now, even with about 1400 hours of play (and climbing), I have never experienced the felony system or anything else that becomes accessible only with story progress (this is the one thing I hate most with RPGs and turns me away from them). I've only seen Adell and Rozalin for story-based characters (Kurtis (from Land of Carnage) is questioned if he qualifies). Despite the the near-zero story progress, I've done some absolutely crazy things in Disgaea 2. Ever seen an 11-figure damage popup? I have** and I can do over 60% more damage yet - the theoretical maximum is 19,327,352,823! I've also encountered variable overflow where I do so much damage that the game thinks I'm doing negative damage resulting in the enemy surviving... and unexpectedly adding 4.295 billion extra damage to that***. Seriously, doing 7+ billion damage in a single hit without disperse damage? Even that's not my record - 8.45 billion is my record†. If I can do that crazy damage, then you're probably wondering what the most total damage I've done is. Well, that's over 380 billion total damage†. There's a whole digit that's not even on the screen as there just isn't enough room for it! I've also caused the hospital to be... harmful. That's right, a harmful hospital, though it's only due to variable overflow from having Adell's HP so ridiculously high from perfected cosmos muscles, of which my dreadnaught is about to have. I still have several things left to do in Disgaea 2. The story is an obvious one, but I'm not going to bother with that for a very, very long time yet. The very fact you have to lose certain battles steers me away from even bothering with the story. Doing more than a trillion total damage is another goal I have in mind. 10 trillion is my ultimate goal of which will require a good decade to accomplish. Getting a 9999 color chain recorded on video (I've done it, though unexpectedly) is another. Attempting for 10 billion damage in a single hit without boosts is another goal. One that's going to take several years is stealing enough HP to get 100 million as the maximum with just angel's sandals (for movement) and an infernal staff and a 25 thief lover. Stealing 1300 HP each time means this is not a quick task - that's nearly 73,000 steals, of which about 70,000 remain. There are several other goals, mostly as experiments. As of the time this guide was updated (August 15, 2011), I have 29 perfected items. Most of them are super robo suits, omniscient rods, and babylon crowns, especially the former. This quantity will keep continuing to climb as I go for my other goals that will take several years to accomplish, even a decade. Subsection 1.1 footnotes: * Proof of claim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Nbi5s3wAc ** Proof of claim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXdgpadYMHk *** Proof of claim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhARCqezl70 † Proof of claim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMGiwZT3nI8 ---------------------------------- | 1.2 About this guide **010200** | ---------------------------------- I started perfecting items with a cosmos muscle for Adell, but I only got 3 bonuses and got bored of it. Then, when I got my first rank 40 item, the omniscient rod (of which that item is equipped on my Maladroit), that's when the real item perfection began. I went after this since staves are the game's strongest weapons due to the 2x multiplier they have from staff mastery. I knew how to perfect items by the time I had around 10 treasure maps though my technique didn't become "standard" until the 4th item I perfected. Before, I got the 100 bonus levels first then went through the floors which can lead to wasted time (I was unaware of the level 200 cap, thinking it was 255 (after an unsigned char (8-bit variable))). I also never forced bonuses while going through the item. My current method has numerous advantages. These are the main advantages of my method: * Gather and power up specialists for more power. Armsmasters anyone? * Easy to remember. Floor 9 is the key for the bulk of the process. * Guaranteed perfection. The fortune teller and "great luck" are very rare. * Go for other rank 40 items while at it. There are 10 such items to get*. * Fast. 12 1/4 hours for the first time on a given stat then only 11 after. * 3 degrees of perfection. Those with high and low patience can use this. * Only 5 exits needed to start. You may even gain more than you use! List footnotes: * The 9 weapons (7 human, 2 monster) and the armor are what I'm referring to. See appendix C for details on what these are. These are the only ones, aside from treasure maps, that are rank 40 items that I currently have access to. Due to near-zero story progress there may be other rank 39 or 40 items I'm unaware of. For the sections covering the main process, you'll find 2 pieces of information at the top of each stage. How the information is represented depends on where it is placed. If placed at the start of each phase indicator, the combined total for all the stages within that phase are averaged, using mid points. If placed at the start of each stage indicator, a typical range is given (covering about 95% of the cases, if you focus on the process rather than other things in addition like I do) which depends on luck and how fast you are. The "estimated time" fields involves how long that phase or stage of the process is expected to take for most cases which also includes time spent quitting and reloading. "Quit and reload time" gives you a rough idea as to how much of the estimated time is spent doing nothing but quit and reload to force the game to give you what you want. ---------------------------------------------- | 1.3 A narrated video walkthrough **010300** | ---------------------------------------------- You've read my massive guide, so how would you like to see this routine in action? I've recorded and narrated a video that explains the entire routine from beginning to end. Although it may be out of date, it's still very accurate and to the point. The method hasn't changed, just some new minor or unimportant details such as my most powerful character being a different one (no longer Maladroit). In these videos, the vocal track (the narration) is on the left side and the game's original audio is on the right. To filter out one of these two aspects, simply adjust the balance to the left to make the narration louder and the game's original audio fainter or to the right to make the game's original audio louder and my narration fainter. Do note that this FAQ goes into considerably more detail than the videos do and is more up-to-date. This is the playlist. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD5FEFC5AA48E3E8F To jump to any specific phase or stage, refer to this time table: +-------+---------+-------------+ | Stage | Segment | Start time* | +-------+---------+-------------+ | Phase 1: Preparation | +-------+---------+-------------+ | Intro | 1 | 00M 00.000S | | 1 | 1 | 07M 06.502S | | 2 | 1 | 16M 41.233S | | 3 | 2 | 00M 00.000S | | 4 | 3 | 00M 00.000S | +-------+---------+-------------+ | Phase 2: Get to floor 90 | +-------+---------+-------------+ | 5 | 4 | 00M 00.000S | | 6 | 5 | 00M 00.000S | | 7 | 5 | 03M 56.963S | | 8 | 6 | 00M 00.000S | | 9 | 6 | 06M 21.019S | | 10 | 6 | 11M 02.728S | | 11 | 6 | 13M 07.966S | | 12 | 6 | 14M 37.864S | | 13 | 6 | 17M 59.786S | | 14 | 7 | 00M 00.000S | +-------+---------+-------------+ | Phase 3: Spawn a lover | +-------+---------+-------------+ | 15 | 8 | 00M 00.000S | | 16 | 8 | 12M 33.661S | +-------+---------+-------------+ | Phase 4: Force bonus levels | +-------+---------+-------------+ | 17 | 9 | 00M 00.000S | +-------+---------+-------------+ | Phase 5: Finalize and enjoy | +-------+---------+-------------+ | 18 | 10 | 00M 00.000S | | 19 | 10 | 14M 05.028S | +-------+---------+-------------+ Table footnotes: * I can get times this precise by viewing the original AVI in Virtual Dub. These times reference the first frame. ____ ___ ____ _____ ___ ____ | _ \ / _ \ / ___| |_ _| / _ \ / ___| | |_| | | |_| | \ \ | | | | |_| \ \ | _ < | _ | \ \ | | | | _ \ \ | |_| | | | | | __\ \ _| |_ | |_| | __\ \ |____/ |_| |_| |____/ |_____| \___/ |____/ ##################################### #### #### # 2 The basics of item perfection **020000** # #### #### ##################################### ---------------------------------------------- | 2.1 Reasons for perfecting items **020100** | ---------------------------------------------- ........................................ 2.1.1 What you're up against **020110** ........................................ Perfecting items is a time-consuming process that requires a lot of patience from quitting and reloading. It's not all that unusual to spend 20+ minutes straight doing nothing but quit and reload during this and it's done about 28 times on average, 23 of which on average from forcing bonus levels. Calculations and observations both tell me that you should expect to spend an average of 12 1/2 hours of real world time (as opposed to game time) to perfect an item. Something from 11 to 14 is about the typical range you might expect. This reduces to 11 1/4 hours of real world time (10 to 12 1/2 hours is typical) if you're perfecting another item toward a stat you've perfected before. Like I said, it requires a lot of patience. ........................................................ 2.1.2 Just one look at my ultimate wizard... **020120** ........................................................ So then, why would you even want to bother with roughly 6 hours of doing nothing but quitting and reloading (5 of these hours come from stage 17 alone and another 3/4 hour from phase 2)? If you haven't seen the power of my Emily (a rune knight), you should. Every stat on my ultimate wizard is 7 figures, with INT, HP, and DEF being 8 figures. That INT-perfected omniscient rod of hers alone is enough for tera fire to do 9-figure damage on a fire-weak or even fire-neutral enemy. Throw in a level 99 tera fire, 99% fire defense, matching rarity, a 25 rune knight lover, a rune knight's 120% INT aptitude, 2 INT-perfected super robo suits, and an INT-quick-boosted accelerator for movement, she's already insanely powerful as is. Throw in 9 maxed tutors and 20 million INT is what I have. With 5 casts of magic boost, I can see the game's display limit of 40 million. I'm confident stats actually cap at about 42.95 million rather than 40 million, a few more maxed tutors will really do it. Given this, it's no wonder why I'm almost always getting 9-figure damage popups with her. This is what her actual stats are, almost as I see it (as of July 16, 2012 - they may be slightly higher due to students leveling up): +------------------------------+-------------------+ |Emily / Space Knight | # Omniscient Rod | +------------------------------+-------------------| |#######HP 11046750/11046750|### Super Robo Suit| |#######SP 4057841/4057841|### | |#######-----------------------+### Super Robo Suit| |#######ATK 7362520 DEF10677781|### | |#######INT20260917 RES 3851543|### | |#######HIT 3404638 SPD 2349151| # Accelerator | +------------------------------+-------------------+ |LV9999 COUNTER 1 MV 11 JM 50 6 99% # 99% A-50%| +--------------------------------------------------+ That sure is one crazy powerful character and it's all thanks to perfecting items! ........................................................... 2.1.3 A dreadnaught's insane HP - invincibility **020130** ........................................................... Want more convincing? How about getting as close to invincibility as you possibly can? Although my dreadnaught is a work in progress, it's already practically invincible by level 500. Sure it takes damage, but you have to remember that the dreadnaught heals up to 45% of its HP every turn. Every turn! With just 3 items of matching rarity, 2 of which being HP-perfected cosmos muscles, the other being an ATK-perfected babylon crown (to be an HP-perfected babylon crown), and level 500, I already have nearly 13 million HP with the 25 dreadnaught lover, healing 6 million every turn. Thus, unless enemies can somehow do 6 million damage in a single turn, or geo symbols or poisoning cause damage to exceed 6 million, it's invincible. Once my dreadnaught is done, with 31 maxed dieticians or musclemen, and the lover, it'll have over 100 million HP and heal close to 50 million HP per turn. Only geo symbols and poisoning combined really have a chance to defeating that dreadnaught like that. That's just another thing perfecting items can do for you. The video shows Adell with 37.5 million HP, seen at 14M 37.397 seconds into segment 10. .......................................... 2.1.4 All those multipliers... **020140** .......................................... How can my dreadnaught have so much HP? An HP-perfected cosmos muscle provides a base of 707,735 HP. That doesn't seem like much, but consider the numerous multipliers: 1.3x - matching rarity. Get all 4 items of the same rarity for this. 1.4x - aptitude. This depends on the character class. Dreadnaughts have 140% on HP. 1.25x - lovers. Getting a lover at 25 boosts all stats by 25% (very nice). 14.841598x - level. This is the biggest multiplier and assumes level 9999. What's this about matching rarity? Let's say I have my dreadnaught with the babylon crown (always legendary) and 3 legendary cosmos muscles, of rarities 3, 0, 6, and 7. The monster HP bonus provided by HP-perfected cosmos muscles still applies, but matching rarity doesn't. If I move a collector specialist into the second cosmos muscle (with rarity 6), it will become rarity 7. If I equip that, then both the second and third cosmos muscles will be amplified by 10% (1.1x). A collector of 7 on the first cosmos muscle (rarity 0) makes the amplification 20% (1.2x) boosting the power of all 3 cosmos muscles. A collector of 4 on the babylon crown will provide the full potential of 30% (1.3x) where every item's power is boosted by that 30%. Collectors are not needed either, but they help. This is where forcing the game to give you the rarity you want comes in, as covered in stage 18 - you can ensure you get the rarity you want (though it's only worth doing for rank 40 items). If I can force all 4 items to be of the rarity I want, the collectors can go on other characters (or rank 39 items where forcing rarity is not worth doing due to the 1/8% chance (!)). You can actually force the game to give you items of the rarity you want. I was getting a lot of rarity 3 items so I've been forcing the game to give me rarity 3 items whenever I steal rank 40 items from item gods and item god 2s. Most of my main characters have rarity 3 items because of this. (This trick also works in Disgaea 1.) Aptitude is fairly exclusive to the Disgaea series. It's a special multiplier only factored in with equipment. It ranges from 60 to 140%. Dreadnaughts have 140% HP aptitude which makes muscle-type items very effective on them, especially when perfected. Lovers are a specialist that requires considerable time and effort to get. They provide 2 key benefits - all stats increase by up to 25% (with a 25 lover) and the character's unique ability gets amplified. Lovers only spawn after the item has been equipped for over 32 cleared battles (once unequipped, the counter starts over). See phase 3 for more detail on how to spawn lovers. Once a lover spawns, another won't for that item. Level is fairly strange. I've run an experiment to answer how the system works (see the FAQ for the details). The multiplier is based on what I'll call "level points". For every level point you get, the multiplier increases by approximately 0.009901 (give or take an impressively tiny 0.000000001). How many level points do you have at any given level? It's not as simple as it seems as level 5000 doesn't mean 5000 level points. It's, instead, only 899. This means, at level 5000, monster weapons and "etc." equipment have a multiplier of "1+(0.009901*899)" or about 9.900999x, the rough equivalent of weapon mastery being at 178 (slightly more actually as that's 9.9x). Where does the 899 come from? This is where my experiment came in. From levels 1 to 100, a single level up provides a level point (level 1 doesn't count but level 2 is your first level point so 100 is actually 99). From level 100 to 500, it takes 2 level ups to gain a level point. From 500 to 2000 is where it takes a fairly big 5 level ups to gain a level point. Lastly, from level 2000 to 9999 (9990 is the last level point), it takes a massive 10 level ups for a single level point. Yep, at level 9999, you have 1398 level points, providing an impressive 14.841598x multiplier. Weapon mastery would have to be 277 to get that, but weapon mastery caps at 255. This means that monster weapons and "etc" equipment is far more effective than standard weapon mastery, becoming more effective at level 8890 for 1288 level points (for a 13.752488x multiplier). For the general idea, I'm providing a few examples in this table to help you find the level multiplier. +-------+------------+--------+-------+ | Level | Multiplier | Points | Rate* | +-------+------------+--------+-------+ | 1 | 1x | 0 | 1 | | 5 | 1.039604x | 4 | 1 | | 10 | 1.089109x | 9 | 1 | | 15 | 1.138614x | 14 | 1 | | 20 | 1.188119x | 19 | 1 | | 25 | 1.237624x | 24 | 1 | | 30 | 1.287129x | 29 | 1 | | 40 | 1.386139x | 39 | 1 | | 50 | 1.485149x | 49 | 1 | | 60 | 1.584159x | 59 | 1 | | 70 | 1.683169x | 69 | 1 | | 80 | 1.782179x | 79 | 1 | | 90 | 1.881189x | 89 | 1 | +-------+------------+--------+-------+ | 100 | 1.980199x | 99 | 2 | | 150 | 2.227724x | 124 | 2 | | 200 | 2.475249x | 149 | 2 | | 250 | 2.722774x | 174 | 2 | | 300 | 2.970299x | 199 | 2 | | 350 | 3.217824x | 224 | 2 | | 400 | 3.465349x | 249 | 2 | | 450 | 3.712874x | 274 | 2 | +-------+------------+--------+-------+ | 500 | 3.960399x | 299 | 5 | | 600 | 4.158419x | 319 | 5 | | 700 | 4.356439x | 339 | 5 | | 800 | 4.554459x | 359 | 5 | | 900 | 4.752479x | 379 | 5 | | 1000 | 4.950499x | 399 | 5 | | 1200 | 5.346539x | 439 | 5 | | 1400 | 5.742579x | 479 | 5 | | 1600 | 6.138619x | 519 | 5 | | 1800 | 6.534659x | 559 | 5 | +-------+------------+--------+-------+ | 2000 | 6.930699x | 599 | 10 | | 2500 | 7.425749x | 649 | 10 | | 3000 | 7.920799x | 699 | 10 | | 3500 | 8.415849x | 749 | 10 | | 4000 | 8.910899x | 799 | 10 | | 4500 | 9.405949x | 849 | 10 | | 5000 | 9.900999x | 899 | 10 | | 5500 | 10.396049x | 949 | 10 | | 6000 | 10.891099x | 999 | 10 | | 6500 | 11.386149x | 1049 | 10 | | 7000 | 11.881199x | 1099 | 10 | | 7500 | 12.376249x | 1149 | 10 | | 8000 | 12.871299x | 1199 | 10 | | 8500 | 13.366349x | 1249 | 10 | | 9000 | 13.861399x | 1299 | 10 | | 9500 | 14.356449x | 1349 | 10 | | 9999 | 14.841598x | 1398 | 10 | +-------+------------+--------+-------+ Table footnotes: * Rate is how many level ups are needed for a level point. For other levels not listed, combine the rate from the next lowest level with how many points that level has. It takes a full set before a level point is added so round down to the preceding multiple of Rate. From there, just plug it into this formula: Multiplier = 1 + (0.0099001*LevelPoints); For example, for level 2073, you'd consider it as 2070. 2000 is the nearest indicated level and it has 599 level points. Since it takes 10 level points for levels after 2000, you get "(2070-2000)/10" or 7 more level points, meaning 606. Putting that into the formula gives 7.000006, almost exactly septupling the item's base values. Back to the example with my dreadnaught's HP-perfected cosmos muscle, you can determine that it is providing 707,735 * 1.3 * 1.4 * 1.25 * 14.841598 or 23,896,414.27 HP, about 20% more HP than the majin-based item god 2 has (this beast, found in any rank 40 item, typically has around 19.5 million HP). Throw in level ups, an HP-perfected babylon crown (probably around 140,750), and maximally reincarnating (at 186,000 total levels), my dreadnaught can easily have way more HP than this. Leveling up provides about 270*1.8*9999 or about 4,859,514 HP (the lover will make this about 6,074,392.5). This all works out to "((707,735*3+140,750) * 1.3 * 1.4 * 14.841598 + 4,859,514) * 1.25" or 82,516,007.75 with the lover only but not any dieticians or musclemen. That's a huge amount of HP and to think it'll heal 45% of that every turn! For weapons equipped on a human-type character, weapon mastery has it's own multiplier, completely independent of the level. This formula is very simple - for every displayed unit (there's a separate value for the actual result), weapon mastery improves by 5 percentage points. In a formula, this is: Multiplier = 1 + (MasteryLevel/20); Thus, at weapon mastery 20, the weapon is providing double the effect. At the maximum of 255, it's 13.75x. Early in the game, focus on getting weapon mastery up as quickly as possible. Look for an "invincibility" geo symbol combined with "attack+1" geo symbols to really accelerate the process. Long counterattack chains also works very well - have 2 allies with a high countering ability stand on invincibility or reverse damage and attack each other with normal attacks. Over 500 turns (1500 attacks), Adell can go from 0 mastery to 36000 (which converts to halfway from 27 to 28, providing a 2.35x multiplier). With armsmasters, it'll only be faster, much faster so get them whenever you run into them in an item. This is how I got started - 120 weapon mastery or so (for 7x) and not even enough SP to use "big bang" due to insufficient masters and too low of a level. --------------------------------------------- | 2.2 Choosing an item to perfect **020100** | --------------------------------------------- By far, rank 40 items are the best items to choose for perfecting. What are rank 40 items? When you rank items from the weakest and cheapest (like the training staff, a rank 1 item) to the strongest and most expensive (the omniscient rod), you'll find that the game's most powerful weapons are number 40 and they are insanely powerful which is why they're well worth perfecting. You can also use the item world's "resident level" as well - higher rank items have a higher starting resident level. ....................................... 2.2.1 Getting rank 40 items **020210** ....................................... How do you get rank 40 items? It's easy, but it takes some time, much longer if you don't have a high-level thief with a high-powered "thief lover" specialist or access to the Land of Carnage. 2.2.1.1 Getting legendary rank 39 items **020211** First, find a legendary version of a rank 39 item. These are god's hand, excalibur (a red sword with an animated high-tech-highway-like appearance), holy longinus (a 3-pronged spear with white tips (I can't tell legendary versions apart from regular or rare versions)), artemis (a green bow with light red tips (rather than a faded red)), megiddo cannon, beam axe (an ax with blue lasers around it as opposed to green or yellow)), infernal staff (a staff with a red core near the top), satan's motor, the king, and infernal armor (the easiest to get as it's very common). Those that I didn't describe the looks of are those you can't see - check enemy equipment via the "character" option to find these). Bonuses in high-rank items or late floors in mid-rank items is another method, best claimed by leaving a gate keeper present and having weak characters endlessly attack a geo symbol with blind, slow, etc. type spells (strangely, spells like "anti-fire" will prevent the bonus gauge from filling up further). Big color combos from destroying geo symbols also works but is less reliable. Another alternative, though very expensive (got about 150 million HL?), is through the "merchant" found in mystery rooms in later floors of high-rank items also provide a way to get legendary rank 39 items. The last alternative is through using a trick in Cave of Ordeal 4 to max the bonus should a rank 39 item appear on the bonuses list. This very old video explains how to guarantee you max the bonus on the very first turn from nothing more than defeated enemies (there are 2 segments on this video - I don't remember which one has it). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNPLELLKXTY I find stealing the items the easiest way to get rank 39 items (ever wonder why I always carry 5 "bandit's hand" items whenever I'm dealing with the item world?). 2.2.1.2 Getting a high stealing chance **020212** In order to steal on demand, especially from an item god in the Land of Carnage, you must have a high level thief, something like level 5200 at the bare minimum, 6800 preferred. There are 2 effective ways to level up a thief. The first and best is Cave of Ordeals 4. Unlocking that requires a character with at least 700 mana, of which is what's needed to get the bill listed. Pass enough "stronger enemies" bills so that you can still defeat the enemies in one hit but get a lot of experience. Each "stronger enemies" bill you pass makes the enemies 20% stronger and 2 is added to the level. Enemy strength is based on the level, not the stats (though level affects the stats). With all 20 "stronger enemies" bills passed, the enemies will be 5 times as powerful with 40 extra on the level. This means what was 250 turns into 1290 for Holt Village. It's a 1% increase with 200 extra in the Land of Carnage as far as I can tell making them up to level 6490. Enemies in the Land of Carnage are also worth double the experience as those in Holt Village at the same level but the stats for their level are doubled as well. If you're fast, you can clear Cave of Ordeals in 20 seconds which means level 7000 is only 183 clears away from level 1 as you get about 1/6 of a billion experience per 20-second clear. The second method for getting a high level thief, especially first thing in the game, is clone wars. Because this is a long description, of which it can apply to any character type (best for those with a high counterattack ability), see the FAQ below. With the clone wars route, you can get level 2000 in less than 3 hours. Another method is HIT-near-perfecting a legendary bandit's hand or awesome hand. Follow the routine in this guide for near-perfection. Why HIT? The hand's HIT stat contributes to the odds of success for stealing. These hand, unfortunately, are extremely difficult to find, even as a common item, let alone the 1% chance of it being legendary. 2.2.1.3 If all else - dealing with the 1% chance **020213** As a last resort, if all else, you can put up with the 1% minimum steal chance a thief has. For best results, get the item god or item god 2 to have a map with an "invincibility" effect (make sure the geo symbol doesn't move and that the enemies don't have the effects of the geo symbols), quitting and reloading until you do. When you do, move the thief on invincibility and stay there. What about the other enemies? Just fuse them. Normally, this will make them much stronger. It won't in this case - they'll only be level 9999. Try to spare an enemy that can't jump very high. Remember, the higher level enemy survives. If the levels match, the one thrown survives. From there, just stand on invincibility and keeping trying to steal. On average, you'll need 69 turns (that's for a 50% chance). 2.2.1.4 Going through a rank 39 item **020214** Once you have the legendary rank 39 item and high-level thief, go through it and, when you reach floor 99 gency out. Do not advance to floor 100 or you'll either have to quit and reload or find another legendary rank 39 item. This is because, to get rank 40 items, you have to be in the Land of Carnage. By leaving early, you won't need to go through an entire item again to get the rank 40 item - you'll just be minutes away (forcing rarity aside). With quick-boosting or near-perfecting, the item bosses are still providing a 2.6x multiplier and 100 levels means a 6x multiplier on top of that relative to the item's baseline stats. Thus, what starts at 3000 is already 46,800. With the 13.75x multiplier from weapon mastery that becomes 643,500 so it's plenty strong. With near-perfection, this becomes nearly 1.1 million. Getting skill mastery up, elemental defense up, and other such things will make dealing with the Land of Carnage much easier than you think. It's rough at first, but once you get start getting rank 40 items, it gets much easier. 2.2.1.5 Accessing the Land of Carnage **020215** The last step for getting rank 40 items, and perhaps the most frustrating, is gaining access to the Land of Carnage. You can only get rank 40 items in the Land of Carnage. To do that, you need to obtain the 16 pieces of the treasure map. My method I used for this is to skip to floor 21 of items I want to level up (double defeating item bosses along the way and picking up bonuses, saving every 10 floors as usual) and then attempt to end turn for all floors after this, but only if there's not a lot of dangerous geo symbols around (critical, damage 20%, clone, etc.). Another method is to skip your way to floor 61 and make use of quit and reload. Enter the item, take out a character with a very high DEF and RES or a dreadnaught with crazy high HP and a big wood golem lover, go to an isolated spot away from treasure chests (if possible), choose "defend" and end your turn to attempt for pirates. Let the enemies go after the chests - this way, you won't get attacked as much (and you'll see how dumb enemies are as they literally attack and even level up from defeating their own kind). If the pirates you get are not what you want, quit and reload. When you do get something new, get the treasure map, gency out, heal at the hospital, save, and repeat. Don't worry about dangerous pyramids if you're using the quit and reload method. Got all the pirates from floors 61 and greater? Go with floor 41 instead. Got all the pirates from floor 41 and higher, use 21 instead. During this, you'll learn to hate the ambling pirates throughout this quest. Several pirates don't start appearing until quite far into the item. Once new pirates do appear, you have 2 ways to get the treasure map. The first is to simply steal the treasure map from the leader. The second is to simply defeat the leader, the one containing the map itself. Tip: have "junk" characters (characters you otherwise never use because they're too weak (they don't even have to come out of the base panel or do anything)) equip the treasure maps to increase the frequency at which pirates appear. If you can't handle the pirates as they're too powerful (The Z pirates are typically the case), go into a legendary rank 1 item and keep "stronger enemies" bills down to a minimum (use "weaker enemies" to the maximum possible if you have to). ........................................ 2.2.2 Notes on rank 39 items **020220** ........................................ Not all types of items have a rank 40 equivalent. The cosmos muscle and universal orb are good examples of rank 39 items that are worth perfecting and they don't require access to the Land of Carnage to obtain. If you don't yet have access to Land of Carnage, then rank 39 weapons and armor will be worth it, though I strongly advise against true perfection. Instead, quick boosting should be enough. Near-perfection is only good for the infernal staff since staves are so powerful thanks to the 2x multiplier from staff mastery. I'd recommend postponing the finalization phase of rank 39 items with a rank 40 equivalent until you do get to Land of Carnage - it makes getting the rank 40 items much easier. See section 2.3 for details on quick boosting and near-perfection. ................................. 2.2.3 Know your needs **020230** ................................. Because you'll be spending 11 to 14 hours to true-perfect an item, you'll really need to be dedicated to accomplishing this task. Thus, it's critical that you know your needs. Want big time damage? Staves are the best (sure the rank 40 ax is extremely powerful, beyond anything else as far as the offensive stats go, the 2x multiplier from staff mastery (occurring at 34 for staff mastery) more than makes up for it (plus magic has skill mastery multipliers, a 9-panel attack range, and great freedom in area of effect choices (though it can be rather SP-expensive which means wizards cost a lot of HL at the hospital - clone wars can eliminate the HL problem). Want a damage-absorbing tank that can't take damage? One rank 40 super robo suit and two rank 39 universal orbs (2 then 1 if there's a low DEF aptitude and high RES aptitude difference (25% gap (60 vs 80% and 110 vs 140% are about the same distance apart)) will provide you with so much DEF and RES that it seems that character can never take damage. If you can't take damage, then it doesn't matter how many hits it takes to defeat an enemy. A RES-perfected universal orb has 323,923 as the base RES, turning into about 9,573,180 at level 9999. A DEF-perfected super robo suit gives about 11.1 million DEF plus some considerable RES boost to go with it. I usually recommend weapons first. It's nice to be able to defeat any enemy in one hit all the time, though 9-figure damage or even 8-figure damage is not required outside item gods. The closest you can get to invincibiliy is a dreadnaught with 3 HP-perfected cosmos muscles and an HP-perfected babylon crown. Sure the dreadnaught will take damage, it'll always heal so much HP, way more than any enemy could take away. Only damage geo symbols or critical geo symbols can be fatal, even with up to 105 million HP. Then of course there's A SPD-perfected ultimus with 3 SPD-perfected super robo suits on a low-HP ninja that nothing outside the baciel class can hit. Refer to appendix C to determine what stat is best for perfecting for a given item. Refer to appendix D to understand how the stats affect things. ................................................................... 2.2.4 My example - for fast and efficient skill mastery **020240** ................................................................... In the case of my narrated videos (see section 1.3 for the playlist), I'm after SP-perfecting a universal orb. This is because with tons of SP and a nice setup in the item world, it's very fast to get skill mastery. More SP means more mastery more quickly, especially when you get a not-so-common "attack+4" type setup or greater. Maxed masters also help especially on human-type characters. The longer you can make use of these not-so-common "attack+4" type setups, the faster and more efficiently you'll get skill mastery. It also helps considerably with weapon mastery early on. Skill mastery has a considerable multiplier, essentially tripling the potential damage, that makes leveling up skills very important even though it takes a very long time to max a skill. So then, how can you best make use of this? There are 4 monsters that have natural invincibility to the 3 elements and non-elemental skills - the fire-invincible fire-breathing dragon, the wind-invincible hounds, the ice-invincible slugs, and the non-elemental-invincible holy dragons. Create your own (or capture if you're daring enough) allies of these monsters. A one-size-fits-all type solution (and the best) is to use the wood golem and crank the DEF and RES as far as you can or utilize the natural HP restoration of such wood golems. An HP-perfected babylon crown, DEF-perfected super robo suit, RES-perfected universal orb, and an HP-perfected cosmos muscle is a very nice setup for this. This way, if the wood golem does take damage with 12+ million DEF and 10+ million RES (at level 9999 with a 25 wood golem lover and matching rarity), it's very easy to just use the wood golem. After all, with a good 22.5 million HP from the cosmos muscle alone the wood golem will restore 10 million HP every turn. Just make sure you never use the "attack" command as you risk counterattacks (special skills cannot be countered). However, even this will not help if you have overpowered wizards capable of constant 8-figure damage. The best way and time to get skill mastery on demand is, upon reincarnating the very final time, equip a rank 1 weapon and put as many masters as you can on it without leveling up the rank 1 weapon. Having SP-perfected universal orbs with matching rarity also helps a lot. Use a high level bow user to change the enemies and geo symbols (except the "attack+1" one) in Cave of Ordeal 1 into a treasure chest. Target the front of this chest and get skill mastery until SP runs out from there. Do not level up any of that character's students though or you'll end up unexpectedly strong. --------------------------------------------- | 2.3 The 3 degrees of perfection **020300** | --------------------------------------------- There are 3 degrees of perfection. Each degree has it's pros and cons. Regardless on which degree of perfection you're using, if the number of exits you have gets dangerously low (3 or less), consider postponing item perfection and focus on getting more exits by repeating part 1 of stage 17 for a while. You may even get a brand new maxed armsmaster from all this and with it 20 or so more exits (enough for even 8+ perfected items). It takes about 7-9 minutes to get an exit so yes, it will take some time, but one hour at it is enough for more than a whole perfected item, even as many as 4. In each subsection, there are 4 fields of information as explained below: * Item power: the total potential of the item compared to true perfection. This helps gauge how effective the other methods are. * Total time to do: this is how long it will take to perfect an item toward the stat you're perfecting. The typical time you might typically get follows. The times assume actual progress, not doing other things on the side like skill mastery when you get those rare setups, reincarnating, or just fiddling around for whatever reason. This field is split into 3 sections. "First" refers to the first case of perfecting toward a given stat. If you've never perfected toward ATK before and you want to ATK-perfect an item, you'd refer to this time. This is due to needing to do stages 3 and 4. "Later on" refers to cases where you've perfected toward a stat before and you're perfecting another item toward that stat. If you've INT-perfected an item before and want to INT-perfect another item, you'd refer to this time. This is because stages 3 and 4 get skipped. The bottom one is used if you intend on skipping the optional (but recommended) phase 3 and relates to the "later on" time. Times are calculated based on actual observations and experience. * Total quit and reload time: this is how long you will spend doing nothing but quitting and reloading to force the game to give you what you want. Whether you've perfected toward a stat before or not or skipping phase 3, the difference is a mere 5 minutes, too small to be noticed. * Exits needed: this is how many "Mr. Gency Exit" items you will need before you start. * Exits lost: this is how many exits you'll lose for that method after completing it. ................................. 2.3.1 True perfection **020310** ................................. Item power: 100% Total time to do: 12 1/2 hours first (11 to 14 typical) 11 1/4 hours later on (10 to 12 1/2 typical) 10 3/4 hours without phase 3 (9 1/2 to 12 typical) Total quit and reload time: 6 hours (5 1/4 to 6 3/4 typical) Exits needed: 4 or 5 Exits lost: -4 (a gain of 4) to 0 (no change) With half the time spent toward nothing but quitting and reloading, true perfection takes a great deal of patience. True perfection, often referred to as just "perfection", will ensure your item will be as absolutely powerful as it could possibly be. Use true perfection for all rank 40 items or rank 39 items without a rank 40 equivalent. The forcing of bonuses after each set of 10 floors while doing phase 2 like my videos show is completely optional - avoiding it will keep the exit usage to a minimum, sometimes even gaining more exits than you use. It seems odd, but should a mystery room appear on floor 9, you'll gain an exit, as you can't force a bonus. With as many forced bonses that are needed, you'll probably gain about 2 exits on average. ................................. 2.3.2 Near perfection **020320** ................................. Item power: 62% (60 to 65% typical) Total time to do: 4 hours first (3 1/4 to 4 3/4 typical) 2 3/4 hours later on (2 to 3 1/2 typical) 2 1/4 hours without phase 3 (1 3/4 to 2 3/4 typical) Total quit and reload time: 1 hour (1/2 to 1 typical) Exits needed: 4 or 5 Exits lost: 5 Near perfection, sometimes referred to as semi perfection, is the same as true perfection except that stage 17 is completely skipped. No bonuses are forced. Bonuses are still picked up by normal chance as you enter mystery rooms along the way. This small change alone saves 8 1/2 hours of real world time and 5 hours of quitting and reloading. This means that near perfection takes 32% as long (24% later on) and uses only 17% as much time quitting and reloading. For the item being 60% as powerful as a perfected one, this is very impressive for the time change. A 68% reduction (becoming 76% later on) on time needed for a 38% loss on potential power (assumes you get level 116, about what you might typically get) is a huge time-to-power ratio, the best of all the methods available. If you can't stand true perfection, then, by all means, go for near perfection. Passing the 3 "more [stat] growth" bills in the first 30 floors adds about 70% to the item's power. As usual, claim bonus levels along the way through the floors whenever mystery rooms do appear. The only rank 39 item I recommend near-perfecting that has a rank 40 equivalent is the infernal staff. The 2x multiplier from staff mastery really has a strong effect and it's this that makes near-perfecting the infernal staff well worth doing. This will make 8-figure damage possible, making quick work of the item god or item god 2. Near-perfecting a beam axe is slightly recommended though it's no where near as good as the staff. The forcing of rarity at the end is optional but still highly recommended. Near-perfection could also refer to forcing bonuses, but not the item assembly chicken. This only saves an hour though on both parts. This is useful if you're after getting a powerful item that increases movement. Because movement type bills can be passed at any time, there is no need to quit and reload to force an item assembly chicken. The later in the item you go, the greater the odds are of the item assembly chicken being present, especially during the last 40 floors. This is why, if you haven't gotten the item assembly chicken at all by floor 50 (which seems quite common), the odds of getting it are nearly guaranteed for floors 60 and beyond. In this case, do clear floors 10, 20, and 30 like you do with 40 and beyond. Basically, treat floors 10, 20, and 30 like you do in stage 14 (minus the optional forcing of bonuses afterward). When the item king is dealt with, remember to do stages 11 and 13. This is something I've done with "the fool" for my white dragon - focusing on movement while getting it's INT as high as possible. ................................ 2.3.3 Quick boosting **020330** ................................ Item power: 36% (32 to 40 typical; more if lucky on the item assembly chicken) Total time to do: 3 1/4 hours first (3 to 4 typical) 2 hours later on (1 3/4 to 2 1/4 typical) 1 1/2 hours without phase 3 (1 1/4 to 1 3/4 typical) Total quit and reload time: 3 minutes (0 to 6 typical) Exits needed: 1 or 2 Exits lost: 2 Quick boosting is the same as near perfection except, in addition to stage 17, stages 7, 9, and 12 are also completely skipped. For a mere 26% of the time (18% later on) and a very tiny 2/3% of the quit and reload time for 36% the power, quick boosting isn't as effective as near-perfection for the time-to-power ratio, but it's the fastest perfection method available, roughly 4 times faster. Like with near perfection, do not force bonuses though do pick them up as you enter mystery rooms along the way. If you get an item assembly chicken on floor 10, then do pass a "more [stat] growth" bill accordingly. If you get another on floor 20 (lucky you), pass another such bill. If you get the third on floor 30, consider yourself extremely very lucky as this has a 1 in 8000 chance of occurring and you've essentially near-perfected the item unintentionally. Otherwise, pass bills for things like increased range or movement (however you see fit). The "more [stat] growth" bills become less effective on later floors so the earlier you pass these bills, the more effective they become. Quick boosting only requires that you double-defeat the item bosses and fill up the item with specialists for the stat you're boosting. The only time you'll ever need to quit and reload is if you get a bad fortune teller, of which is not very common (about a 1.6% chance per mystery room). As usual, when the item king is dealt with, be sure to do stages 11 and 13. The forcing of rarity at the end is entirely optional but still highly recommended. ______ _ _ _____ _____ _______ __ | ___ \ | | | | / ___ \ / ___ \ | _____| / | /\ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_| | | / | | / \ | |___| | | |___| | | |___| | | |____ | |___ |_/| | | ____/ | ___ | | ___ | \____ \ | ___| | | | | | | | | | | | | _ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |___| | | |_____ __| |__ |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| \_____/ |_______| |_______| ############################# #### #### # 3 Phase 1: Preparation **030000** # #### #### ############################# Estimated time: 75 minutes (1 1/4 hours; 5 minutes if stages 3 and 4 skipped) Quit and reload time: 5 minutes (1/12 hour; 1 if stages 3 and 4 skipped) And so begins the long process for perfecting an item. Phase 1 covers the basic preparations needed. Once you've chosen which item you want to perfect and what stat on that item you want to perfect, preparing the item is essential. This phase can be done after phase 3 or 4, but must be done before phase 2. By doing stage 15 before this, you can save an exit and skip stage 16. The odds of getting all the specialists out before floor 10, however, decrease some. This can even be done while doing phase 4 on another item to prepare your next item without any additional losses in exit usage, making more efficient use of your time. You can't force a bonus though unless you go without seeing a mystery room for at least 3 floors. That is, if you get the last specialist on floor 7 and there's no mystery room, floor 4 or earlier must be the last time you see the mystery room before you can force a bonus. -------------------------------------------------------- | 3.1 Stage 1: Remove unrelated specialists **030100** | -------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 3-5 minutes Quit and reload time: 1 minute ................................... 3.1.1 Specialist basics **030110** ................................... Every item has at least 1 specialist present. Items can have as many as 4 unsubdued specialists at once (3 normal and, if one has spawned, a lover). Stage 1 involves clearing out the unrelated specialists. To understand this stage, you need to understand what the various specialists do. If you don't know what the specialists do, see appendix A for the list of every single specialist (except dual-stat specialists) along with various notes and strategies for utilizing and obtaining them. For stage 1, you must clear out all unrelated specialists by subduing them. First, combine all specialists in that item. Fewer specialists means a greater chance of getting them all out in time as all unrelated specialists must be subdued before you reach floor 10. There appears to be a 20% chance that a specialist will appear in any given item and in this case, you can get up to 12 chances (from mystery rooms). This means you have a very nice 93.1% chance of getting one specialist out, 85.1% for 2, 76% for 3, and 65.8% for the worst case of 4. To subdue any specialist, you need to go inside the item that has them and go through the floors until you see one then defeat it by attacking it in some way (magic, special skills, or a regular physical attack). You'll know when one is present by the cursor immediately going to where it is from the base panel, flashing "check" above it for 1 second, then returning to the base panel instead of immediately starting on the base panel. Beware of geo effects though. You may need to move the specialist or move or destroy offending geo symbols to make it possible to defeat the specialist. Go for the specialist first thing - they're top priority. If the enemies or geo symbols defeat it, you'll miss the chance and you'll have to wait until a later floor before it'll appear again for another try. ............................ 3.1.2 The method **030120** ............................ Since all unrelated specialists must be out by floor 10, skipping (by running to the red "dimension gate") is the best and fastest way to get specialists. If you don't get all unrelated specialists before floor 10, quit and reload to try again. If the item's level decreases from the fortune teller, quit and reload regardless unless you want to spend potentially 20 to 60 more minutes of quit and reload to get the bonus back. When you do subdue all unrelated specialists, go for the others if any are present and you're not yet to floor 9. If you don't get the others specialists by floor 9 quit and reload. If only related specialists are present or remain, gency out as you'll get it later on. If you get a bonus along the way, and you don't have all the unrelated specialists out, with only 1 left, feel free to use an exit. Save, then use quit and reload until the last one comes out. If you get "great luck" at any time, gency out as you can't risk losing these very rare cases. If you accidently get to floor 10, quit and reload, regardless. In the case of my videos, I'm after SP-perfecting a universal orb. Since masters are the specialist for boosting SP, I could leave any masters present in the item though all others must go. If the master did appear, still subdue it like any other specialist. If everything but the master appeared already and you're not to floor 9 yet, you may consider continuing on to floor 9 and see if it appears. It'll have to come out anyway. If only masters were present in the item, then stage 1 can be skipped, saving an exit. You'll be subduing it during phase 2. ---------------------------------------------------------- | 3.2 Stage 2: Transfer unrelated specialists **030200** | ---------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 1/2-1 minute Quit and reload time: 0 minutes Stage 2 is extremely short and easy and does not require quit and reload (unless you make a horrible mistake such as combining several maxed specialists). Once you've subdued all the unrelated specialists in the item you want perfected, you'll need to move them to other items. Make use of them as you see fit. If you've subdued a specialist that relates to the stat you want perfected on that item, you can move it as well. -------------------------------------------------- | 3.3 Stage 3: Get 8 weak specialists **030300** | -------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 30-50 minutes Quit and reload time: 0 minutes This stage is unique in that it can be skipped if you've already done it before (as from perfecting another item for that stat). Once stage 3 is done, it's done for good, unless, of course, you choose "start" from the main menu and start a new game from the very beginning. Also, stage 3 can be done after stage 4 since they are mutually exclusive. If you haven't perfected an item for the stat being perfected, then you must do stage 3. Given the header, you may be confused. 8 weak specialists? When you're already dealing with specialists in the 200+ range on items, what's the point of something rated just 1 or 2? For item perfection, the power of the specialist has absolutely no effect. 19,998 is just as effective as 2 (subdued or not makes no difference either). Thus, it's quantity that matters, not quality. Quality does matter after the item has been perfected though, as I have 9 maxed tutors on Emily to make her insanely powerful, among many other maxed ones. Thus, buy cheap stuff like unopened soda, a "defender of earth" cell phone, fairy dust, bomb, mint gum, or something like these rank 1 and 2 items. You just need 8 specialists of that type. I prefer weak ones because I'm not tempted to combine them into other items - they're meant solely for use in item perfection. Unlike stage 1, do not combine the specialists before entering the item. Quantity is critical in this case. Also unlike stage 1, you don't have to get every specialist out before floor 10. If you have to go to floor 26 to get them, then go for it. Be sure to clear floor 10 though (20, 30, etc. if you have to go that far) you'll always obtain a Mr. Gency Exit item and you'll be using a lot of these, dozens, so take every opportunity you can. Once you finish an item, leave the specialists in them, save your game, then go to the next item. Keep going until you have 8 total. If you get more than 8, then use the strongest one to make your characters ever-so-slightly more powerful. You must have exactly 8. ------------------------------------------------------ | 3.4 Stage 4: Get a specialist container **030400** | ------------------------------------------------------ Estimated time: 25-35 minutes Quit and reload time: 2-6 minutes Stage 4 is not required but recommended. This is where you get a container for those weak specialists in stage 3. Like with stage 3, stage 4 can be done first as stages 3 and 4 are mutually exclusive. Also, like stage 3, once this is done, it's done for good. ......................................... 3.4.1 Preparing the container **030410** ......................................... In stage 4, find a rare fist. It doesn't matter what fist you use, just as long as it's rare or legendary. Why a fist? Fists, when you sort the warehouse, are always the very first things listed which makes it faster and easier to find the one containing the specialists. A lower rank fist works just as well as a higher rank one though don't use a rank 40 fist (or 39 if you haven't obtained the 40 yet) and it's because of one thing - you're only after renaming the item and getting the pop limit to 8. "But rares only go to 7, unless I pass an 'increase pop limit' bill". You might think that, but rares are guaranteed to have 8 even without that bill being passed. Normal items can have up to 7, the only reason they won't work. Rares can have 8 by only floor 30. Rares and legends are equally effective. Legends are harder to obtain than rares but rares require either the passing of the "increase pop limit" bill or going clear out to floor 60. The odds of getting the required item assembly chicken are 5% first thing in either case. Unlike stage 1 or 3, rush your way to floor 30, ignoring all mystery rooms (they're a waste of time in this case). There's no need to leave the item until floor 30 unless you absolutely have to. I still do recommend clearing floors 10 and 20 though, since you'll get a Mr. Gency Exit. When you do, use a Mr. Gency Exit. When you do reach floor 30, defeat the item king without clearing the rest of the floor and gency out. You'll find that, upon level 29 being reached, the pop limit increases by 1. If the item assembly chicken does appear along the way, after floor 10 or 20, see the second paragraph of the following section. .......................................... 3.4.2 Finalizing the container **030420** .......................................... Once back at HQ, sell any unwanted items you got along the way (optional) and save (required). I very strongly urge you to save and there's a reason for it. Once you return to the item, defeat the item king, again, and run to the dimension gate. One of 2 things will happen. The first is that you'll get asked if you want to return to HQ. Choose "no", wait for the game to load floor 31, then quit and reload. Choosing "no" saves 5 seconds as you bypass the need for going through the "item level up" screen. The second is that you'll get an "advancing to innocent town" notice appearing and the game starts loading automatically shortly after. When done loading, you'll always see the flower hospital in front of you. Check the place one panel to the southeast (bottom right), and 2 panels to the southwest (bottom left). You may see a chicken-like object here named Vandam, though the odds are fairly low. If the item assembly chicken doesn't appear, quit and reload. If the item assembly chicken does appear whether encountered along the way or being forced after floor 30, speak to it and choose "enter assembly". This is where you can rename your item. If you're in a rare item, choose "I want to change the item name" first. Rename it to something that relates to the type of specialist it will be containing. In the case of my video walkthrough of this, I was after the "master" specialist. Thus, I'd rename the item to "masters". Renaming an item is free and doesn't count against the number of bills you can pass. Once you rename the item, what you do next depends on what the rarity of the item is. If you're in a rare item, you must pass an "increase pop limit" bill. If you're in a legendary item, you don't have to do anything else because, when you leave the item, you'll now have the maximum of 8 for the pop limit. A rare would otherwise have 7 so the "increase pop limit" bill is needed to work around that, making it 8, the only time this bill is ever of any use. Otherwise, you'll have to go clear to floor 60 on the rare. When you're done, transfer as many of the weak specialists as you can to the item you're perfecting and put the rest in that renamed fist container. When you're done, save. This will conclude phase 1. ------------------------------------ | 3.5 Summary of phase 1 **030500** | ------------------------------------ To summarize phase 1, first combine the specialists in the item being perfected then get the specialists unrelated to the stat you're perfecting out before reaching floor 10 (quit and reload if you don't). Go into mystery rooms as they appear to pick up bonuses and increase your chances. Transfer the unrelated specialists to your characters as you see fit. Next, obtain 8 weak specialists from various other items. For item perfection, quantity matters more than quality. Obtaining a container for these specialists, best done with a rare fist, is last. Reach floor 30 in this item, clearing floors 10 and 20. On floor 30, defeat the item king, gency out, save, return to the container, defeat the item king, and run to the dimension gate. Quit and reload until you see the item assembly chicken, Vandam, in an innocent town. Rename the item first based on what type of specialists it will contain then, if using a rare, pass an "increase pop limit" bill. ______ _ _ _____ _____ _______ _____ | ___ \ | | | | / ___ \ / ___ \ | _____| / ___ \ /\ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_| | | |_| | | ____/ \ | |___| | | |___| | | |___| | | |____ | |___ ____| | \ | ____/ | ___ | | ___ | \____ \ | ___| / ____/ \ | | | | | | | | | | _ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |___| | | |_____ | |_____ |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| \_____/ |_______| |_______| ################################# #### #### # 4 Phase 2: Get to floor 90 **040000** # #### #### ################################# Estimated time: 115 minutes (1 11/12 hours) Quit and reload time: 45 minutes (3/4 hour) Phase 2 introduces you to the frequent use of quit and reload and what you'll expect to encounter. You'll also learn some of the basics to item perfection, such as forcing bonuses. Phase 2 requires that you have completed phase 1. Phases 2, 3, and 4 can be done in any order though it is recommended that you complete phase 2 before phase 4 takes you past 50 bonus levels. This routine can be merged into phase 4. That is, once a bonus is forced from phase 4, advance 2 floors (another if the next is the boss floor) and gency out then. You'll make more efficient use of your exits this way. Do not go to floor 100 though in any case, except phase 5. --------------------------------------------------------- | 4.1 Stage 5: Learning how to force bonuses **040100** | --------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: doesn't count (part of stage 17) Quit and reload time: doesn't count (part of stage 17) This is not required if quick-boosting or near-perfecting an item. ............................................... 4.1.1 The basics of forcing bonuses **040110** ............................................... If you already know how to force bonuses, stage 5 can be skipped. This is included since you can force bonuses while going through the floors (which does lead toward progress on the very time-consuming stage 17). Forcing bonuses while going through the floors uses more exits. Keeping the forcing of bonuses to stage 17 only will make this process use the least amount of exits possible, possibly making break even or even a slight net gain. It will take about an hour longer, but an hour on an already long 11 1/2 isn't much of a difference. There seems to be a 40% chance that a mystery room will appear and of that, only about 10% of the time does that mystery room lead to a bonus that raises the item's level. This means that you have a net chance of about 4% that you'll get a qualifying mystery room. The actual odds of getting a bonus are actually 3.36%. It is essential that you learn how to force bonuses to make the most efficient use of perfecting items. Thus, stage 5 introduces this. To make the most of forcing bonuses, be sure you've completed phase 1 and that the item is completely full of specialists. .................................................... 4.1.2 Utilizing specialists and teachers **040120** .................................................... First, choose a different item that you're not after perfecting and don't intend on equipping and only intend on using for the specialists it has. Something full of high-powered specialists will do fine. If you have a high-powered teacher, normal items are better than legendary items despite the fact legendary items have a 50% bonus toward the power of the specialists inside (25% for rares). This is because of one thing - the probability you'll get an innocent town. In legendary or rare items, the odds of getting an innocent town on floor 10 are only 50%. If you don't get an innocent town, the teacher won't do any good. The odds increase to virtually 100% after floor 30 in a rare, 60 in a legendary. In normal items, the odds seem to be 100% at floor 10 (I don't ever recall a time not getting an innocent town after floor 10 is cleared in a normal item out of almost a thousand that I've processed). This is why normal items are so effective compared to legendary items. You're virtually guaranteed an innocent town which means you're virtually guaranteed that free 200 tutor when you have an unsubdued tutor of 4000 (becoming a massive 400 at 8000 unsubdued, like several items' worth in one). Before going into the junk item, combine all specialists. For best results, the junk item must only have 1 of a single type of specialist present. Basically, it can have 3 tutors (of 86, 53, and 118 which combines to a single tutor of 257, a very rare find) and qualify but if it has 2 tutors (of 76 and 58) and an amnesiac (of 8), then it won't work as well, especially if you have a teacher as the teacher will pick either the tutor or the amnesiac at random. If you have a teacher, it's still recommended you combine a subdued tutor with an unsubdued tutor. You'll lose the subdued tutor, getting a single high-powered unsubdued tutor with it, but, if you subdue that specialist before floor 10, it'll be subdued, being stronger than it was before, and the teacher will take effect, only getting that one specialist present, the tutor, and making it still stronger yet. This way, the teacher is guaranteed to power up that one specialist. Do note that teachers have no effect on lovers, other teachers, or mediators - I tried but the teaching stuff never happened. If the specialist doesn't appear before floor 10, quit and reload. My videos show this very well. Note the power of my master early in the video to that at the end when I'm otherwise done with phase 4. ........................................... 4.1.3 Going through a junk item **040130** ........................................... When going through the junk item, just skip your way through. Ignore all mystery rooms - they're a waste of time. You're not going to be equipping the junk item, and unless you need collectors, you can ignore all mystery rooms. The exception is when you get to floor 9 - check for a mystery room. If a mystery room is present (noted by a green glow instead of red - blue is for the base panel (to complete the RGB triplet)), you'll need to try again with another junk item. There is an 80% chance or so of not having a mystery room on floor 9, fairly decent. If mystery room is not present, then you will be able to force a bonus on the item being perfected. Regardless on whether or not floor 9 has a mystery room, clear floor 10 and claim the Mr. Gency Exit. As a side note, if a mystery room appears on floor 7 or 8, you are guaranteed no mystery room on floor 9. Since floor 10 cannot have mystery rooms, this is why the floor 9 method works. ................................... 4.1.4 Forcing the bonus **040140** ................................... If no mystery room appeared on floor 9, save when you return to HQ. You must save because a lot of quit and reload is expected. After saving, enter the item being perfected. Check to see if a mystery room is present. Press R2 to check. The cursor will go from the base panel to the dimension gate. Press R2 again and, if a mystery room is present, the cursor will then go to the mystery room's location. If no mystery room is present, the cursor will go back to the base panel. I would recommend pressing R2 twice more to see if it returns to the dimension gate. I've had cases where the mystery room is well-hidden because it was straight north (up on the screen) and below some where the base panel has the same screen position as the mystery room. The fact the cursor goes to the dimension gate upon 2 more presses is a very strong indication of a mystery room present that's well-hidden. If a mystery room is present run over to it. Mystery rooms are never guarded, unlike the dimension gate, though they may be across a gap. Rarely, I encounter cases where mystery rooms are across several gaps and/or 30+ panels away. In those cases where reaching them is expected to take a while, I just quit and reload. If I feel I can't reach them within 20 seconds of seeing the location of the mystery room, I just quit and reload. Most of the time, about 98% of the time, reaching the mystery rooms doesn't take long. When you enter the mystery room, the game will load and one of several things may show up. Treasure rooms and shops are especially annoying because they're so common. See appendix B for the list of mystery rooms. ............................................. 4.1.5 The important mystery rooms **040150** ............................................. There are only 2 mystery rooms of use for item perfection and you must get one of them. If you don't, quit and reload. The ambush (where 7 enemies surround the base panel in a circle) is the most common one you'll get that provides a bonus, occurring about 60% of the time you're forcing a bonus. Defeat all 7 enemies within 3 turns to claim 3 bonus levels on the item. In my videos, you'll often see a case where I check the bonuses. If an exp bonus is available, I do things a little different so I could claim the bonus. This is useful for leveling up very weak characters that are much too weak to fight (healers without offensive magic, for example, of which I'm considering giving offensive magic to so I have more wizards). After a while, I got into just checking enemy equipment for worthy items and HP steals. The second mystery room of use, though chance-based, is the fortune teller. The fortune teller appears about 40% of the time you're after forcing a bonus. If the fortune teller gives "horrible luck" (20% chance) or "bad luck" (20% chance) quit and reload - fighting him won't give you any bonuses and it doesn't completely negate the loss. However, if the fortune teller gives "good luck" (40% chance) or the ultra useful "great luck" (20% chance), you're good to go. "Good luck" adds 3 bonus levels to the item while "great luck" adds a massive 10. The "great luck" is basically 3 1/3 bonuses in one because you primarily get nothing but +3's otherwise. The first case of this counts as 4 though and there's a reason for it. Going through the 100 floors will only make the item level 100, like Disgaea 1. You have to get 100 extra levels. 33 bonuses will only be 99 meaning that 34 bonuses are needed at the absolute most. One case of "great luck" will reduce that 100 to 90 meaning that 30 more are needed instead of 33 (from 34 to 30). The next 2 cases count as 3 extras and the fourth case (lucky you if you get 4 cases of "great luck") counts as 4 again. Do note that I don't know the exact odds for every case - I'm just estimating based on what I've observed. ................................................... 4.1.6 The statistics of forcing bonuses **040160** ................................................... For some statistics based on what I've experienced while doing this (statisticians anyone, real statisticians?), I seem to average 28 to 31 seconds per attempt when no mystery room is present, and 35-45 seconds if a mystery room is present. Given the 40% chance of a mystery room being present, this means the weighted average per attempt takes about 33.7 seconds or roughly 9 attempts every 5 minutes. The odds of getting a bonus are not the 4% you might expect, it's actually 3.36% (about 1 in 29.76). Where's the other 0.64%? It's the "bad luck" and "horrible luck" cases from the fortune teller. Actual observations tell me that an average of about 15 to 25 attempts are needed to force a bonus (I've had to go clear out to 80 attempts once (!) - you'd have a 93.5% chance of having a bonus by then). My observations closely match what my calculations are telling me. This means a typical average of about 13.05 minutes per forced bonus. If you only want cases of "great luck", you have odds that are really stacked against you since the odds drop to a puny 0.32% (1 in 312.5). You can expect an average of about 175 to 250 attempts before getting it or 2.024 hours per forced "great luck". Interestingly, however, the odds of getting 3 consecutive cases of "great luck" versus 10 cases of ambushes or "good luck" are higher. 3 forced cases of "great luck" means you have a 1 in 30,517,578 chance versus the 10 cases of ambushes or "good luck" which has a 1 in 1,483,420,115,735,517 (1.48342 quadrillion) chance if consecutive. By time, 6 hours for 3 cases of forced "great luck" versus only 2 1/4 hours for 10 cases of ambushes or "good luck". Thus, you're much better off claiming the 3's than you are the 10's - less than quadruple the bonus for about 3 times the time needed. --------------------------------------------------- | 4.2 Stage 6: Floor 10's item general **040200** | --------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 2 minutes Quit and reload time: tiny fraction of a minute ..................................... 4.2.1 The first item boss **040210** ..................................... Now that you know how to force bonuses, it's time to get the level ups from going through the floors of the item. Like before, when you reach floor 9, check for a mystery room. If none is present, you can force a bonus first thing in stage 8 if you want to force bonuses along the way (of which I don't recommend). When you reach floor 10 on the item being perfected, defeat the item general but do not clear the floor. If you accidentally clear the floor (as from a "disperse damage" geo effect or not paying attention), quit and reload. Of course, if the item general is on an "invincibility", "reverse damage", or "evade" effect, consider moving or destroying the offending geo symbol. When you do defeat the item general but don't clear the floor, use a Mr. Gency Exit to escape from the item world. Sell the unwanted stuff you got along the way to floor 10 then save your game. .............................................................. 4.2.2 The benefits of double-defeating item bosses **040220** .............................................................. What's the point of doing this? The item will get another bonus, a big one. If you level up an item with 300 for the starting stat (without any specialists that affect it) to level 10 without defeating the item general or exiting except in innocent town or choosing "yes" on the "return to HQ" question, the item will have 460 for that stat. This is purely from leveling the item up. Each level up adds 5% to the item's base stats. Thus, 10 levels adds 50% turning 300 into 450. Each level up also adds 1 so this means the actual value you see is 460. The bonus that item bosses provide are based on either the 300 or 450 (since multiplication is commutative). Item generals add 1 "boss point" as I call it. Each boss point for legendary items is 1/15 added to the multiplier, starting at 1. Thus, the first boss point you get will change the 1x to 16/15x. When you defeat the item general without gencying out, the item will have 16/15 of the 300 or 450 base giving 480 for the base (490 actual) instead. If you defeat the item general, gency out, return, defeat the item general again, and clear floor 10 (or run to the dimension gate), the item will have a base of 510 (520 actual) another boss point is being added, making it 17/15. Oddly, boss points work differently with different items. Normal items have item generals provide 1/10 instead of 1/15 making bosses more effective. Rares, though uncertain, are 1/12. A 200 base turns into 310 without item generals, 340 with a single, and 370 with a double. Specialists inside the item will offset the 520 even more, typically about 54 (I don't know this formula though it seems to be based on 4.5 per specialist per boss point per 20 levels (kings double it and the the god triples it)) if all 6 are present. If that's the case, then if you kept the item with 6 specialists of one type and double-defeated every boss (that's 30 boss points), specialists provide, at level 100, 4050. I'm not entirely certain on this though as I haven't quite figured out the system yet. ---------------------------------------------------------------- | 4.3 Stage 7: Pass first "more [stat] growth" bill **040300** | ---------------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 12-20 minutes Quit and reload time: 10-18 minutes This is not required if quick-boosting an item. ........................................................... 4.3.1 Forcing the item assembly chicken, Vandam **040310** ........................................................... Once you've gencied out from floor 10, save. You'll have a lot of quit and reload coming up and this time, it's required. Why? You must force the game to provide you with the item assembly chicken, present only in an innocent town. The odds don't look so good either. There's a 50% chance of getting an innocent town in a legendary item to begin with which isn't all that bad. The problem, however, is that there's about a 10% chance that the required item assembly chicken will be present in the first place. Yes, that's right, this means you have a rather small 5% chance of getting the required item assembly chicken per attempt. Of course, legendary items are practically guaranteed innocent towns and item assembly chickens for floors 60, 70, and 80, if you haven't gotten any by then. For starters, reenter the item being perfected and defeat the item general again. Unlike before, I strongly advise that you do not clear the floor - read: "5% chance". You must get the item general though. Once you get it, run for the dimension gate. Like covered in stage 4, if you get asked if you want to return to HQ, choose "no", wait for the game to load, then quit and reload (do this even if a mystery room is present on floor 11). This will save about 3 to 6 seconds each attempt, not much, but with 30 to 45 cases of this happening throughout perfecting just this item, it adds up to about 3 minutes, 3 "free" attempts' worth. If you get to go to innocent town, check for the item assembly chicken, a chess knight's hop south-southwest (toward the bottom left) from the flower hospital. You should see the item assembly chicken first thing. If there is no item assembly chicken, quit and reload. ............................................. 4.3.2 Choosing which bill to pass **040320** ............................................. If the item assembly chicken, Vandam, is present, then you're good to go. Enter the item assembly, choose someone with at least 200 mana, then choose the bill for increasing the growth rate for the stat you're after perfecting. In my case in the videos, I'm after SP-perfecting a universal orb. I'd go for the "more SP growth" bill in this case. What's the difference between "more SP growth" and "a little more SP growth" besides mana cost? The former appears to be twice as effective though I can't say with adequate certainty (one test case is nowhere near enough). For INT-perfecting an omniscient rod, you'd choose "more INT growth". You must get the bill to pass. If the bill gets denied, you must choose persuade by force (thanks white dragons and especially Tengen for your troubles - how would you like 9-figure damage?) and defeat every senator that votes against you and spare those that vote for you to get the bill to pass. If it takes 20 turns to defeat the nay-sayers, then it takes 20 turns (I usually do it with just my Emily alone - they're helpless against her guaranteed 9-figure damage and she can't take damage anyway, provided they even hit in the first place). ................................................ 4.3.3 Dealing with the dark assembly **040330** ................................................ If you stand no chance with "persuade by force" and bills otherwise never pass for you, quit and reload, and focus on improving this. It'll take some time, but it's definitely well worth the effort. Getting the mid senate mothman party up to "love" along with the wood golem "upper senate" will help significantly. You'll need to get an item called "medicine" to get the baciels up to "love" and they contribute significantly as well. Look for the "black market" shop in item world mystery rooms (of junk items or along the way) to find medicine. Just the first 2 alone are almost enough. Ghosts are reliable but they have a small effect that rarely takes effect. Orcs are more dependable than ghosts but have little effect - they'd be third priority. If you have the option to make Adell become senator, then make use of this to improve the power of the voice for every senator type except the evil white dragons. Unlike Disgaea 1, the senator's level makes no difference. Get both upper senate parties and the mid senate mothman party to "love" and you'll have almost no trouble passing bills. The orcs and lastly the ghosts can help, but only very slightly. For fast results on getting senators to "love", simply buy out the general store twice over (for 22 total items) and give these items as bribes to as many senators as you can. Don't have the funds? Repeatedly play the "reflection pond" stage and throw the prinny on the bottom left corner (from the default angle), 5 panels away - one northeast and 4 northwest to make them all explode without harming your own ally to get items and extra money for free (and, perhaps, spawn lovers while you're at it (though only with items of rank 5 or higher). Alternate between "cheaper stuff" and "more expensive stuff" if you need to as these use the least amount of mana. Short on mana too? Cave of Ordeal 4 helps a lot with that. Don't have access to it? Play something like "reflection pond" and defeat the enemies rather than throw them to get 6 mana per play (more if you have a few "stronger enemies" bills passed (I haven't advanced the story past reflection pond (!) so I don't know what else there is so I can't suggest anything else)). After a while, you should be having an easy time passing bills - return to getting a "more [stat] growth" bill passed. .................................................................. 4.3.4 The statistics of forcing item assembly chickens **040340** .................................................................. For statistics on this part of the process, based on actual observations, each attempt takes me an average of about 60 seconds (typically 57 to 63 is what I get). It can get up to 80 seconds if I have to deal with "invincibility", "reverse damage", or "evade" geo symbols and/or the dimension gate is very far from the base panel. I've had cases where the dimension gate is nearly 40 panels away - use a tower lift to get there in one turn. I also average about 10 to 18 attempts (I've had to go out to 50 attempts) to get the item assembly chicken. Combining all this, you can expect roughly 10 to 18 minutes. Since 3 cases of this are needed, this is about 30 minutes on average for forcing the item assembly chicken to be present on demand. --------------------------------------------------- | 4.4 Stage 8: Floor 20's item general **040400** | --------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 5 minutes Quit and reload time: 1/2 minute If a mystery room was on floor 9, you may force a bonus, though it's not recommended. If you want to make the most out of your exits, then don't force a bonus. For speed and if you have a lot of exits (30+), then I would recommend forcing a bonus if possible (or starting up a dual-stat specialist, using legendary rank 38 or 39 junk). Once done, save, return to the item, and make your way to floor 20, entering any mystery room you encounter along the way. Like with stage 6 and 8, if no mystery room is on floor 19, you can force a bonus first thing in stage 21 if you want but it's not recommended. Once you get to floor 20, defeat the item general, again, without clearing the floor, and gency out. Save again. ----------------------------------------------------------------- | 4.5 Stage 9: Pass second "more [stat] growth" bill **040500** | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 12-20 minutes Quit and reload time: 10-18 minutes This is not required if quick-boosting an item. Like with stage 7, repeat the process of defeating the item general and running to the dimension gate right after without clearing the floor. Get the yes/no question? Quit and reload. Got an innocent town but no item assembly chicken? Quit and reload. Got an innocent town and an item assembly chicken? Pass another "more [stat] growth" bill. ------------------------------------------------- | 4.6 Stage 10: Floor 30's item king **040600** | ------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 5 minutes Quit and reload time: 1/2 minute Stage 10 is otherwise the same as stage 8, except that an item king is involved. Item kings are considerably more powerful than the item general, especially with HP (I've seen the dreadnaught with nearly 6 million HP (!) in the Land of Carnage). What's more is that items kings are worth not 1 boss point, but 2. Throw in the fact you're defeating it twice, you're going from 4 to 8 boss points meaning 19/15x to 23/15x the baseline stats. That's not all either. Defeat the item king and the item's pop limit increases by 1. As usual though, defeat the item king without clearing the floor and gency out. ------------------------------------------------------------- | 4.7 Stage 11: Transfer another weak specialist **040700** | ------------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 1/2 minute Quit and reload time: 0 minutes Once you've gencied out, don't save just yet. Stage 11 will not need quit and reload, unless you've done something highly disastrous. Remember how defeating item kings causes the pop limit to increase by 1? Instead of 6 specialists being possible, it's now 7. Get out the container and transfer another one of the weak specialists obtained in stage 3 to the item being perfected so that the item is always full. At this point, save. ----------------------------------------------------------------- | 4.8 Stage 12: Pass last "more [stat] growth" bill **040800** | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 12-20 minutes Quit and reload time: 10-18 minutes This is not required if quick-boosting an item. Legendary items allow you to pass 3 bills for the item rather than 2 (like with rares) or only 1 (like with commons). Like with stage 9, you must pass the third "more [stat] growth" bill, quitting and reloading until you get the item assembly chicken. This is the last bill you will have to pass. ---------------------------------------------------------- | 4.9 Stage 13: Transfer last weak specialist **040900** | ---------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 1/2 minute Quit and reload time: 0 minutes Before saving your game, transfer the last of the weak specialists over. The second item king was defeated so the pop limit increased yet again, now to the maximum of 8. After you've transferred the specialist and sold any junk items you've accumulated (if you accidentally sell a good item, you can buy it back but buying it back costs double that of the sale price - if you sell a lot of items (typically 40+ though I don't know the exact figure) before that good one, you can't buy it back, ever), save your game. -------------------------------------------------------- | 4.10 Stage 14: Reach and process floor 90 **041000** | -------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 45-60 minutes Quit and reload time: 3 minutes ................................................ 4.10.1 Slight changes in the process **041010** ................................................ Stage 14 is like stage 6, only repeated several times. As usual, if a mystery room did not appear on floor 29, force a bonus if you want though it's not recommended. Reenter the item and work your way to floor 40 entering any mystery rooms that appear (if the fortune teller reduces the item level, quit and reload, though if you get the very rare "great luck", gency out, save, then return). Always run to the dimension gate when no mystery room is present - it's far faster this way (and a bad fortune teller will only undo this anyway). Once you reach floor 39, check for a mystery room. If none is present, you can force a bonus later if you want though it's not recommended. Once you reach floor 40, defeat the item general and gency out before clearing the floor. Save your game. Return to the item, and this time, unlike stages 6, 8, and 10, clear the boss floor to get a Mr. Gency Exit. Once cleared, save your game, and force a bonus, if applicable and if you want. Repeat the process you did from floors 31 to 40 with 41 to 50, 51 to 60, 61 to 70, 71 to 80, and 81 to 90. ........................................... 4.10.2 Other notes for stage 14 **041020** ........................................... On floor 41 and later, you'll encounter majins and other top-tier enemies like the dreadnaught and malchidael. These enemies are a gold mine for experience, particularly the adamant knight, dreadnaught, and especially the malchidael, but for getting an item perfected as quickly as possible, just focus on the dimension gate, defeating the gate keeper should one be present. Extra enemies can be included in the area of effect, but remember to be quick. The floor just before the boss floor is important - if no mystery room appears on that floor, force a bonus, if you want, after you process the boss floor. The forcing of a bonus is not recommended as you'll use up more exits than you'll gain. It makes stage 17 take longer, but you'll actually, by avoiding the forcing of bonuses as you go through the item, gain exits, though typically only about 2. When you process floor 90, you can force a bonus if no mystery room was on floor 89. The forcing of bonuses counts as progress toward stage 17, not here, it uses more exits. Even if you have 70+ exits, I still don't recommend it. With that many, you could quickly start up several dual-stat specialists that a teacher can boost in junk items (just include it with the other specialist - the teacher will pick one of them at random). When you get to about floor 30, you may notice that any negatives values (such as the HIT stat with axes) otherwise stop and reverse course and once floor 60 is processed, the negative becomes a positive. That's right, an ax, by level 60, will actually improve (!) HIT rather than lower it. No "more HIT growth" or marksmen are needed either. I have an ATK-perfected apocalypse on a samurai and that samurai has a HIT of over 500K and has no trouble hitting even the item god 2 from the front (except when there's an "enemy boost" effect and the item god 2 is on it). I have no glasses, HIT-improving equipment or anything, just the ax alone that's causing it (and level 1000 contributes very little to HIT anyway). The only time improvements won't happen is when the item has a base stat of 0 - only specialists will boost this. This concludes phase 2. At this point, all the item generals and item kings you've defeated are providing a 2.6x multiplier to the item's base stats and the specialists have already added another 3000-4000 on top of all this. ------------------------------------- | 4.11 Summary of phase 2 **041100** | ------------------------------------- To summarize phase 2, fill the item being perfected with the type of specialist that affects the stat you want perfected then advance to floor 10. Defeat the item general, gency out, and save. Return to the item, defeat the item general again, and run to the dimension gate. Quit and reload until you see the item assembly chicken, Vandam, and pass a "more [stat] growth" bill. Once you return, save, proceed to floor 20 and repeat what you did for floor 10. Proceed to floor 30, defeat the item king, gency out, transfer another one of the weak specialists over to the item being perfected, save, then force the last item assembly chicken, passing the same bill. Transfer the last of the weak specialists over. Lastly, make your way to floor 40, defeat the item general, gency out, save, return, then clear floor 40 for an exit. Repeat the latter process until floor 90 is done. ______ _ _ _____ _____ _______ _____ | ___ \ | | | | / ___ \ / ___ \ | _____| / ___ \ /\ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_| | | |_| | | ____/ \____ | |___| | | |___| | | |___| | | |____ | |___ ___| | \ / | ____/ | ___ | | ___ | \____ \ | ___| |___ < \ / | | | | | | | | | | _ | | | | _ | | | | | | | | | | | | | |___| | | |_____ | |___| | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| \_____/ |_______| \_____/ ############################### #### #### # 5 Phase 3: Spawn a lover **050000** # #### #### ############################### Estimated time: 35 minutes (7/12 hour) Quit and reload time: 1/2 minute Phase 3 covers the spawning and subduing of a lover. Although this phase is entirely optional, I strongly recommend it. If you do decide to skip it, advance the item to floor 99 like you have been and gency out once you get there (go into the mystery room if one is present on floor 99 first though and gency out when you return). If you get to floor 100, quit and reload. Phase 3 can be done at any time (except once phase 5 has started). To save an exit, do phase 3 before doing phase 1. That, however, results in slightly lower odds of getting all the specialists out in time for phase 1 meaning more quitting and reloading is needed. Remembering that you spawned a lover by the time you reach floor 90 is critical. Forget this and you end up unexpectedly doing 200 clears of Cave of Ordeal 4 and still not having one spawn, leading to confusion. It may save an exit, but it's not worth the possibility of forgetting. -------------------------------------- | 5.1 The basics of lovers **050100** | -------------------------------------- Lovers are a type of specialist that is normally absent everywhere you look. This is for one obvious reason. The lover will only be toward the character that that piece of equipment has been on for a while. Lovers provide 2 key bonuses. The first and most useful is the 25% boost on all stats. That's right, max HP, max SP, and the 6 others all get boosted by 25%. The second is that the character's unique skill gets amplified for how effective it is. Take the girl mage for example. These wizards are able to use their SP more efficiently, reducing the amount they need initially by 25% (Tera ice normally costs 405 SP, but a girl mage reduces this to 303 (fractions are truncated (303.75 becomes 303)).). With a 25 girl mage lover, the amount of SP they use is cut by 50% (turning the 405 into 202 (202.5 becoming 202)). Dragons are invincible to fire, but get a dragon lover and all fire-based attacks will actually heal the dragon, restoring its HP (provided the fire-based attack would have actually done damage). Many of these special skills only occur when HP is 25% or less (this is the one key use for weights). Rozalin has the ability to power up male units, boosting all of their 6 main attributes by 20% initially, but a 25 Rozalin lover makes this boost 45%. If you would like to learn more about lovers, I have an older video that explains everything I knew about them at the time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpdwo2guXM0 - the first of 6 segments To spawn a lover, the item has to be equipped on someone. More than 32 battles need to be cleared before lovers will start to appear. Skipping in the item world (running to the dimension gate or mystery room) doesn't count, sorry, though clearing battles in the item world and select mystery rooms do count (I'm unsure if forcing a battle with a bad fortune teller, rip-off bar, or those pesky shops or the like counts.). After this, there's about a 2% chance that a lover will spawn. The character you're trying to get the lover to spawn for doesn't even have to do anything but it must be out on the battle field the moment the area is cleared. Reflection pond is the fastest way to get lovers to spawn, but you get almost nothing for it. Cave of Ordeal 4 is the best way because, although it takes a little longer to clear each time, you'll be leveling up like crazy. In the time it takes to even start getting lovers to spawn, you can get a character from level 1 to over 2500 without the use of the felony system. Plus, by reincarnating every 3 plays (4 for when you have 60,000+ total levels), you can typically get roughly 10,000 total levels acccumulated before lovers even start to spawn, tens of thousands by the time one typically does. You'll lose a lot of weapon and skill mastery from this, but both of these are very easy to get. I usually do 10 clears then reincarnate, unless someone is going for level 9999 from the second-to-the-last or the very last reincarnation when at 186,000 total stored levels. That way, I can store a decent amount of levels without losing a lot of skill and weapon mastery. See the middle of section 2.1, section 5.2 below, and appendix A for more details on lovers. ------------------------------------------------- | 5.2 Stage 15: Get a lover to spawn **050200** | ------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 20-40 minutes (more if you reincarnate a lot) Quit and reload time: 0 minutes Stage 15 does not require quit and reload outside extreme circumstances, such as carelessness that results in the defeating of one of your own allies, but it can take some time, 11 minutes at the minimum to as long as 50 minutes or even more though about 25 minutes is the average. Of course, this also depends on how often you reincarnate. For human-type characters, I typically reincarnate every 10 plays, adding 1400 or so levels to the total. There are 2 ways to get a lover to spawn. Regardless of which method you use there are 4 things to consider, some required, some optional. First, you must transfer all the weak specialists back to the container so the item has nothing in it. The second thing is choose which character you would like a lover of 6 to be obtained for (after subduing). The third is also obvious - the item has to be equipped on that character. The fourth, though optional, is to rearrange the characters so that the first of 2 attackers is at the very top, the one spawning the lover is second, and the last attacker is third. Doing this will save considerable time in the long run, typically about 30%. From here, what you do next depends on which method you prefer. ........................................................... 5.2.1 The effortless method - throwing prinnies **050210** ........................................................... The first method requires that you have someone who can throw 5 panels (like Adell) and move at least 8 (you'll need shoes for this). Choose the "reflection pond" area (from chapter 1's second battle (ignoring the tutorials; this is actually the last story battle I completed - I've never seen any story events after this point)). In Holt Village this place makes it easy to obtain "defender of earth" cell phones, the only other advantage this method has, the method for obtaining your first accelerator (extras are a pain to get as far more quit and reload is needed as the accelerator on the item god isn't always legendary). Move all characters you're after spawning lovers for out of the base panel but don't go more than 2 panels away from it closer to the enemy or they'll take damage. The last character should be the one that can move at least 8 panels and throw 5. You'll also need to know how to throw diagonally, a little known feature. To throw diagonally, first, extend the range out to 5 to the northeast (upper right, assuming you're using the default angle). Next, change the direction so the line will go to the northwest (upper left corner). About 200 milliseconds into this turn, execute the throw to throw the prinny 1 panel northeast and 4 panels northwest. You've done a diagonal throw and all 5 prinnies will explode, leading to an incredibly loud explosion sound! Don't get diagonal throwing? Practice in "beginner's field" (a fitting name for diagonal throwing too) - lure the orc on the westmost (leftmost) side of the screen to the far left (again, assuming the default angle). Then, take the heal 20% geo symbol and practice throwing it diagonally. Clear out the other orcs and the ghosts as well but leave that one enemy. This way, you can practice throwing diagonally all you want. See what happens when you adjust the timing. Being out of range for any of its attacks, the lone orc will just stay put doing nothing while you practice. You may even have a rare case where Adell throws 6 panels instead of 5 (I've had iron knights throw 7 panels instead of their 6). It's an extremely useful skill to know. Why GameFAQs doesn't consider this a secret (for the cheats section), that I don't know. ................................................................ 5.2.2 The most beneficial method - Cave of Ordeals 4 **050220** ................................................................ The second method is better on numerous fronts but has a downside - it requires 2 characters that are powerful enough to be able to defeat the 8 enemies in one hit consistantly. This is Cave of Ordeal 4, best done in Land of Carnage. With this, you can level up insanely fast while also working on getting the lover to spawn. My videos cover this method. Unlike the video, get out the first attacker, move 1 panel forward (or get right next to the enemy) and use a special skill to select the first 6 enemies. Press R2 to move to the base panel. The character you're spawning a lover for will be next - move that character 1 panel away from the enemy or 1 panel off the side. The next character will be the last attacker - use it to select the last 2 enemies, then execute. If you're fast and using wizards, you can clear the map in 20 seconds from selecting the map to selecting it the next time. My record is 19.4 seconds for a full clear round. Using wizards, especially for the second attacker, really speeds things up since you don't have to move but one panel toward the enemy (rotate the 3x2 3 times while waiting for the slow cursor to get to the closest enemy). Of course, due to a massive goal I have, I'm also stealing HP during this - it's not in the video, but it is in my live game play stream. .................................................. 5.2.3 Telling when a lover has spawned **050230** .................................................. Regardless of the method, you might be wondering how you can tell if a lover has spawned. First, rush through 32 battles as fast as you can. With the Cave of Ordeal 4 method, each clear takes about 20 to 22 seconds so 32 battles will mean a good 10 to 11 minutes before lovers even start spawning (longer if you reincarnate often like I usually do). After about 32 battles, there's about a 2% chance that a lover will spawn for each cleared battle afterward. I've had to go on for an incredible 214 total plays once before a lover spawned though about 65 total plays seems to be a good average (for a 50% chance). You'll know when a lover has spawned immediately upon that character being selected for coming out of the base panel. Immediately when that character is selected, you'll see the maximum HP and SP suddenly change, causing HP and SP to be missing. When this happens, clear the area for one last time (the current play you just started a few seconds ago), sell the garbage you got from the bonuses, then save your game. Small bits of HP and SP may be missing as a consequence of leveling up from the clear bonuses, the measely 162,500 exp you get. ........................................ 5.2.4 Notes on reincarnating **050240** ........................................ 5.2.4.1 Making the most of reincarnating **050241** During this, I frequently reincarnate as this is also a great way to accumulate total levels. Reincarnating is not included in the estimated time. I usually reincarnate every 10 plays. This preserves weapon mastery and skill mastery quite well while still providing a good rate for getting total levels. With perfected items, 2, 3, or 4 plays provide the fastest possible. 2 plays is the fastest if you have less than 25,000 total stored levels. 3 plays is best after that until about 100,000 total stored levels. Beyond that, 4 plays is best. By "best", I'm referring to the fastest accumulation per unit of time. I take 75 seconds for 2 plays, getting 739 levels for a wizard, a skull or mage in particular (9.85 levels per second). It's 95 seconds for 3 plays at 905 levels (9.53 levels per second) and 115 seconds for 4 at 1045 levels (9.09 levels per second). This is based on having about 25,000 total levels. By 120,000 total levels, since you spend over 15 extra seconds distributing all those bonus points, 3 plays (and only 3) becomes the fastest (compare 8.21, 8.23, and 8.04 levels per second). Before lovers even start spawning, I typically get 4200 total levels accumulated. By the time a lover does spawn, I've got about 10,000 total levels. If you want total levels as fast as absolutely possible, then you'll want 3 plays. This makes total levels twice as fast based on plays alone, but you spend more time distributing bonus (I just dump the bulk of it on SP and, if SP maxes out at 255, the rest on some offensive stat, INT or ATK usually). You'll get about 900 levels each time for 9000 total levels by the time lovers start to spawn or 18,000 by the time a lover would otherwise spawn. However, weapon mastery and skill mastery really decline. If you've got perfected weapons, this is no big deal. 5.2.4.2 Recovering weapon and skill mastery afterward **050242** To recover lost weapon mastery, reincarnate once more (gain a few extra levels first to get more filled gold bars), then equip a rank 1 weapon that hasn't been leveled up. Keep that character as weak as you can. Be sure to put a 1900 armsmaster on that character (or the highest you have - multiple also work, but anything above a total of 1900 is wasted space). Play Cave of Ordeal 1, move to where one of the "exp+50%" geo symbols are (at the far ends), stand on the red panel, and endlessly attack it for several dozen turns. For best results, convert the enemies into high-level chests and attack the chests instead. To get a chest, have a high-level bow user defeat an enemy or destroy a geo symbol that isn't taking effect. You can also recover skill mastery this way too and SP-perfected universal orbs help a lot with that, along with maxed masters. Put the maxed masters on the weapon, and the armsmaster and 300 mentor on any other item. Have someone else move the "ATK+50%" geo symbol off the geo panel so it doesn't take effect. Get rid of all but the most distant of the archers too (the archers will never move and will only attack if within 5 panels), Don't have any of that character's students defeat them - if they level up, the master, of whom is gaining skill and weapon mastery, will suddenly become much stronger (should this happen, get some levels again in Cave of Ordeal 4, reincarnate, then try again (or just quit and reload). Also, don't use healing magic, or any indirect magic like blind as this will cause level-ups and you can't have that happen while going after skill and weapon mastery. Also, I very strongly recommend attacking the front of the chest. Why? Like the invincible ninja that can't be hit from too high of a SPD, rotating it will reduce accuracy to a bare minimum. From there, spend a while reaccumulating weapon and skill mastery. Run out of SP? Return to the base panel, clear the map with other characters (no students, remember), visit the hospital and repeat the play of Cave of Ordeal 1 for more - repeat until level 99 if you want. Of course, you can also use your own allies as a target, but be sure you can't damage him/her and that ally can't counter. With ATK or INT up to 180 and the like, an ally with a DEF and RES of even just 4000 is sufficient enough though when you're perfecting items, chances are, DEF and RES will be several hundreds of thousands, even millions. For magic, RES must be at least 7,000 as the 2x staff mastery amplifies things (10,000 recommended). This is why I keep rank 1 items in the warehouse, for just this kind of thing. I'm doing 9-figure damage and the like and yet, I find great use for unleveled rank 1 items.... Of course, an alternative to this is to keep an eye out for the offensive geo symbol group as this group tends to contain several "attack+1" geo symbols. If you're in the Land of Carnage, keep an eye out for an enemy with an "attack+1" effect and another with either an "invincibility" or a "reverse damage" effect. You can use a geomancer's "geo change" to attempt to get more "attack+1" geo symbols to further speed up the process. This is the best way to get not only weapon mastery, but especially skill mastery. With an "attack+5" setup, I get 6 strikes of tera fire on a fire-invincible dragon in only 12 seconds per turn (becoming 19 seconds with 2 characters for 12 strikes, 26 for 3 characters for 18 strikes, and so forth). Bring out other characters with fire-based skills to really accelerate total skill mastery to an extreme. I haven't encountered an "attack+6" effect or better though (not enough geo symbols and/or enemies). When the enemies have the effects of the geo symbols, you can use them to "paint" the battle field via extensive use of lift and throw. Using someone with a high DEF and RES that can't counter is perfect (2 million is sufficient enough for Land of Carnage - an INT-perfected SRS with an INT-perfected omniscient rod does more than that). A low-HP male ninja with 13 million SPD and the like also works (though beware of the baciel class and counterattacks). The last alternative is unknown. If there's any story battle map with an "attack+2" type effect, it's even faster, though do so in the Land of Carnage and use a high-level chest so you don't risk destroying the geo symbol and having to set up everything again. If all else, move every now and then to prevent the stay-in-one-spot combo from building up too high. ATK-, INT-, HIT-, and SPD-reducing items can help too. --------------------------------------------- | 5.3 Stage 16: Subdue the lover **050300** | --------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 5 minutes Quit and reload time: 1/2 minute ................................... 5.3.1 The basic process **050310** ................................... Now that you've spawned that lover, it's now time to subdue it. This is easier than you think. Remember what was covered in stage 1? You must get the specialist out before floor 100 (in general, the boss floor). If you don't get the specialist before floor 100, quit and reload. Do note that if you don't get or defeat the specialist upon ending your turn, the specialist will almost certainly be under attack by the enemies. If the specialist gets defeated by enemies or destroyed geo symbols, you'll get another chance on a later floor. If you do get the specialist, gency out unless there's a mystery room. Enter it and, upon returning, gency out. You can just inch the extra levels during stage 17, no more than 2 levels at once and without going beyond floor 99. Of course if you get to floor 99, haven't gotten the specialist, but a mystery room is present enter it (enter it anyway, even if a specialist was present but subdue it first before entering). Upon returning, do not clear the floor or head for the dimension gate. Instead, just gency out. This will be as far as the item will go as far as floors go. Obviously, transfer the lover to the character that spawned it (or another character of the same class), then move the weak specialists back into the item. This then concludes the fairly short phase 3. ....................................................... 5.3.2 A warning with non-generic characters **050320** ....................................................... If you've decided to spawn a lover on a special, one-of-a-kind character like Adell or Kurtis, rather than a generic one (those you can get from the "create new character" option from the dark assembly), there is something critical that you must consider before going after the lover. What's the warning? Okay, care to face my Emily with her nearly 20.3 million INT, 7.4 million ATK (basically, insanely powerful, 9-figure damage guaranteed, except with 99 fire defense where it's still 20 million), 10.5 million DEF, 3.9 million RES (basically, hard to do damage to), and 2.3 million SPD (hard to hit) with 11 million HP? I could, quite easily too.... Not everyone can though. If you've set up one of the non-generic characters to be like my Emily, that's what stats the lover will have. Unless you can face something like that, you must completely unequip that character and put him/her in the "disabled" bin temporarily. Only non-generic characters will need this special attention. All other types are generic and won't be a problem (outside the usual "invincibility", "reverse damage", and "evade" effects). Unfortunately, you won't be able to steal the equipment from the non-generic lovers so you're still much better off completely unequipping that character anyway. Do note that once the lover does appear, you can equip that character and defeat the lover to subdue it like any other lover. The stats may be a bit high, though this is only from leveling up and reincarnations. If even this is too much for you, reincarnate that character and don't level him/her up. You'll face a level 1 lover and how easy can that be? Go ahead and reequip that character when done and level him/her up accordingly. ------------------------------------ | 5.4 Summary of phase 3 **050400** | ------------------------------------ To summarize phase 3, an optional but recommended phase, take out the character you want to spawn a lover on. If playing "reflection pond", have another character throw the prinny nearest to the edge diagonally 1 panel northeast and 4 panels northwest to safely make it explode and clear the stage. If you're playing "Cave of Ordeal 4", the most beneficial method, have 2 other characters defeat the 8 enemies each play and level up blazing fast while at it, reincarnating as you see fit. You'll know that a lover has spawned immediately upon the character coming out of the base panel - the max HP and SP suddenly change. Once spawned, subdue it then transfer it accordingly. Transfer the weak specialists back into the item when done. Be warned that lovers for non-generic characters will be identical clones to your actual one - unequip that character and even reincarnate him/her just beforehand before going for the lover. ______ _ _ _____ _____ _______ _ _ | ___ \ | | | | / ___ \ / ___ \ | _____| | | | | /\ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_| | | | | | | ____/ \____ | |___| | | |___| | | |___| | | |____ | |___ | |___| | \ / | ____/ | ___ | | ___ | \____ \ | ___| |_____ | \ / | | | | | | | | | | _ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |___| | | |_____ | | / / |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| \_____/ |_______| |_| |/ #################################### #### #### # 6 Phase 4: Force bonus levels **060000** # #### #### #################################### Estimated time: 510 minutes (8 1/2 hours (!!)) Quit and reload time: 300 minutes (5 hours (!)) Phase 4 is the longest phase of them all and it's because of one thing - you must force enough bonus levels until the item reaches level 198. This requires a lot of quit and reload and easily takes about 3/4 of the total time needed to perfect an item. Phase 4 can be done at any time, except once phase 5 has started. It is best after phase 1 is done. A bit of phase 2 can be done right after - just advance 2 floors (another if the next is the boss floor then gency out). This makes slightly more efficient use of your exits, saving up to 3. Do not go to floor 100 though in any case, except phase 5. ---------------------------------------------------------- | 6.1 Stage 17: Force bonuses until level 198 **060100** | ---------------------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 20-25 minutes per forced bonus (450-570 average (!!)) Quit and reload time: 10-15 minutes per forced bonus (240-360 avearge (!)) This is not required if quick-boosting or near-perfecting an item. .................................... 6.1.1 The big task ahead **060110** .................................... Forcing enough bonuses to get the item to level 198 is going to eat up the most time. If you don't know how to force bonuses, look at stage 5. This is the time where the number of exits you have won't be a problem even if you only have 3 left. You'll actually get a slight gain on exits during this stage. This stage of the process can be best made use of with the use of teachers. Getting a teacher of 100 will seriously make this phase very beneficial on the accumulation of specialists case. This may seem confusing or misleading, but getting the item to level 198 is really the bare minimum you'll need. Sure items max out at level 200, but you have to remember that the item is on floor 99. Once floor 99 is cleared, the item gains a level, making it 199. Then there's floor 100 with the item god or item god 2 present. Here, once processed like you've done with all other boss floors (10, 20, 30, 40, etc.; you may consider forcing the game to give you the rarity you want for your first or next rank 40 item), the item will gain another level, making it 200. Of course, if you land on 199 or 200, that's fine too and expected to happen. If you land on 197, you still have another bonus to force yet because the item will only get to 199. ................................................. 6.1.2 Part 1: Go through a junk item **060120** ................................................. Stage 17 involves repeating 2 parts typically 24 times on average (24, 27, 29, or 31 are typical for the total bonuses though 4 or 5 are usually picked up along the way). The first part is that of junk items. These are items you don't intend on equipping, but use only for the specialists. Because normal items are otherwise guaranteed an innocent town after floor 10, they are the best choice, unless you're just starting a new specialist (less than 1000 to 2000 unsubdued (depending on your preferences)). Don't forget to combine before entering the item. Save before entering the item, but after combining. The previously subdued specialist now becomes unsubdued. Why do this you may ask? The teacher picks one of the 2 specialists otherwise at random to powerup. Should the teacher get the lowest powered one, the teacher's usefulness is almost wasted. By combining the subdued specialists with the unsubdued ones, you'll lose the subdued specialist, but a single very-high-powered unsubdued specialist is present instead and only one. Subdue this before floor 10 (quit and reload if it doesn't appear by floor 9) and the teacher is guaranteed to pick this high-powered one and make it even more powerful, since it's the only thing available for it to power up. If you got the specialist before floor 10, and you reach floor 9, remember to check for a mystery room. If none is present, you're good to go for moving on to part 2. If a mystery room appears on floor 7 or 8, floor 9 is guaranteed to not have a mystery room. If a mystery room does appear on floor 9, just transfer the specialist and teacher from the item you were just in, combine accordingly, and just move on to another item, repeating this routine, saving as usual beforehand. Always remember to clear floor 10 when you get there to claim a Mr. Gency Exit. The only time in which I don't recommend it is if you really get a horrible setup - a map filled with invincilility, reverse damage, evade, a blocked passage from the base panel (oh how annoying is that - pesky statue being right in the way, forcing you to have to use lift/throw just to get into the boss area). For junk items, defeating item bosses is not necessary if you intend on running to the gate from a horrible setup. You'll still get the innocent town and thus the teacher boost. Fortunately, 99% of the time, this isn't something to worry about. Simply moving any offending geo symbols, utilizing skills like triple strike to set off color chains, etc. can eliminate invinciblity, reverse damage, or evade effects. Remember that the baciels can never miss, even with evade effects. Thus, getting a high level baciel with a huge movement range will help a lot. Having lots of wizards also helps considerably as they can clean up battlefields very easily. 99% of the time, I can clear the boss map in just 1 turn because of this. Area of effect special skills that affect several panels at once really help. .......................................... 6.1.3 Part 2: Force the bonus **060130** .......................................... The second part is where you force a bonus. Like what was explained in stage 5, you must get a mystery room that allows for the item to level up. If the fortune teller reduces the item's level, just quit and reload. Once you get the bonus, gency out without clearing the floor or running to the dimension gate (do this, and you'll have to quit and reload force the bonus again), save, and repeat part 1. Repeat parts 1 and 2 until the item reaches level 198 after the bonus has been forced. Even if you just reach level 198 or higher, gency out so you can force rarity. The exception to this is rank 39 items without a rank 40 equivalent (e.g. cosmos muscles or universal orbs). For statistics, again, you'd otherwise need an average of 28 total bonuses (typically 24, 27, 29, or 31, depending on how many times you get "great luck"). Because you'll typically pick up 3 to 7 bonuses on the way through the floors, this means about 23 bonuses to force on average. If you've been forcing bonuses along the way through the floors, you'll typically get 7 to 9 already done meaning you'll have 16 more to get. Each forced bonus typically takes 15 to 25 attempts to get averaging 33.7 seconds each attempt for 13.05 minutes per forced bonus (10 to 16 would be typical). It takes about 1/4 to 1/2 minute to claim the bonus, 7-9 minutes to go through a junk item, another 1/4 to 3/4 minute to sell junk items you have no use for (such as those already processed) and transfer specialists as needed, and more time to save each time. This all adds up to about 22 1/2 minutes so you can expect 20 to 25 minutes per forced bonus. --------------------------------------------- | 6.2 What to do in the meanwhile **060200** | --------------------------------------------- Because, once a mystery room appears, another won't for at least 3 more floors of item world (this is why floor 9 is special), you'll have to do something in the item world to get that chance again. There are a few options available. The first option is the most recommended - powering up specialists by going through junk items much like what was covered in stage 5. If no mystery room appears on floor 9, force a bonus on the item being perfected. The second option is the next most recommended - start preparing another item for perfection, doing phase 1 for it (especially stages 3 and 4). This will use no additional exits if only doing stages 3 and 4 (you may actually get a gain). If clearing out unwanted specialists, only one extra exit will be used, of which would've been used anyway. The third option is leveling up a rank 39 item with the intent to get your first rank 40 item or doing phase 2 in another item you want to perfect. This second item won't reach as high of a level as it otherwise could be since fewer mystery rooms appear for it (due to forcing bonuses on the main item, the one you're after perfecting). Still, you can double-defeat the item bosses in this rank 39 item (true perfection is not recommended). Once you reach floor 99 in this item, gency out, save, then force the game to give you the rank 40 item of the rarity you want. See stage 18 for more details on this forcing of rarity. Once you get it, be sure to double defeat the item god for 3 boss points. Do note that doing this will use 12 additional exits so only do this if you have a massive overstock of them. ------------------------------------ | 6.3 Summary of phase 4 **060300** | ------------------------------------ To summarize phase 4, go into a junk item and rush through it. When you reach floor 9, check for a mystery room. If one is present, finish the current junk item, clearing floor 10, then go into another junk item for another try. If no mystery room is present, force a bonus on the item being perfected by quitting and reloading until you get a mystery room that provides a bonus. Claim the bonus then gency out upon returning. Repeat this process until the item reaches level 198. By using a teacher and common items that contain a single specialist type (get the specialist out before floor 10 - quit and reload if didn't get it), it's possible to max out specialists very efficiently while doing this. ______ _ _ _____ _____ _______ _______ | ___ \ | | | | / ___ \ / ___ \ | _____| | _____| /\ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |_| | | | | ____/ \____ | |___| | | |___| | | |___| | | |____ | |___ | |____ \ / | ____/ | ___ | | ___ | \____ \ | ___| \____ \ \ / | | | | | | | | | | _ | | | | _ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |___| | | |_____ | |___| | / /\ \ |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| \_____/ |_______| \_____/ |/ \| #################################### #### #### # 7 Phase 5: Finalize and enjoy **070000** # #### #### #################################### Estimated time: 15 minutes (1/4 hour; ignores stage 19) Quit and reload time: 5 minutes (1/12 hour; ignores stage 19) Phase 5 is quite short and it involves the finishing touches to the item. This phase must be done last, regardless. ---------------------------------------------- | 7.1 Stage 18: Floors 99 and 100 **070100** | ---------------------------------------------- Estimated time: 10-20 minutes Quit and reload time: 2-8 minutes With the item finally at level 198 or above, it's time to finalize it. ................................ 7.1.1 Forcing rarity **070110** ................................ Before rushing to floor 100, did you know that you can actually force the game to give you an item of the exact rarity you want? This is strongly ill-advised for rank 39 items because there's usually a 1 in 256 chance (!) of this. This is because rarity covers 256 possible values, from 0 to 255. Rank 40 items are restricted to rarities 0 to 7, for 8 possibilities, drastically increasing the odds. Thus, this is strongly recommended for rank 40 items, but not 39 unless you can't get another rank 39 item as easily (such as the accelerator - just force legendary on those). Do consider that each attempt takes 60 to 70 seconds each. To force the game to give you an item of the exact rarity you want, start from floor 99 and skip to 100. Bring out a high-level thief and get within stealing range of the item god or item god 2. Select a hand of sorts (bandit's hand is fine and plenty easy to get) and select the item god or item god 2. Go to the item of interest and look at the bottom. If this is not the rarity you want, quit and reload to try again. If it is the rarity you want, steal it, defeat the item god or item god 2, gency out, then save. Do not save on floor 100 and attempt for the rank 40 item - you won't get it. This is why you must do it from floor 99. Like with stage 14, return to the item and clear floor 100 to finish the item. Congratulations, you now have a perfected item! ..................................................... 7.1.2 Notes on the item god or item god 2 **070120** ..................................................... The item god and item god 2 add 3 boss points, a huge boost. The item god 2 is the most powerful enemy I've seen in Disgaea 2 so far, with it's 500,000 for its offensive stats (ATK, INT, etc.) and 300,000 for its defensive stats, not to mention the insane 19 to 21 million HP. At least I have several wizards that are guaranteed to take that out in one hit, Emily being absolutely guaranteed (outside invincibility, reverse damage, and evade effects or above enemy boost x9)! When in a human weapon or the armor, the item god or item god 2 must be defeated first. Care to face something with its stats potentially at about 1 million? Sure my wizards and especially my dreadnaught can easily stand up to that, it's not worth the trouble this may cause so defeat the item god or item god 2 as soon as you absolutely can, first thing preferred. Item god or item god 2 too tough to handle? Consider using quit and reload to force the game to give you an "invincibility" or "reverse damage" geo symbol and stay on such panels (make sure the geo symbol doesn't move or quit and reload if it does (for reverse damage, make sure nothing around has healing capabilities)). After enough time, the stay-in-one-spot combo will get high enough so that damage will start to become possible. This is one reason why I recommend near-perfecting the infernal staff. Unfortunately, you won't be able to force rarity using this approach. Thus, getting a super powerful wizard will be of the greatest use. .................................................. 7.1.3 The statistics of forcing rarity **070130** .................................................. For more statistics, each attempt at forcing the rarity you want takes about 60 to 70 seconds (longer when the dimension gate on floor 99 is far and/or guarded). You can expect an average of about 5 attempts to get the rarity you want. If you're forcing the rarity with rank 39 items, you can expect a rather crazy 177 attempts (nearly 3 hours; 150 to 200 expected) to get it on average. You're much better off checking enemy equipment than you are with this, though with accelerators, you're almost forced to - I just stick to the 0 to 7 range for legendary items, a 1 in 32 chance (meaning 22 tries on average; 18 to 25 expected). ------------------------------------------------------ | 7.2 Stage 19: Enjoy your perfected item **070200** | ------------------------------------------------------ Estimated time: infinity minutes Quit and reload time: undefined minutes 12 1/2 (or 11 1/4) hours of this had better be worth it (especially given that half of that is spent doing nothing but quitting and reloading). So, enjoy your perfected item. Show those enemies who's boss! Put Baal out of his misery with 9-figure damage or make him seem like a complete wimp from DEF-perfected super robo suits and RES-perfected universal orbs. The final segment of this shows you the real potential of my wizard and what perfecting items can do for you. Yes, you are certainly seeing that really long number correctly - 1 3/4 billion damage in a single hit - 7 digits then a K. That's how insanely powerful my Maladroit really is. Yet, if you think Maladroit is insanely powerful, Emily is way more powerful. Just how powerful is Emily? Watch these videos and you'll see (insane total damage as well). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lwpQuPJtZw - the main description http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMGiwZT3nI8 - my current record (world record?) ------------------------------------ | 7.3 Summary of phase 5 **070300** | ------------------------------------ To summarize phase 5, return to the item being perfected and run to the dimension gate. Steal another item from the item god or item god 2 (if this item isn't the rarity you want, quit and reload to try again). Once stolen, defeat the item god or item god 2, gency out, save, return, then clear floor 100. At this point, the item is perfected - enjoy it! _____ ___ ___ | ___| / _ \ / _ \ | |__ | |_| | | | | | | __| | _ | | | | | | | _ | | | | _ | |_| |_ _ |_| |_| |_| |_| |_| \______| |_| ######################################## #### #### # 8 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) **080000** # #### #### ######################################## Here are some questions that may be (or have been) asked involving this. If you have any questions you'd like to ask, see the question at the bottom. ------------------------------ | 8.1 My situation **080100** | ------------------------------ These questions revolve around my current situation as of the time I wrote and/or updated this guide. Q. Why haven't you advanced the story beyond chapter 1? A. I'm not the kind of player who plays RPGs for their stories. I play for the mechanics and extreme powerleveling. By the time I began advancing Disgaea 1's story beyond the very start of episode 3, over a year later, I was doing 20 million damage to every boss in the game, with a few cases of Uber Prinny Baal thrown in (of which, today, I have a character that's completely invincible to him due to 7.5 million DEF and 3.5 million RES). The more extreme I can obliterate bosses, the more entertaining it becomes to me (I loved it when I took down the first demon wall in FF12 in just 2 hits). I still have a lot of item perfection and record-setting that I'd like to do before I even bother with the story. In fact, advancing the story is at the very bottom of my priorities in Disgaea 2. Sure I may be in Land of Carnage and I'm practically guaranteed 9-figure damage with my otherwise invincible wizard and invincible dreadnaught, I still don't want to bother with the story. I'm more likely to have 2 trillion total damage and 3000 total hours of play before I even bother with the story. Stories rarely interest me (to date, only 2 games' stories are well-liked). Q. If you haven't advanced the story, how do you know that Baal or an item called makai wars exists? A. I've been told about these. In Disgaea 1, Baal couldn't damage my main fighter at the time (Laharl) and I pretty much soloed him like I was doing with level 9999 enemies in the item world. Uber Prinny Baal, today, however is helpless to stop my main fighter, as, even at only level 3000, he's invincible to Uber Prinny Baal without stealing his equipment and with Baal's equipment having matching rarity. My wizard and dreadnaught in Disgaea 2 are the same, though way more extreme. Q. If you haven't advanced the story past reflection pond, how do you get so powerful? A. In my case, once the item world was available (from completing reflection pond), I got to about level 6 for everyone. From there, it was dealing with the item world and utilizing the tricks and methods from Disgaea 1. At first, I focused on going into rank 1 items for sentries and physicians, putting these on the weapon (since weapon mastery is easy to get and provides a big multiplier, stat specialists are best on the weapon). If you can't take damage, then it doesn't matter how many hits it takes to defeat enemies - they'll eventually go down. From Disgaea 1, I was always on the look out for maps that had an "invincibility" geo symbol, especially when combined with "attack+1" as this means blazing fast weapon mastery and easy power. I also looked for clone wars setups for rapid leveling up. From there, I just leveled up and went through progressively higher rank items, grabbing treasure maps along the way as I encountered them. Once I reached the Land of Carnage, I struggled a bit, but after that and dealing with rank 40 items. Once I got rank 40 items, item perfection began and continues to this day. As to how to get started fast, see the next question. Q. What is the fastest way to get a high-level human character early on? A. Clone wars with a not-that-common setup. First, you'll need to prepare. The first step involves getting a female warrior. Why a female warrior? There's a reason for it. Create a new good-for-nothing lady fighter and reduce DEF as low as you can (it should be 7). Why? The female warrior has the lowest DEF to start with and no inherent special skills. There's a reason for it, of which I'll explain later. Name her "leveling up" as this character will be used for, well, leveling up. "But defeating your own allies results in the worst ending and I don't want that!" This won't be a problem and I'll explain later. Also, make sure the randomization lowers DEF even more (don't like what you see, cancel and select again to rerandomize the numbers - you might be able to get 5, though a 6 will do - the other stats don't matter, just DEF). Do not teach this new character any magic. Weapon special skills are fine, but only that. Why the quick-to-access heavy knight that's worth nearly 50% more experience? You can go that route, of which becomes a good decision if you really want to get level 2000 as quickly as possible, but it starts slow. The reason is the DEF bonus when HP critical, of which will happen. If you wanted, you could level up the lady fighter to level 12 and create a new female warrior of the next higher tier, but reaching level 12 takes more time than it's worth (the same goes for the heavy knight). The lady fighter is worth a decent amount of experience as well. Also, while you're at it, create a thief. Incompetent is sufficient enough, but don't use "good-for-nothing". If you've got the mana for it, go with "average" instead. You don't need to level up either the lady fighter or the thief right now. Next, repeatedly visit the shop to find a rank 1 (rank 2 if you're daring, but no higher) fist with as many gladiators in it as possible (3 maximum - quality doesn't matter that much but does help). Do not combine the gladiators but do level it up, subduing any specialists you encounter and be sure to double defeat the item boss (and clear floor 10). Mystery rooms are optional and not really recommended. By having the 3 gladiators present, and double defeating the item general, you can get an extra 27 ATK on that rank 1 item, not to mention 10 more on ATK and SPD from the item leveling up and the extra 110% from item levels and the 2 boss points. An ATK of nearly 50 (60 with the rank 2 fist) is a great start. This will seriously accelerate the leveling up, significantly at first, but not as much later on. Do note that running to the dimension gate (use tower lifts and triple strike as needed to quickly cover great distances) is strongly recommended as it really speeds things up - there's no need to defeat the enemies. Equip that fist on Adell - you'll be leveling him up as he's the best to get started with and you'll need to make use of counterattacks. With the preparations complete, it's then time to focus on the actual leveling up. Find another rank 1 item (anything you want this time), then, just before going into that item world and after combining (if applicable), save. Enter that item and check the geo symbols present. If none are present, quit and reload. If some are present, check to see if you have "clone", "enemy level up 10%", and one of either "invincibility" or "reverse damage". Others may be included in addition to these. Use the "character" option on the battle menu to see what geo symbols are present. Don't have this? Quit and reload. Have these geo symbols? Check to make sure at least 2 colors are present (this is very common) with blank spaces near them (also fairly common, but too much blank space in too small of a map won't do any good - quit and reload if that happens). Got this as well? One final check - can you access the required geo symbols? If you can't reach any of them (isolated on a 1-panel island or 1 panel from the dimensional gate or mystery room with no other place around it), quit and reload as you must be able to work with these 3 required geo symbols. Start putting effort into clearing the map but don't clear it (don't run to the dimension gate or enter a mystery room - quit and reload if you do). Don't destroy any of the geo symbols either - you'll need them. Enemy boost x3? Just move it off of a geo panel. Leave the gate keeper if one is present - this enemy never moves. Leave enemies trapped on islands alone as well - they can't move and won't until you get in their range. If, during this, you find that one of the required geo symbols moves, quit and reload - they must be static. Whatever you do, do not use the "leveling up" lady fighter - if she dies, you'll have to quit and reload. Likewise, if Adell dies, quit and reload as well. The others are not as important, especially Rozalin, for now. Once only one enemy remains, it's time to set up for clone wars and the very rapid leveling up that will come. Move the clone geo symbol off of a geo panel as well as enemy level up 10% and invincibility or reverse damage, whichever is present. Use the other geo symbols to change as many of the colors as possible to 1 color but always make sure you have at least 2 colors available. Change the colors one at a time, so as to not defeat the lone enemy (gate keepers are never affected). Now, move the "invincibility" geo symbol on a geo panel of a lesser-used color, but also make sure that, while moving between invincibility panels, you can move the "enemy level up 10%" geo symbol. Move that geo symbol onto a geo panel of the most common color (or any color if no color changes are made, but it must be on a different-colored geo panel than what invincibility is on (care to attack invincible enemies?)). By using the most common color, you can ensure a high chance of a clone appearing. Lastly, move the clone geo symbol onto the same-colored geo panel as that of what "enemy level up 10%" is on. It won't level you up, but it'll level up the enemies and clones. As a tip, consider a way to trap a clone. To do that, place the geo symbols in a way as to make the future clone unable to move, but always on clone. Any corner or isolated area works well. The base panel and obstacles can be used to create corners or narrow channels that can be blocked with a single geo symbol (the base panel serves as an obstacle to enemies). This will make managing the clones much, much easier and you can ensure you get a constant supply of them. Do not use the "enemy level up 10%" geo symbol for this as you'll need it. Now it's time to start clone wars and really level up. Get out your lady fighter, fully unequip her (so that she has no weapons, armor, etc.). This will make her extremely weak. Move this character onto a panel affected by clone and only that character. Move Adell onto invincibility and next to the "enemy level up 10%" geo symbol. End your turn. The lady fighter (your ally) must be cloned and remain far from any enemies. If the other enemy is cloned instead, you'll have to get rid of it. If it's leveling up as well, you'll need to get this remaining enemy off of the cloning panels or throw one of its clones onto an empty panel in an isolated area and defeat the original. If not, end your turn again. If the lady fighter does get cloned, reequip your lady fighter, and move her back into the base panel. Note that the clone has a red bar instead of a green one. You've now got a clone of that ally, but now it's an enemy. Because it's an enemy, it shouldn't count against your defeated-allies-via-friendly-fire case. Throw this clone into an isolated area but on a cloning panel or in the trap you've set. Move to an invincibility panel adjacent to the "enemy level up 10%" geo symbol. Let the clones come and let counter attacks do their work. This is why a fist for Adell is a must - you'll have 3 counters (2 if you've attacked). Do not use "defend" - "invincibility" or "reverse damage will eliminate this need, allowing you to make full use of counterattacks. However, as the clones are leveling up, you must keep an eye on the lady fighter's DEF. Once DEF exceeds 10 times (5 if using the heavy knight) Adell's ATK-SPD average, you must stop the enemy leveling up by simply moving the geo symbol. That is, if ATK is 120 and SPD is 80, the offensive power is 100 - do not let the clones' DEF exceed 1000 (500 if using the heavy knight). Bad at math? Use the lower of Adell's ATK or SPD and put a zero at the end. Have 862 ATK and 673 SPD? Use the 673, add a 0 at the end for 6730 - this is the limit - stop the leveling upon passing it. It may seem like you won't be doing any damage and have a hard time hitting, but let the stay-in-one-spot combo build up. As it does, accuracy (which really isn't all that important - even 8% means you'll still hit eventually and there are bugs present that increase this to 40 and 80) and overall power (which is critical for this case) will increase to almost sextuple your actual stats. With the way DEF works, this means about 14x is really the limit (7x for the heavy knight), but 10x is not only easy to work with, it's enough of a safety margin as well (5x is fairly easy) - do not risk it or you'll either have to wait for weapon mastery to go up enough (and it gets quite slow) or, in the worst case, quit and reload and start over. The enemy's stats will go up 10% each time it levels up so it's easy enough to watch. When this threshold is reached, move the "enemy level up 10%" geo symbol off of a geo panel so it stops taking effect. Move it to a place where you can get to it from an invincibility panel as you'll need it later. By reducing DEF, you'll be able to level up the clones much, much more which makes leveling up much faster. With invincibility or reverse damage, you have nothing to worry about. With reverse damage, the enemies will always keep you fully healed at all times from them attacking you. By being out in the open, you can make efficient use of counter attacks. Once the stay-in-one-spot combo gets high enough, you'll start doing damage and with that, leveling up insanely fast, jumping from level 10 to 50 in mere minutes, crossing 500 in less than an hour. Every now and then, consider leveling up the clones again. This should probably be the case when you reach level 200 to 400. By then, consider moving the "enemy level up 10%" geo panel back onto a cloning panel to get even more powerful clones and level up even more, but still remember the 10x limit (5x for heavy knights) - cross that and you must stop the leveling. After enough rounds of leveling up Adell and releveling the clones, you'll eventually max out the clones' level at 9999. At level 9999 - the "enemy level up 10%" won't have any more effect and thus you can ignore it. From this, level 2000 should be right around the corner, way, way higher than you're supposed to be. And to think level 2000 is reachable by only 3 game play hours, that's something, and really fast. When the enemies reach level 9999, they won't level up any more so you don't have to move the "enemy level up 10%" geo symbol any more. By level 2000, you should be ready to handle almost anything in holt village. Level 9999 clones of the lady fighter are about 1.3 million experience each. The heavy knight is about 1.9 million as a clone. For Adell, a level up is still guaranteed at level 900 with the lady fighter and 1300 with the heavy knight. The longer you go at this, the better. As a side note, consider utilizing team attacks to level up the others (Rozalin will have to wait). Do not do this until you're dealing with level 9999 clones. By using level 9999 clones, you'll be able to very quickly get them to level 200 (the thief should get to 300). Until then, just focus on Adell. To utilize team attacks without any risk, get near the base panel and, after the enemy's turn is over and an enemy is next to Adell, bring out of your your other allies and position him or her next to Adell then make Adell attack that clone. Do not make the other character attack. If a team attack does occur, those other characters will level up a ton of levels at once. A lady fighter is worth something like 1.4 million experience at level 9999 as a clone. A team attack will give 700,000 experience to both characters enough for the other character to go from level 1 to about 30 or so, then 40, and so on. After the team attack, move the cursor to that extra character and press the cancel button. This will cause that character to return to the base panel and be perfectly safe. It's as if that character didn't even do anything, but it still levels up. With "reverse damage", you could have that character stand on such a panel and let the enemies heal him or her. When you're ready, of which level 1500 is a good stopping point if using the lady fighter, 2000 for the heavy knight. At this point, it starts taking noticeably long to level up. Of course, you can go 2000 with the lady fighter and 2500 with the heavy knight, but it's not really necessary. Either way, when done, move the clone geo symbol off of a geo panel to stop the clones. Now, clear the map. Doing so will get you billions of HL, so much that seems infinite. After this long round of clone wars, and the next map loads, gency out and save. Yes, this means you won't have any more exits, but with all those high level characters you now have, you can bash through even rank 10 items with ease to quickly get exits. Just be careful and utilize quit and reload if things go wrong. Whatever you do, do not reincarnate anyone for a while. Use the high levels to pass bills like Cave of Ordeals (which will make reincarnating worth it, but only once you start leveling up rank 38 or 39 items), get the rank 38 items from the shop available as soon as possible (just buy some expensive junk to get the customer rank up quickly, then pass the bill for getting more expensive stuff (buy out the general shop twice over and use this junk as bribes to get bills to pass quickly) - with the several billion HL you now have, even a rank 38 item at 60 million HL is dirt cheap - you can buy several hundred such items, way more than you need), then start going for rank 39 items from bonuses. Use Cave of Ordeals 4 to level up the thief more and get some rank 39 items from the bonuses while doing so. From there, it's just a matter of getting the treasure maps, getting the thief's level up, then going for stealing, spawning lovers, and eventually getting rank 40 items for perfecting. This all can be done in under 10 hours on the game clock, all thanks to clone wars giving such a massive boost. There's no need to mess with the game's story beyond "reflection pond". Don't bother with "stronger enemies" until you can start leveling up rank 39 items with ease. Keeping things easy also speeds things up. Get some shoe-type equipment and a white dragon as soon as you can to make going through the item world a breeze. This video shows a great example on how useful this can be (I had the "enemy level up 10%" geo symbol move so I had to put a cap on, but even then, I raced through levels like crazy and I used a higher tier character (and back then, I wasn't as aware of things as I am now, well over 1000 hours later). Do note that this was recorded just 9 days after first owning Disgaea 2, back when I had less than 90 hours of play. Yep, even 1250 hours more into the game, I still haven't made any more story progress and now I'm setting world records.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g0cEj8jEBA Q. 11-figure damage!? How is that even possible!? A. Indeed, it is possible to get an 11-figure damage popup and I have seen one with a video to prove it. Getting it requires either an ATK+400% effect (you'd have to be insanely lucky for that and it requires the Land of Carnage likely combined with geo change)) or indirectly through the use of disperse damage and a really powerful wizard. How can disperse damage do it? For best results, look for a map that has "clone" and "disperse damage" as geo symbols. Pick something to clone, preferrably geared toward something you can reduce the elemental defense to -99 with and have a maxed out tera fire or the like. Use the clone geo symbol to group up enemies but leave one not on clone or disperse damage (preferrably trapped or a gate keeper). Target as many clones as you can, sparing one. The one that gets spared has the chance of getting an 11-figure damage popup. The maximum possible is about 19 billion. Want to see an 11-figure damage in a video, and the proof I have and how to do it? This video is what you should see. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXdgpadYMHk Q. What's this "Land of Carnage" you keep mentioning? A. When you obtain all 16 treasure maps, you'll obtain access to the Land of Carnage. This place is the only way you'll be able to obtain rank 40 items. It's also extremely useful for leveling up quickly, especially with the 20-second clears that Cave of Ordeals 4 offers, getting a billion experience every nearly 2 minutes. Q. What differences are there between Holt Village and Land of Carnage? A. There are several differences: 1. Enemies in Land of Carnage are of very high levels, freighteningly high to many players who may see my videos (and I'm calling them helpless now). They may be level 1290 at the highest in Cave of Ordeal 4, but they turn into 6490 in Land of Carnage (assuming that all 20 "stronger enemies" bills have been passed). In the item world, they start at 6300 for a rank 40 item and power up extremely fast (level 9999 seen as early as floor 3). You can still encounter level 9999 enemies in Holt Village but it requires rank 39 items in a late floor and lots of "stronger enemies" bills being passed. 2. Enemies are twice as powerful on all stats. What may be 130,000 for a level 9999 malchidael's ATK in the normal dimension is 260,000 in Land of Carnage (yes, I'm now considering that quite weak). 3. Enemies have "Uber" appended to the beginning of their class name. Instead of just "bushin" or "gate keeper", you'll see "uber bushin" or "uber gate keeper". There are a few oddballs that don't have "uber" in front - how many cases can you find? 4. Enemies give double the experience. A level 9999 malchideal gives just shy of 20 million exp in the normal dimension (without felonies - I don't have access to them). That same malchidael gives just shy of 40 million in Land of Carnage. 5. Enemies can sometimes have the effects of geo symbols. This may seem annoying, especially when you have an invincibility, reverse damage, or evade effect present on a boss floor and you're trying to clear it, I actually find this slightly more useful. Imagine defeating 13 enemies at once with a "disperse damage" effect and having 6 geo symbols to go with it. A color chain well into the tens of thousands is possible that way. I've actually gotten the color chain maxed at 9999 with a 12-chain hit without the extra geo symbols once, but it came unexpectedly so I didn't get a video of it. 6. The music is different. Holt village is rather catchy and more peaceful sounding. Land of Carnage has more intense, more battle-oriented music. I don't know of any other places so I can't compare those (I've heard of the Dark World but I've never seen it - no story progress again). Only the HQ, battle map selection, and item world music themes (except towns, mystery rooms, and mystery room battles) change. 7. The layout for the home area is different. The shops, dark assembly entrance, hospital, etc. are in different places. It's also a bit messy with boxes littered all over. 8. The portal for where you choose battle maps (like Cave of Ordeal 4) is red instead of blue. Q. Why don't you have the post officer in Land of Carnage? A. Easy: I haven't advanced the story beyond chapter 1 so I don't have access to the felony system yet. Q. If felonies make leveling up easier, why don't you advance the story to get them? A. Leveling up has little effect compared to weapons and level 2000 alone, which takes only a few minutes to get anyway, already provides nearly half the effect that other equipment provides. On top of that, leveling up in Disgaea 2 is just as fast as the absolute fast possible in Disgaea 1 (that's clone wars with 1 clone and 5 "exp+50%" geo symbols with the island effect (58.8 million exp in 7 seconds is almost the same as 166.5 million in 21 seconds), but that setup is something I've never come close to so it's actually more like twice as fast as Disgaea 1. That's with a 300 statistician in Disgaea 1 as well. 458 plays of Cave of Ordeal 4 for 76 2/9 billion exp seems like a lot, but at 20 seconds per play, that's a mere 2 1/2 hours from level 1 to 9999, roughly twice as fast as what I typically get in Disgaea 1. In addition, I would also like to go around doing 9-figure damage to every boss in the game (I did that in Disgaea 1 and I got a real thrill out of it). I'm also used to not being able to return to the beginning of the story when I finish it, and still keep the stats, levels, equipment, etc. afterward so I'm often thinking that I might as well powerlevel now and take story progress to a new extreme. Outside only one game out of 15, I've never seen a "new game+" type option in any RPG, not even Disgaea 1 despite finishing Disgaea 1's story twice. I've heard that shop prices get cheaper and sell prices get better with more felonies. What good does that do with over 4 trillion HL that I can't possibly spend? I've also heard that felonies make the dark assembly favor that character better. Only the white dragons will benefit in my case - I'm otherwise guaranteed to pass bills, even before I made Adell a senator and improved the voice of everything but the white dragons. Q. Why does the screen move up and down when you view certain characters' equipment? A. It's a class 2 (minor) bug in the game. If you look closely, you can find some objects disappearing in the scene and the flashing blue and gold from rare and legendary items suddenly stops for about 600 milliseconds and plays for 400 milliseconds, all in a regular fashion. This doesn't seem to affect game play outside the slight delay in the cursor movement, rarely even being unresponsive. It hasn't causes the game to freeze or crash yet (or the bug would be class 6 or 7 instead, near the top of my bug severity scale). Once several other characters began having this occur to them, I found the culprit - too many draws. Each individual digit, character in text, and all the icons and banners all use up draws. When viewing a character with all 7-figure stats with some being 8 figures, complete with long item names and long specialist names with high power ratings, it gets really bad. There's 78 draws from the digits of the stats, up to 60 for equipment names, up to probably 47 from equipment stats, 20 from specialist powers and about 64 from specialist names. The character's name can eat up another 15, the character's face icon and equipment icons use up 5 more. The bottom part of character stats (level, movement, elemental defense, etc.) uses up to 19 more. Throw in the table backdrop cover (which should include the HP, ATK, etc. all as one draw as it's always the same). Then of course, don't forget the stuff in the background as well. The characters, icons above them, etc. also count, along with the actual 3D map itself. Ignoring the stuff behind the tables, that's already over 300 total draws. Executing a draw takes a considerable amount of CPU usage. The draw itself uses the GPU of which a high draw count also puts a lot of load on. Q. 29 perfected items (and counting)? Are you nuts!? A. Besides advancing the story, I've got some other crazy goals in mind, some of which won't be finished this decade. A fair number of them requires perfecting lots and lots of items. Getting a video of a 9999 color chain is one. Getting 10 trillion total damage is another but very far away goal. Getting at least 10 billion damage in a single hit directly (no disperse damage) is another goal. Stealing 100 million HP (with the lover helping) is another very long range goal, provided the game doesn't have a stealing cap (the thief has 6.4 million HP and only an infernal staff and not even level 7000 for its HP so it has stolen a ton, just 2% of what I'm after). Q. How can you play a game for 1370 hours or have 2800 hours in 2 Disgaea games in under 32 months? A. Easy: set goals and go for them. I have some goals that take only a few days to do, others are so long range that hitting 3000 hours on a single game is almost all but inevitable. Besides, there's a lot of things you can do in the Disgaea series which make the series always have something for you. Q. Do you seriously hold the world record for the highest single-hit damage? A. Maybe. It's unofficial. 8.45 billion damage in a single hit sure is something, but I can still go more and I'm still learning more ways to get even more powerful. ---------------------------------------- | 8.2 Item perfection basics **080200** | ---------------------------------------- These questions relate to the basic elements of perfecting items, not involving anything specific to a certain part of the process. Q. Do I really have to do all that quit and reload? It gets boring very fast! A. If you want true perfection, then, unfortunately, yes you'll have to. Multitasking helps combat the boredom - do sudoku puzzles or read an encyclopedia or magazine or something while waiting for the system to load. If you can't stand it, look into near perfection or even quick boosting as alternatives. The item won't be truly perfected, but it'll be powerful enough and will take significantly less time (especially thanks to the 9-hour-long stage 17 being completely skipped in the alternatives). Q. What are the odds of this happening without using quit and reload? A. The odds are almost incomprehensible. The odds of a mystery room appearing are about 40%. The odds of a mystery room being a bonus potential are 10%. The odds of a mystery room appearing on demand that give a bonus are 3.36%. At first glance, this doesn't look good. First, for starters, let's compare getting 3 +10's in a row to 10 +3's in a row. The +10 has a net chance of 0.32%, becoming 1.28% with mystery room appearance ignored. 3 of these means a chance of 0.0128^3 or about 1 in 476,837. Each +3 has a base chance of 3.04% becoming 7.6% with mystery room appearance ignored. This means a not-so-nice 1 in 155,547,873,128 (155 8/15 billion) chance. This points to "great luck" actually being the better method. This means only 10 mystery rooms are needed and having at least that many over the course of 100 floors is virtually guaranteed at 99.9997157%. Since 10 cases of "great luck" are needed, this means a staggering 1 in 8.47033 quintillion chance from that part alone. Considering the odds of having 10 bonuses within 25 mystery rooms (the most likely seen), a rather complicated calculation to make, of which seems to come out to about 27.3966839% (I'm not entirely certain I calculated this right). Putting all these together comes out to 1 in 30.9174 quintillion. That's not everything though. The forcing of the 3 item assembly chickens has 0.05^3 or a 1 in 8000 chance making this 247.34 sextillion (2.4734E23). Then there's getting all the specialists out before floor 1, a 94.5% chance. Throw in the possibility of getting the exact rarity you want, a 1 in 8 chance and you've got odds that boggle the mind: 1 in 2.09388E24 (2.09388 septillion - 2,093,879,595,507,021,966,796,808 (that's one long number!)). You'd seriously have to be the luckiest being on Earth to make those kinds of odds! Now, throw in 30 perfected items (to simplify) in a row and on demand (and counting) and you're really asking for it: 1 in 4.25159 duoquadragintaducentillion (4.25159E729). Good thing for quit and reload! That turns those insane and totally-not-on-your-side odds to a otherwise very comfortable 1 in 1 (only an asteroid collision, Eta Carinae going hypernova aimed at Earth, your memory card dies or gets wrecked (preventing loading), exceedingly unlucky case of quantum mechanics, or some other disaster or doomsday type thing can't guarantee it and the odds of the first case is much more likely than a single perfected item without quit and reload). Q. You say that each cycle for one part takes 7 to 10 minutes and, for 10 needed, you say 80 to 90 instead of 70 to 100 - why? A. Averages. Having a lot of low values in one set or a lot of high values in another is much less likely than a more even distribution. This is why the range is narrower. Try rolling 5 dice and adding the total. You're very unlikely to get a total of 5 to 8 or 27 to 30, but you're far more likely to get something from 16 to 19, halfway in the middle, despite covering the same number of possibilities (4 in each set). I also round to nearby easy multiples. Of course, if the number of trials also varies (like varying between 3 and 7 dice), then the range varies much more. Q. What is the multiplier that item bosses provide at each step? A. This is best answered with a handy table. I've confirmed these values with an omniscient rod that I was perfecting refering the DEF and RES stats and putting everything into Excel. Both values check out and are consistent. Because I don't know what effect the "more [stat] growth" bills have, I can't tell you how INT is affected. +--------+-------------+-----------+--------------------+ | Floor* | Boss points | Boss type | Boss multiplier*** | +--------+-------------+-----------+---------+----------+ | 1 | 0 | Control** | 15/15x | 1x | | 10 | 1 | General | 16/15x | 1.0667x | | 11 | 2 | General | 17/15x | 1.1333x | | 20 | 3 | General | 18/15x | 1.2x | | 21 | 4 | General | 19/15x | 1.2667x | | 30 | 6 | King | 21/15x | 1.4x | | 31 | 8 | King | 23/15x | 1.5333x | | 40 | 9 | General | 24/15x | 1.6x | | 41 | 10 | General | 25/15x | 1.6667x | | 50 | 11 | General | 26/15x | 1.7333x | | 51 | 12 | General | 27/15x | 1.8x | | 60 | 14 | King | 29/15x | 1.9333x | | 61 | 16 | King | 31/15x | 2.0667x | | 70 | 17 | General | 32/15x | 2.1333x | | 71 | 18 | General | 33/15x | 2.2x | | 80 | 19 | General | 34/15x | 2.2667x | | 81 | 20 | General | 35/15x | 2.3333x | | 90 | 22 | King | 37/15x | 2.4667x | | 91 | 24 | King | 39/15x | 2.6x | | 100 | 27 | God | 42/15x | 2.8x | | Clear | 30 | God | 45/15x | 3x | +--------+-------------+-----------+---------+----------+ Table footnotes: * Based on the floor in which you're starting. ** Control is a reference, to establish a baseline, not a boss. *** The exact fraction (not reduced (24/15 is 8/5) for easier use) is on the left, the approximate decimal equivalent is on the right. Q. What are the perfected values? A. See appendix E at the bottom. I don't have the complete list of everything, so if you have something you've perfected for (like the 3000 common on rank 40 items), then an E-mail detailing this will help me get data more accurate than what I have listed (they are calculated estimates). ----------------------------------------- | 8.3 Item perfection process **080300** | ----------------------------------------- These questions relate to specific parts of the process of item perfection. Q. Do I have to force a bonus during phase 2? What if I don't? A. Forcing bonuses during phase 2 consumes considerably more exits but it speeds up the process by about an hour for getting a perfected item. You'll have to recover exits more frequently which takes typically 7 to 9 minutes per exit. If you don't force bonuses, you'll have more to do in phase 4, taking an hour longer, when you get there but you'll use fewer exits in exchange, often actually gaining more than you started the item perfection process with. Either way, the net effect is the same so the decision is entirely yours. Go for forcing bonuses along the way if you want perfected items sooner. Avoiding it will ensure you keep a healthy supply of exits, never having to worry about running out. Q. Can stages 3 and 4 be skipped? What happens if I skip these? A. Stage 3 can be skipped provided that you've already obtained the 8 weak specialists from perfecting another item. For example, if you INT-perfect the omniscient rod and had to do stages 3 and 4 then come back later to INT-perfect a super robo suit or another omniscient rod, you can skip stages 3 and 4 without problems for the super robo suit (and whatever other items you INT-perfect afterward as well). However, if you decide to RES-perfect a super robo suit, you'll need to get 8 weak physicians, doing stage 3 again. Should you want to RES-perfect a universal orb or omniscient rod afterward, or INT-perfect another omniscient rod, stage 3 can be skipped. Stage 4 can be skipped regardless, but, unless you want to spread the weak specialists out among multiple items, having to spend more time searching (a few extra seconds at that), stage 4 will at least help, especially in the long run. Use a legendary fist for the best results on this (you can even use a rank 1 worn fist if you want, it doesn't matter). Doing stage 4 is best if you intend on perfecting numerous items to any degree (including near-perfection and quick boosting). 30 perfected items may seem excessive, but it really pays off in the end, especially with all the INT-perfecting I do. Q. In stage 3, why are weak specialists important? Why not go with 19,998? A. Quantity matters, not quality, for specialists in this case. Try putting a 19,998 gladiator in a falcon shoes or something that doesn't already have one then try putting a 2 gladiator in falcon shoes without a gladiator already present. Defeat the item general when you reach floor 10 and note that only 4 is added to the base stat. Double defeat the item general and it's 9 instead. I suggest using weak specialists (like 10 or lower) because weak specialists are just as useful as the powerful ones for use in perfecting an item, but the powerful ones are most useful on equipment your own allies have equipped for use since they'll have a greater effect in that case. In addition, it takes quite a long time to get a specialist to 19,998, even with a teacher and a large stock of regular items of 200 or better for that specialist (tutors and masters especially are rarely that high to begin with (remember, combining treats multiple of the same type as a single)). Q. Why is phase 3 optional? What happens if I skip it? A. Doing phase 3 is useful when it comes to stage 19. If you perfect the item and skip phase 3, and you don't always keep the item filled with specialists to the max, a lover will spawn eventually and will waste valuable, limited space. It is impossible to get the lover out once you get past floor 99. By doing phase 3, you won't have to bother with keeping the item full since, once a lover spawns, another will never spawn again. Make use of this while you still can. Phase 3 is less recommended with rank 39 items that have a rank 40 equivalent - you'll just be replacing the rank 39 items with rank 40 ones anyway. Besides, why not go for another 5,000+ total levels on a single character while you're at it anyway? Storing levels while perfecting items? What a great combination. Q. Why do base stats that are originally negative turn positive at floor 60? A. The boss point and multipliers chart above answers this, to some extent. A negative stat is basically like the item has 30 fewer boss points on that attribute making it start with -15 instead of +15. When floor 60 is processed, you'd have obtained 16 boss points which, by looking at the chart above in the FAQ section, means that the -15 becomes a +1, thus, turning positive (Remember your algebra? When you add a positive and negative, find the difference and give the sign of the larger). When perfected, you essentially have 45/15 for attributes that were originally positive, 15/15 for attributes that were originally negative. The negative, in a way, is what the item would be as if you never defeated the item bosses. Since the boss points determine this and that all degrees of perfection require double-defeating the item bosses, you'll turn negatives into positives by floor 60 regardless of which degree of perfection you use. Q. I've forgotten whether or not a mystery room was present on floor 9. Any tips? A. I get this on occasion as well. Should such a case come up, I give it 5 tries. If no mystery room shows up within those 5 tries, then you can be confident enough that no mystery room appeared on floor 9. In 5 tries, the odds of a mystery room are 92.2%. If a mystery room appears first thing on floor 1 when you return to a junk item, quit and reload and focus on forcing that bonus. This is basically the sixth and final try, giving a net chance of 95.3%. -------------------------------- | 8.4 The item world **080400** | -------------------------------- These questions relate to the item world in general. Q. Why does floor 9 determine whether or not you can force a bonus? A. Mystery rooms have 2 conditions for appearing. The first is that at least 3 floors of item world get processed (returning from a mystery room or gencying out and returning doesn't count). If you see a mystery room on floor 2, you won't see another until floor 5 at the earliest of that same item. Floors 3 and 4 have a zero chance of a mystery room. It makes no difference whether or not you enter the mystery room on floor 2. The second is that mystery rooms cannot appear on boss floors. Outside these, there's a 40% chance that a mystery room will appear. If no mystery room appears on floor 9, that counts as the first floor. Boss floors cannot have a mystery room but still count toward the total count so that's 2. The next floor (whether in the same item or another, it doesn't matter) would be the third and thus has a chance of a mystery room appearing. Why not just gency out and return repeatedly? The floors have to be dealt with in some way (cleared or skipped (skipped by the dimension gate only)) before they get counted. This is also why floor 9 is guaranteed no mystery room if floor 7 or 8 has it - the 3 floors rule. If one appears on floor 7, the next chance is 10, but boss floors cannot have mystery rooms so it goes to the next one, which can very well be the item you're after perfecting. Q. What's the difference between an item god and an item god 2? A. The item god 2, found only in rank 40 items, is twice as powerful as the item god as far as its stats go. The item god may have about 9.5 million HP and around 200,000 to 250,000 on all other stats in Land of Carnage. The item god 2 has around 19 million HP and around 400,000 to 500,000 for all other stats in Land of Carnage. Q. How come the item god or item god 2 is a random monster instead of the black, transparent majin? A. This only happens in monster weapons. If you're after forcing the game to give you an item of the rarity you want, you may even encounter a case of a beast master with the monster weapon equipped (this may be a glitch since human characters cannot use monster weapons). Q. I can't defeat the item boss due to "invincibility" and the like. Any ideas? A. This depends. If geo symbols are present you have 4 options. The first and fastest is to simply move the offending geo symbol using lift/throw. The second is similar to the first - just move the item boss. Out of range or a "no lifting" effect is present? Try using a special skill like triple strike, king of beasts, or cat kick to destroy a destroyable geo symbol while moving the destroyed geo symbol on the color that the offending geo symbol is on. Of course, this won't work if the geo symbol being used for this is of the same color the offending geo symbol is on. This will set off a color chain that will eventually destroy the offending geo symbol (and likely others along with it). The fourth method is to try setting up a color chain so that the offending geo symbol is destroyed as a consequence. Refer to my geo symbol guide for details on how to set up color chains though in this case, you only need a 3-way chain at the minimum instead of maxing the effect out. If the enemies have the effects of the geo symbols, then you have 3 options. The first 2 are the same as the above case - move the offending enemy or item boss. Unique to the case of the enemies having the effects of the geo symbols is the fact you can throw enemies into one other to eliminate an effect. Throw a higher-level enemy into the offending enemy to remove the offending enemy's effect. Throw the offending enemy into a matching- or lower-level enemy as well. Interestingly enough, with matching level enemies, the one thrown survives but its effect changes to one of the 2 at random). A color change effect will also occur immediately upon fusion. Fusing it with another enemy on a blank panel also works, and is less risky. Q. Is there any significance to the color of treasure chests? A. Yes. Green treasure chests always contain a legendary item. Blue treasure chests always contain a rare item. The standard gold ones are a mix of everything (legends, rares, and commons) and can also include money and extra experience. The contents of the treasure chest depends on the bonus rank within the item. I'm unsure how this is determined but it's based on the item's rank plus an offset based on what floor you are on. Bonus rank also increases further down the list, typically every 3 entries is an increase of 1. The kind of items, money, and experience you see on the bonus list is what you can expect to see in treasure chests, though the contents are completely randomized. When you start dealing with rank 39 items, treasure chests become useless outside sources for legendary items to get lovers to spawn on so just ignore them. Treasure chests do not contain rank 39 items so don't use them for such things. ----------------------------- | 8.5 Specialists **080500** | ----------------------------- These questions relate to specialists that are dealt with during the process of item perfection. Q. Why do I have to get the specialists in stage 1 and 17 out before floor 10? A. For stage 1, the item cannot be perfected with unrelated specialists present (you'll be missing something, though, compared to even 97,125, 50 is not much). For stage 17, it's strongly recommended and for one reason. In common items, you are essentially guaranteed the entering of an innocent town right after floor 10 is dealt with (either by clearing or running to the dimension gate). If you don't subdue the specialist by floor 10 (such as from it not appearing), the teacher won't be able to do anything making it useless. There's practically no chance of another innocent town on floor 20 because the one and only item assembly chicken appears on floor 10 practically all the time - once it appears, no more innocent towns occur. Thus, by subduing the specialist before floor 10, the teacher will have something to teach (power up). Q. Why do you recommend combining subdued specialists with unsubdued ones in stage 17? A. This is because of the way teachers work. If you bring in a teacher and another specialist (even if the same thing) and don't combine, subdue the weak one, and reach floor 10's innocent town, the teacher randomly chooses which subdued specialist to teach (power up). This means that the teacher has a chance that it will power up the weak specialist, the one you just subdued, instead of the stronger one, having little effect. By combining subdued specialists with unsubdued specialists in an item with only one type of specialist, this forces the teacher to choose the only specialist present, the powerful one that becomes 5% more powerful. By starting with high-powered specialists and working your way down, you can quickly and most efficiently max out any specialist. This works with all types of specialists except lovers, collectors, other teachers, and mediators. Teachers have no use on brokers, managers, and mentors late in the game because, even if you have 3 items of 45, you'll only get 296 at best, not enough. 4 38's without a teacher works just as good. Teachers will still boost these, but the boost is too small. Boosts are good, however, for the 10 ailment-related ones and the 3 elemental ones, though only if you use a single 8 (the 8 can be at any time in this case) and the rest as 7's (this will max one out in only 6 instead of 7). Anything less than 20 would normally have no effect because fractional parts are dropped (15 becomes 15.75 which turns into 15 again), however, specialists with a base power of less than 20 still increase by 1 providing even more than a 5% increase (potentially 100%). Q. When you combine a subdued specialist with an unsubdued one, why does it get weaker? A. Technically, the specialist actually gets stronger. All specialists have a type (gladiator, witch doctor, broker, etc.), base power, and a state (subdued or unsubdued). If the specialist is subdued, the actual power is double that of the base. If you have a 1600 subdued armsmaster, it has a base power of 800. If you combine it with a 42 unsubdued armsmaster, you'll get "(1600/2)+42" or 842 since the specialist is no longer subdued. When it gets subdued again, this doubles to 1684. The teacher's 5% boost is based on the 842 value (giving another 42 extra for 1768 in the end, essentially a free 100 fists' worth). Q. What is the best and most efficient way to get a specialist maxed during phase 17? A. For mentors, brokers, and managers, teachers have too small of an effect to be of use. With 3 at 45 each, you'll still only have 296 when subdued and you only see 42's, 43's, and 44's, very rarely 45's. For everything else, start big and work small and start with legendary items and go with rares then regulars, pairs then singles (by pairs, I mean 2 different specialists (2 tutors of 2 specialists is a single). By the time you get to the singles of commons, you'll likely have around 3000 or so for a given specialist when unsubdued. This means you're basically getting a specialist of that type for 150 for free in addition to the others that are present in the item. Going with legendary items first is best because innocent towns have a low chance of occurring (50%) and if you don't get an innocent town, the teacher does no good. When more than one type of specialist is present (such as having a 214 tutor combined with a 79 physician), the teacher may not always get the tutor you'd be after - it may get the physician adding a puny 3 to it. Rares have a 75% chance of having an innocent town which makes the teacher more effective, but still not guaranteed. Once you get all the doubles of the commons, you could very well have a 1500 to 4000 unsudued specialist of one type (I usually stop at about 2000) as, by then, teachers start becoming quite effective which makes singles in commons the best. Tutors and masters are quite hard to find in good power and alone so I typically find things of at least 40 for these. Dieticians, gladiators, sentries, and physicians are good at 100 if buying from the shop. Marksmen and coaches are good around 60. For armsmasters, seek the "100 fists" item for a 42 (43 if found outside a shop) armsmaster and continue until about 800. From there, the bruenack (at 38) is the next best. Q. What about dual-stat specialists? Any tips on efficiently getting those? A. To make the most out of dual-stat specialists, especially getting one started, you'll need 3 items of legendary rank 39 junk. Infernal armor is very common and easy to find, along with universal orbs. Steal a few of these. Then, while you're at it, get a master and tutor together to form a nerd, dietician and gladiator for a muscleman, etc.. The power doesn't matter - take them from your containers, if you're not using them. You'll also need a good 25 exits to spare. First, go through a legendary rank 39 junk item (any one you want to junk - veggie burgers are good junk) and get the unwanted specialists out before floor 10. Unlike with phase 2, continue to floor 10. Being a junk item, getting the item boss is not necessary. Gency out. Transfer the unwanted specialists accordingly then transfer 2 of the types you want to create. I tend to go for nerds (tutor and master) with some thought on musclemen (gladiator and dietician) for my dreadnaught so at least the dreadnaught can remain powerful while still getting ridiculous HP. Put these and a mediator (a mediator of 100 is the best, but, oddly, it only has a 70% chance of working) in the item. Do not put a teacher in - it won't do any good. Save your game as a fair amount of quit and reload is required to really maximize things (unless you want to go through possibly 8 legendary rank 39 junk items). First, run to the dimension gate (the item general can be ignored - it's a junk item). You must get an innocent town (50% chance) or the mediator won't do any good. No innocent town? Quit and reload doing the usual routine for item perfection. If you do, the mediator has a 70% chance of working, oddly. I don't know if having a second mediator of 100 will increase the odds to 91% or keep them at 70%. If the mediator is not acting, noted by the lack of icons and the specialists being dispersed instead of near one of those post things, quit and reload. If the mediator is acting, speak to the mediator to create a new dual-stat specialist. This specialist will not be subdued and, for a legendary rank 39 item, range from 58 at the horrible end to 179. For best results, accept the new specialist if it's 100 or higher. Otherwise, quit and reload. To find out, simply escape from the item world and go through the item level up screen as needed. If it's 100 or greater, save your game. The item assembly chicken, unlike stages 7, 9, and 12, is not required. In fact, it's actually better to go without the item assembly chicken for as long as you can (you're guaranteed one (and an innocent town) by floor 60, of which includes 70 and 80 as well). Continue to floor 20 and gency out once you reach floor 20. Unlike stages 5 and 17, it's not necessary to get the specialist out during these 10 floors. When force another one of 100 or greater, you can just combine the 2. Repeat the process for floor 30. For floor 30, I do recommend defeating the item king because this will increase the pop limit. It's not required though. For every boss floor you reach, gency out, save, then force a new dual-stat specialist of at least 100. If any item assembly chickens appear, keep tabs on the count. Once 3 item assembly chickens are encountered, you won't get any more innocent towns which means you'll need to get the dual-stat specialist out (combine first) before reaching floor 100 - clear any boos floors along the way to recover at least one of the exits. Repeat this process for the other 2 legendary rank 39 junk items. By then, averaging 8 innocent towns and 140 unsubdued for each new dual-stat specialist, you'll get to about 3000 to 3500 unsubdued for the dual-stat specialist. While perfecting items, doing stage 17, be sure to include this dual-stat specialist in with the teacher. The teacher will randomly pick the dual-stat specialist or the single-stat specialist you'd normally be maxing out. Let the teacher boost whichever and when the dual-stat specialist maxes out, then transfer it as you see fit (remember - don't combine maxed specialists or you'll lose them permanently). Q. I don't have a teacher of 100. What's the best way to get one? A. Teachers (and mediators) are rare specialists and will take time to find and accumulate. They are only found on rare or legendary items and have a power of either 3, 4, or 5. To get teachers (or mediators) check enemy equipment with a hand item and look for them. Only check the rare and legendary equipment - common items have no effect. Any item rank will do. I have a legendary toy bow with a mediator on it. They cannot be found in the basic shops, but you can find them in the mystery room shops - just make sure you check the rare and legendary items. Once you find an item containing one (consider yourself very lucky if you find one with 2 present), go into that item and subdue the specialist like any other. Do note that teachers will not boost other teachers (or mediators, lovers, or collectors as well). ------------------------------------ | 8.6 Special situations **080600** | ------------------------------------ Run into a special situation or a problem? Check these questions for common solutions to many types of situations encountered during item perfection. Q. I forced a bonus and accidently ran to the dimension gate, going to floor 100. What can I do? A. Unfortunately, you'll have no choice but to lose the bonus by quitting and reloading. If you get this often, stop at floor 97 instead. This way, you get 3 extra chances since, if a mystery room is present on floor 97, you are guaranteed to not get one on floor 99. To determine the minimum level you must stop at for stage 17, use this table: +-------+-------+ | Floor | Level | +-------+-------+ | 97 | 196 | | 98 | 197 | | 99 | 198 | +-------+-------+ Q. I got "great luck" then "horrible luck" right after while doing phase 2. Any tips? A. Any time you get "great luck", I strongly recommend gencying out as soon as you get it. Save immediately before going any further. If you get "great luck" on floor 7 (or 17, 27, etc.), 8 (or 18, 28, etc.), or 9 (or 19, 29, etc.), then continue on to the boss floor, defeat the boss as usual, and gency out without clearing the floor. The latter case will save you an exit. This is extremely rare. There is also the option of fighting the fortune teller though this doesn't fully undo the effect. I got bad luck in a test item and fought the fortune teller and the item still only gained 9 levels instead of 10. How do you fight the fortune teller? Speak to him 4 more times after the bad news is given and, instead of a nice rectangle stating that the shop is closed, a spiked rectangle will be used and the speech leads to him being mad. He mentions of divine punishment. This will start the battle. Do note that he is level 1000 (2000 in Land of Carnage) so if you can't face such an enemy, don't bother fighting him. Q. I'm low on Mr. Gency Exit items. How can I quickly get more? A. Repeatedly do part 1 of stage 17 without going to part 2. This will both accumulate exits and power up specialists while you're at it. Just make sure you clear the boss floor when you get there (quit and reload if the specialist doesn't appear before the boss floor). Each run typically takes me 7 to 9 minutes, if I don't focus on the other enemies. The actual time depends how far away the dimension gate tends to be, the frequency at which it is guarded (it's a 50% chance of being guarded), how long it takes to clear floor 10 (troublesome geo effects like "invincibility", "reverse damage", or "evade" make it take longer), and how much I tend to fiddle around as I sometimes have a habit of doing. You'll typically get 7-9 exits in an hour, enough to start the item perfection routine. --------------------------------- | 8.7 Other questions **080700** | --------------------------------- These are more general questions that don't fit anything in particular though still related to this guide or my YouTube video walkthrough. Q. Do you have any YouTube videos explaining this? A. Yes. Here's the full playlist for the 10 segments (2 1/2 hours): http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD5FEFC5AA48E3E8F The videos may be slightly out of date and they do miss a few points, but they're very reliable. Q. How do you get such good quality with your YouTube videos? A. Use a TV tuner and use good-quality video codecs. XviD and especially H.264 are good (the latter is much more demanding for playback though best for recording with if you have a multi-core processor and also encoding existing videos to as it compresses well while keeping a good quality). Also, always use variable bit rates (the quantizer is perfect). Although I don't work with video professionally, I have considerable knowledge with editing video and even know some algorithms, despite limited software. Q. How did you narrate your video walkthrough (and other videos)? A. I record in Audacity at the same time I'm playing and recording my game play. It's just a matter of aligning and synchronizing the 2 audio tracks from there. Q. How can the enemies having the effects of the geo symbols be useful? A. Skill mastery and panel "painting". As you go through a junk item, as from stage 17, keep an eye out for cases where you see an enemy with "attack+1" and also either "invincibility" or "reverse damage". Having just "attack+2" is also good, provided you have an enemy that provides immunity or your own ally that has elemental immunity. When the enemies have the effects of the geo symbols, the random group is always used. Now, just because you only have this bare minimum requirement doesn't mean that's as far as you can go. By using a geomancer, you can attempt to add additional geo symbols onto the map via "geo change". Before using "geo change" though, I recommend defeating all unrelated enemies. Who needs "DEF-50%", "clone", or "silence" anyway? Beware of counterattacks though. These geo symbols follow the normal rules. Geo panel colors and arrangements will change as well, following the normal rules as well. Should you get 6 geo symbols and they are of the offensive group, chances are, you'll get some extra "attack+1" effects. By having the enemies move during their turn, you can otherwise "paint" the entire area so that everything is affected by "invincibility" and "attack+3" or something. With this kind of setup, it's easily possible to get fast skill mastery. Remember that you can use the extra geo symbols to trap the enemies. The colors the enemies are on only change if the enemy moves. Nothing happens if the enemy attacks, aside from the usual accuracy and damage calculation and stuff. Being trapped, enemies can't move and thus their effects always remain active, even on a different color than they are. Islands also work well too for trapping the enemies. Q. I saw in your older videos that you're still using level 1 magic. Is there any reason for this? A. Yes and for 2 reasons. Skill mastery has a far greater effect than magic level. Magic level may only boost power by 40%, but skill mastery at level 99 boosts it by about 198%, essentially tripling it (it's basically 2% per skill level from what I've observed so a level 64 skill has about a 2.28x multiplier). Level 1 magic also uses significantly less SP than level 5 magic. Fire uses 4 SP and tera fire uses 405 for skill level 1 (15, 45, and 135 for magic levels 2, 3, and 4). That's 100 times the SP for a pathetic 40% more damage. A level 99 star does more than double the damage as a level 1 tera star but it uses a tiny fraction of the SP. Thus, early on in the game, stick to the level 1 magic. Once you start getting the infernal staff or you've leveled up a chaos orb or especially a universal orb considerably, stick to level 1 magic. Once SP gets to at least 100,000 (200,000 recommended), then start on the level 5 spells. Once you can start SP-perfecting universal orbs or perfecting any rank 40 weapon toward any stat (not just SP), then it's very easy to get tons of SP to make tera spells the best choice. Q. Are you a real statistician? A. No. I'm very skilled at math though (think of it as having a 210% aptitude toward math and calculations (60% toward reading comprehension and socializing, my 2 biggest weak points)). I do at least know how to calculate most things involving statistics. I'm only providing the results of my computations so you have an idea on what you're up against. Q. What does your experiement data contain for how level affects equipment? A. Here's the data in a table. In my case, I'm using a sword master without any equipment besides just an HP-perfected cosmos muscle with nothing in it (no specialists). The table below compares the original HP value with what the cosmos muscle provides (remember, that's 707735 HP, aptitude aside). The level and multiplier are included as well, with level 1 as a control (I just reincarnated the character - having the base HP rules out any randomization that might be present, leaving just the item itself (of which never changes) and variable in question - the level multiplier. +-------+---------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------+ | Level | Base HP | Muscle HP | Extra HP | Pts | Multiplier | +-------+---------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------+ | 1 | 112 | 786,405 | 786,293 | 0 | 1x | | 15 | 1143 | 896,427 | 895,284 | 14 | 1.138614x | | 44 | 4696 | 1,125,748 | 1,121,052 | 43 | 1.425743x | | 45 | 4811 | 1,133,648 | 1,128,837 | 44 | 1.435644x | | 46 | 4933 | 1,141,555 | 1,136,622 | 45 | 1.445545x | | 50 | 5443 | 1,173,205 | 1,167,762 | 49 | 1.485149x | | 55 | 6129 | 1,212,817 | 1,206,688 | 54 | 1.534654x | | 130 | 27,367 | 1,701,160 | 1,673,793 | 114 | 2.128714x | | 131 | 27,664 | 1,701,457 | 1,673,793 | 114 | 2.128714x | | 132 | 27,897 | 1,709,475 | 1,681,578 | 115 | 2.138615x | | 133 | 28,155 | 1,709,733 | 1,681,578 | 115 | 2.138615x | | 219 | 52,450 | 2,068,787 | 2,016,337 | 158 | 2.564358x | | 280 | 66,744 | 2,324,418 | 2,257,674 | 188 | 2.871288x | | 330 | 76,612 | 2,528,913 | 2,452,301 | 213 | 3.118813x | | 352 | 81,016 | 2,618,953 | 2,537,937 | 224 | 3.227724x | | 393 | 89,380 | 2,783,019 | 2,693,639 | 245 | 3.425745x | | 430 | 96,824 | 2,938,380 | 2,841,556 | 264 | 3.613864x | | 464 | 103,568 | 3,077,470 | 2,973,902 | 280 | 3.78218x | | 496 | 110,072 | 3,208,535 | 3,098,463 | 296 | 3.940596x | | 511 | 113,064 | 3,242,668 | 3,129,604 | 301 | 3.980201x | | 666 | 143,672 | 3,514,613 | 3,370,941 | 331 | 4.287131x | | 791 | 168,584 | 3,734,152 | 3,565,568 | 356 | 4.534656x | | 898 | 189,552 | 3,918,607 | 3,729,055 | 377 | 4.742577x | | 994 | 208,440 | 4,085,412 | 3,876,972 | 396 | 4.930696x | | 995 | 208,620 | 4,093,377 | 3,884,757 | 397 | 4.940597x | | 999 | 209,416 | 4,094,173 | 3,884,757 | 397 | 4.940597x | | 1000 | 209,596 | 4,102,138 | 3,892,542 | 398 | 4.950498x | | 1009 | 211,348 | 4,111,675 | 3,900,327 | 399 | 4.960399x | | 1010 | 211,544 | 4,119,656 | 3,908,112 | 400 | 4.9703x | | 1096 | 228,548 | 4,269,007 | 4,040,459 | 418 | 5.138618x | | 1453 | 299,092 | 4,892,292 | 4,593,200 | 488 | 5.841588x | | 1514 | 310,964 | 4,997,585 | 4,686,621 | 500 | 5.9604x | | 1982 | 403,660 | 5,822,079 | 5,418,419 | 594 | 6.891094x | | 1995 | 406,276 | 5,848,050 | 5,441,774 | 597 | 6.920797x | | 2000 | 407,368 | 5,856,927 | 5,449,559 | 598 | 6.930698x | | 2009 | 409,112 | 5,858,671 | 5,449,559 | 598 | 6.930698x | +-------+---------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------+ Level: The sword master's level. Base HP: the HP of the sword master without any equipment (the natural value). Muscle HP: the HP of the sword master with the HP-perfected cosmos muscle equipped and without specialists in it) Extra HP: the difference in HP between the base and that with the muscle. Pts: the number of level points at this point. Multiplier: the multiplier used compared to the original. You'll find that the following equation seems to always be true (rounding aside, unless I got a typo somewhere): 1 = (ExtraHPAtStart*(1+0.009901*PtsAtLevel))/(ExtraHPAtLevel/ExtraHPAtStart); ExtraHPAtStart - this is the 786,293, seen at level 1. PtsAtLevel - this is how many level points you have at the current level. ExtraHPAtLevel - this is the extra HP at the current level the muscle provides. This proves that 0.009901 is the actual value for each level point, not 0.01. I only went to 6 decimal places, thinking of the precision limit of a 32-bit float being close to that. Q. Variable overflow? Huh? What does that mean? Why does doing 7 billion damage leave an enemy completely unharmed? Why, with 53 million HP, does your Adell get harmed at the hospital? A. It's a computer programming term. Unlike our normal numbers which continue to infinity, computers have a fixed number of bits (binary digits) to represent a number. The length is always a power of 2 (that is satisfying 2^x when x is any integer (not fractional)). Variables come in 2 types as well - integer and floating point. The actual damage calculation itself involves floating point numbers whereas the resulting damage and subtraction of HP involves integer type variables, a signed integer (meaning that it can be positive or negative instead of being just positive only). A 32-bit signed integer is used for the subtraction (and addition) of HP. Damage subtracts, healing adds. The limit of a 32-bit signed integer is exactly 2^31-1 or 2,147,483,647. Unlike normal numbers where, if you need to go over 9999, you just add more digits, computers used fixed spans. Should damage exceed this amount, because of the limited number of bits, overflow occurs, with the extra bits that would have been included dropped. In an 8-bit sense as an example of what actually happens, of which signed 8-bit variables range from -128 to +127, 80+50 is not 130 like it is to us humans doing standard arithmetic, but, strangely to nonprogrammers, -125. Emily's damage gets so great that it exceeds the limit of a signed 32-bit integer causing overflow to occur. Strangely, there's a bug where 2^32 is added to the actual total damage. I should be doing not 7 billion damage as I'm actually seeing and getting, but 2.7 billion. I think the game designers intended to add 2^31 instead, to ensure the enemy could at least be defeated with nearly 5 billion damage. This is also a similar case with the hospital. It appears that Disgaea, for whatever reason, is dividing by 100. That is, when using integers in programming, you can't just do 50*1.2 to get the 60 you'd expect, you'd have to multiply by 12 then divide by 10 to do it (converting to floating point is fairly CPU-intensive). With percentages involved, of which, given the level points chart above from my experiment, you'll realize that the swordsmaster has an HP aptitude of not 110% but, interestingly enough, 111.1%. Thus, the 707,735 is being multiplied by 111 with a division by 100 following to get the end result. It's this multiplying that causes the variable overflow - the dividing by 100 causes HP to cap at not 2^32, but 2^32/100 (or 42,949,673 as it appears to be). You might be thinking that a level point is used with level 1 - not quite as 1.110999 is not the same as 111.08911. Now, what happens when you have exactly 42,949,673 HP and visit the hospital, that I don't know but it's one thing I'd like to find out. Q. You mentioned about streaming. What's that? A. Broadcasting content (often webcam footage or game play) live over the Internet for the whole world to see. By watching my stream, you'll see that I really am legitimately earning what I have achieved in Disgaea 2 (and Disgaea 1) and that I really have 29 perfected items (and continue to get more). --------------------------------------- | 8.8 This guide in general **080800** | --------------------------------------- These questions relate to this guide in general. Q. Are there any details you would like to know for adding? A. Several things come to mind: 1. Figuring out how the "More [stat] growth" bill affects the item's stats. When all 3 combine on the first 30 floors, they seem to provide about a 70% bonus. I would like a better result than this though. 2. How do specialists affect the stats? I'm seeing that 4.5 is added per specialist per boss point per 20 floors. Item generals are 1 boss point, item kings are 2 boss points, and item gods are 3 boss points. Comparing known values and assuming that case 1 is always the same (1.7x regardless of the base value), specialists provide up to 9898 for the effect. 3. What are the exact probabilities for the various things covered? I only need verification though my observations and calculations confirm each other quite well. 4. What other specialists are there? This mainly relates to the dual-stat specialists. 5. The full list of what mystery rooms there are. I have a feeling I'm omitting something. 6. A list of other items worth perfecting that the game denies me access to because I haven't advanced the story and may not do so for another 500+ hours of game play (the clock will be maxed before I bother with the story). Do hyperdrives exist in Disgaea 2? I've hard of something called "makai wars" and some journal, but I have no idea what their baseline stats are. 7. The actual perfected values for each base value. See appendix E for the list - those with a star (aka asterisk *) are estimated. Q. I see a mistake or omission in this guide. Will you fix it and when? A. If you spot a mistake in this guide, let me know (see the "contacting me" section) and I'll fix it once I get my mind set at doing so. Now that I've written a program to automatically adjust the TXT file, the fix takes a few seconds instead of a good fraction of an hour, drastically increasing my motive. Small things like minor spelling or grammar errors otherwise don't count but will still get fixed when I update the guide. Q. Why does the screen move up and down when you view Maladroit's equipment? A. It's a class 2 (minor) bug in the game. If you look closely, you can find some objects disappearing in the scene and the flashing blue and gold from rare and legendary items suddenly stops for about 600 milliseconds and plays for 400 milliseconds, all in a regular fashion. This doesn't seem to affect game play outside the slight delay in the cursor movement. It hasn't causes the game to freeze or crash yet (or the bug would be class 6 or 7 instead, near the top of my 0 to 8 bug severity scale). It's not perfected items causing this, as I have 12 such items and only Maladroit's perfected equipment is causing it (all of which are rarity 1 when most everything else I have are rarity 3). Q. Why did you write a program to process the FAQ? A. GameFAQs requires that all FAQs have no more than 79 characters per line. Although I do have a way to do it manually quite quickly, it's very tedious and the longer the FAQ, the worse it gets. Should even one small change be made, I'd have to redo all that (I do keep a backup of the original so I don't have to delete lines again then readd them when done). Even then, I'm still not guaranteed that the FAQ will be posted as I often get errors stating that the line is longer than 79 characters due to unseen extra spaces that are still included (and line numbers do no good forcing me to have to search for a while and guess where it is). I've been neglecting updating and writing more guides because of this. Since GameFAQs doesn't automatically adjust the FAQ to the 79-characters-per-line limit for you, the only fix I had was to write a C program to automatically parse the TXT file and add line breaks where they would naturally be (as opposed to the middle of a word). If I've done this with variable width characters in my own game, even width is much easier to do. _ _____ ____ ___ _ | | | ___| / ___| / _ \ | | | | | |__ | | _ | |_| | | | | | | __| | | | | | _ | | | | |___ | |___ | |_| | | | | | | |___ |_____| |_____| \___/ |_| |_| |_____| ################### #### #### # 9 Legal stuff **090000** # #### #### ################### Legal stuff - it can be boring, but it's very important. ------------------------------- | 9.1 Contacting me **090100** | ------------------------------- If you have questions, comments, suggestions, or found an error, E-mail me at "ulillillia (symbol with a small a inside) hotmail spec com". The E-mail is "encrypted" to help prevent spam bots from picking it up and delivering dozens of spam messages. I check my E-mail once every 25 2/3 hours, occasionally twice a day 12 hours later (when working on my own project, the frequence increases considerably), so you can expect a response within 36 hours (it's usually within 16 hours), provided there's something to comment on. The exception is if I'm unable to get online for some reason, though this is rare. In order of most common to the least common, this is due to: I'm on vacation without access to a computer (this most commonly happens around September or October), my router stops responding or working (making every web site inaccessible) forcing someone to have to reset it, I get extremely involved with a game and forget about my daily check, my computer is out of order due to hardware or software problems, or my ISP is down for extended time (e.g. having major technical issues). The latter 3 cases are often combined. --------------------------- | 9.2 Copyright **090200** | --------------------------- This document is copyright (C) 2012 by ulillillia. It may not be placed on any Web site outside GameFAQs, my own at www.ulillillia.us, neoseeker.com, and supercheats.com. This guide may be printed, but only for home, non-commerial-use. Commercial use is commercially printed strategy guides, magazines, printing it and selling it for profits, and the related. -------------------------- | 9.3 Credits **090300** | -------------------------- Credits go to a few sources: * This document and method were made by ulillillia. * This addicting and interesting game was created by Nippon Ichi Software. * YouTube (Google) for hosting the 2 1/2-hour walkthrough video. --------------------------------- | 9.4 Version history **090400** | --------------------------------- Version 1 - Initial release Version 1 is the initial release, detailing the most obvious parts. Version 1.1 - Order of phases, all rank 40 items, added appendix E, and others. Version 1.1 is a moderate change with several, well, changes, as follows. * The order of the phases are indicated as there is considerable flexibility. * All accessible rank 40 items obtained - details filled in. * Appendix C expanded (new recommendations, notes, and remarks added). * Added appendix E detailing the perfected values for any given base (estimates provided for those I don't have). * Odds for fortune teller more accurate - now matches observations. * Calculations were incorrect due to forgetting about "bad luck" and "horrible luck" affecting the probability of getting a bonus. Calculations rechecked and now match my observations very well. Times adjusted accordingly. * More accurate analysis on timing and boss bonus multipliers. * Warnings added for lovers with non-generic characters. * New entries added and some editing and fine-tuning were made to the FAQ. * New subsections, improved sectionizing, and several expansions added. * Some proofreading. Version 2 - Stats extended, new tricks, new super wizard, and several others. Version 2 is a massive rewrite and update in one. With just about 30 perfected items now, I'm pretty much a master at perfecting items. Throughout all this, I've learned some new techniques, new optimizations, several tricks, and others. My most powerful character is no longer Maladroit. * Every known stat in the game is explained. * Corrections on how DEF and RES absorb damage (still not fully certain). * Emily is my new super wizard, of which replaced Maladroit, is detailed upon. * References to my dreadnaught instead of Adell for ridiculously high HP. * Perfect value for 4650 starting point now known - added in. * Perfect value for 2250 starting point now known - added in. * Rares have the same odds as legendaries for towns and chickens. * New techniques and methods for better optimization of time and exit usage. * Tips on making the most of dual-stat specialists. * 29 perfected items and 1370 hours of play (and still counting). * Several other fixes and updates, routine changes. * Lots of proofreading. ___ ____ ____ _____ ___ _ ____ _____ _ _ ___ / _ \ | _ \ | _ \ | ___| | \ | | | _ \ |_ _| | \ / | / _ \ | |_| | | |_| | | |_| | | |__ | |\ \ | | | | | | | | \ \/ / | |_| | | _ | | __/ | __/ | __| | | \ \ | | | | | | | | > < | _ | | | | | | | | | | |___ | | \ \| | | |_| | _| |_ / /\ \ | | | | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_____| |_| \___| |____/ |_____| |_/ \_| |_| |_| ######################################## #### #### # A Appendix A: List of specialists **0A0000** # #### #### ######################################## There are a total of 30 specialists, with the various forms of lovers counted as one and not including dual-stat specialists created from mediators. The following subsections explain more about these 30 specialists in great detail. ------------------------------------------- | A.1 Stat-boosting specialists **0A0100** | ------------------------------------------- These 8 specialists boost the stats of the piece of equipment they are on. These are the ones needed for item perfection. Once you've decided which stat you want to perfect for that item, find the specialist that affects that stat and clear out everything else. Although 19,998 may not seem like much, just remember the multipliers. One maxed master on a girl mage provides a massive 591,018.39225 extra SP at best. If you want to learn more about what the game's 8 stats mean and how they affect things, see appendix D. +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Specialist | Function, useful tips, and other notes | Maximum | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Dietician | Boosts max HP. These are not useful as they are | 19,998* | | | not as effective as leveling up or most items. | | | | Muscles and axes tend to be prone to these. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Master | Boosts max SP. These are very useful early on or | 19,998* | | | for fast and efficient skill mastery when an | | | | "attack+3" type setup is encountered. Masters | | | | are rare and hard to find, though most common on | | | | orbs, staves, and SP-restoring drinks. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Gladiator | Boosts ATK. These are useful on all types of | 19,998* | | | weapons except guns and staves. They boost the | | | | amount of damage they cause from physical attacks | | | | and most special skills. Axes and belts are | | | | especially good for getting these with. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Sentry | Boosts DEF. Early on, these make the item world | 19,998* | | | much easier. Later on, once you get the super | | | | robo suit, they're not very useful. Armor tends | | | | to have these in great value. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Tutor | Boosts INT. Use these for wizards. Thanks to | 19,998* | | | numerous multipliers, these are very powerful. | | | | Staves, orbs, and glasses seem prone to these. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Physician | Boosts RES. Early on, these make the item world | 19,998* | | | much easier. They're also good for healing. | | | | Later on, they're not very useful. Staves, orbs, | | | | and armor seem to be prone to these. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Marksman | Boosts HIT. These have little use except on bows | 19,998* | | | and guns. An 8000 marksman is enough to hit | | | | pretty much anything in Land of Carnage. Glasses | | | | and guns seem to have these the most. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Coach | Boosts SPD. These are most useful on fists and | 19,998* | | | low-HP male ninjas. They are most common on | | | | shoes, armor, and fists. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ Table footnotes: * The specialist itself caps at 19,998 but the effective maximum is a rather crazy 639,936. To exceed the 19,998 limit, you will need multiple specialists of that type, of which must be built up in other items. If you combine these maxed specialists, you'll permanently lose them. Only combine them if no maxed ones are present in the item and the combination doesn't result in excessive waste (such as a 15,562 combining with a 17,814 - use a teacher to polish those high ones off). --------------------------------------- | A.2 Elemental specialists **0A0200** | --------------------------------------- These 3 specialists boost a character's defense toward the elements. For magic, they also improve the power of elemental magic. Definitely get these if you plan on using elemental magic like tera fire, tera wind, or tera ice. They have no effect with elemental skills specific to weapons or monsters (firefighters don't boost big bang or dragon nova). +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Specialist | Function, useful tips, and other notes | Maximum | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Firefighter | Raises fire defense. Fire seems to be a fairly | 100 | | | common element and always present on dragon mail. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Aeronaut | Raises wind defense. Wind skills are somewhat | 100 | | | rare. Repeatedly visiting the armor shop seems | | | | to be the most effective way to obtain these. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Cryophile | Raises ice defense. Ice skills seem quite rare. | 100 | | | Repeatedly visiting the armor shop seems to be | | | | the most effective way to obtain these. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ --------------------------------------------- | A.3 Ailment defense specialists **0A0300** | --------------------------------------------- These 5 specialists boosts a character's defense toward the ailments. It seems that around 20 to 30 is sufficient enough (50 or more for poison). I've sorted these in order from most important to least important. Repeatedly visit the armor shop to find these effectively. +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Specialist | Function, useful tips, and other notes | Maximum | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Pharmacist | Raises poison defense. Since poison is extremely | 100 | | | deadly, doing 20% HP damage per turn, these are | | | | true must-haves, especially early in the game. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Psychologist | Raises amnesia defense. Amnesia prevents all | 100 | | | special skills from being used. If you don't use | | | | special skills much, this would be in 4th place. | | | | Goddess dress always has a psycholgist of 8. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Medicine man | Raises deprived defense. Deprived weakens the | 100 | | | victim by 20% and also prevents leveling up. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Coffee maker | Raises sleep defense. Sleep prevents the victim | 100 | | | from moving or acting. It does go away after | | | | taking a hit, but the hit is always a critical. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Social worker | Raises paralysis defense. Paralysis prevents the | 100 | | | victim from moving, but can still act. If you | | | | use special skills or especially magic a lot, | | | | these are otherwise unnecessary. Spear skills | | | | will still move the character. Hero mantles | | | | always have a social worker of 7. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ --------------------------------------------- | A.4 Ailment-causing specialists **0A0400** | --------------------------------------------- These 5 specialists cause ailments. Beware when enemies have items that have these. They are mostly useless for your characters later on. I've listed these in order of most useful to least useful. Find these specialists in weapons in the weapon shop. +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Specialist | Function, useful tips, and other notes | Maximum | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Amnesiac | Causes amnesia. This forces enemies to have to | 100 | | | use normal physical attacks, best on magic users. | | | | The sage's staff always has an amnesiac of 8. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Hypnotist | Causes sleep. This essentially takes an enemy | 100 | | | out of the battle field for some time. Beware of | | | | enemy stupidity though as enemies will attack or | | | | even defeat their own kind, especially the case | | | | near a chest. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Witch doctor | Causes paralysis. In a bad situation? Paralyze | 100 | | | the enemy to make for an easier retreat. Both | | | | hell star (fist) and rolling thunder (gun) always | | | | have a witch doctor of 8. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Gangster | Causes deprived. The only good thing this does | 100 | | | is that it weakens the enemy some. Venus wands | | | | always have a gangster of 7. +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Alchemist | Causes poison. If an enemy dies of poison, you | 100 | | | get absolutely no credit for it. Any item with a | | | | name that hints toward poisoning will always have | | | | an alchemist present. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ ----------------------------------- | A.5 Other specialists **0A0500** | ----------------------------------- These 9 specialists have various effects and most are extremely useful. +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Specialist | Function, useful tips, and other notes | Maximum | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Lover | Amplifies the effectiveness of the character's | 25 | | | special ability and boosts all stats by 25%. | | | | These are true must-haves. Unfortunately, these | | | | take considerable time and effort to spawn. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Armsmaster | Accelerates the rate weapon mastery is obtained | 1900 | | | on human characters but worthless on monsters. | | | | Get these as soon as you can. 255 weapon mastery | | | | is an hour away with an "attack+2" and "reverse | | | | damage" or "invincibility" effect. Items like | | | | "100 fists", "bruenack", "noble rose", and | | | | "twilight" always have an armsmaster. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Mentor | Accelerates skill mastery. Early on, avoid these | 300 | | | as more SP is needed skill mastery increases and | | | | SP is precious. Later on, however, get these as | | | | skill mastery means potentially triple damage. | | | | items like seraphic bows and heroic guns always | | | | have a good mentor. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Professional | Increases frequency of critical hits. At 100, | 500?* | | | critical hits seem to be guaranteed but these | | | | strangely seem to go much higher than 100. The | | | | "7 year kill" fist always has a professional. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Teacher | Boosts the power of a specialist by 5% - chance | 100 | | | of a boost is based on the teacher's power. They | | | | only work when you enter an innocent town. 5% | | | | may not seem like much, but when a stat-boosting | | | | specialist gets to 8000 subdued, they are like | | | | having an automatic free specialist of 200 | | | | provided in that item. Teachers require another | | | | subdued specialist in an innocent town and can be | | | | used once per town but otherwise infinitely. | | | | Teachers are very rare and hard to find. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Mediator | Combines the roles of 2 stat-boosting specialists | 100 | | | into a single specialist that affects both stats. | | | | I find mediators mostly worthless since the | | | | newly-created dual-stat specialist is highly | | | | underpowered when you get them and only work 70% | | | | of the time in an innocent town. Mediators are | | | | very rare and hard to find, much like teachers. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Manager | Increases the amount of mana obtained from | 300 | | | defeated enemies. These are only slightly useful | | | | early in the game, but later on, when dealing | | | | with max level enemies, mana seems infinite even | | | | without these. One play of Cave of Ordeal 4 in | | | | Land of Carnage provides a massive 77,880 mana to | | | | a single character without these (25,960 to a | | | | second), so much it already seems infinite. | | | | The gaea spear always has a good manager (of 42). | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Broker | Increases the amount of HL obtained from defeated | 300 | | | enemies. These have some use early in the game, | | | | but later on, they otherwise have little effect. | | | | One play of Cave of Ordeal 4 in Land of Carnage | | | | is enough for a few billion HL, enough to buy | | | | pretty much anything in the game. The malevolent | | | | (magic monster weapon) always has a broker of 36. | | | | For better than 36, visit any shop repeatedly. | | | | Use a teacher wisely to get a maxed broker with | | | | only 4 "the malevolent" items. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ | Collector | Increases an item's rarity by the specialist's | unknown | | | power rating. Collectors can only be found in | ** | | | mystery rooms and only if the item isn't full. | | | | When perfecting items, only bother going after | | | | these in junk items, if you want to spend the | | | | extra time. It is possible to force the game to | | | | give you an item of the rarity you want making | | | | these not as useful. | | +---------------+---------------------------------------------------+---------+ Table footnotes: * Strangely, even though professionals make critical hits guaranteed when 100, they seem to go way, way higher than 100. I have a professional at 426 subdued and it still seems like it can go higher, much higher. ** I don't know what the maximum is for collectors. I have one of 6. Combining collectors should be done sparingly as these are not very common. ___ ____ ____ _____ ___ _ ____ _____ _ _ ____ / _ \ | _ \ | _ \ | ___| | \ | | | _ \ |_ _| | \ / | | _ \ | |_| | | |_| | | |_| | | |__ | |\ \ | | | | | | | | \ \/ / | |_| | | _ | | __/ | __/ | __| | | \ \ | | | | | | | | > < | _ < | | | | | | | | | |___ | | \ \| | | |_| | _| |_ / /\ \ | |_| | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_____| |_| \___| |____/ |_____| |_/ \_| |____/ ########################################## #### #### # B Appendix B: List of mystery rooms **0B0000** # #### #### ########################################## Mystery rooms come in a few forms. This section lists the various types and details about them. Do note that this list may not be complete. ----------------------- | B.1 Shops **0B0100** | ----------------------- When it comes to perfecting items, you'll learn to hate shops. They are very common and frequent, making them otherwise not worth it. Still, these shops do have plenty of uses. Unlike the normal weapon, armor, and general stores, these shops can only be visited once. Repeatedly speaking to the store clerk afterward will allow you to fight the store clerk. +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Shop | Function, useful tips, and other notes | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Magical mana | This shop sells mana potions and it's the only way these | | potion store | items are accessible. Early on, they are quite useful, | | | especially for character classes that can't level up very | | | well and you want to reincarnate them to the top tier. | | | Later on, however, these mana potions are nearly worthless. | | | Even without managers, mana by the tens of thousands takes | | | almost no time to get. Raising product rank brings out the | | | better mana potions, but they stop at 1000 (compare 77,880 | | | from a single 20-second play of Cave of Ordeal 4 to that). | | | A blue skull runs this shop. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Black market | This shop sells items that focus on the dark assembly. The | | | only worthy things here are "angel cake" and "gold bar". | | | To a limited extent, "medicine" is also useful but only on | | | the baciels. The other items are not worth it. A zombie | | | runs this shop. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Merchant | This shop is much like the armor, weapon, and general shops | | | except these items are combined in one single shop and it's | | | also possible to buy rare or legendary items. It's also | | | the only way to buy rank 39 items. This shop is a great | | | alternative to getting legendary rank 39 items so you can | | | get rank 40 items. A living doll runs this shop. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Cell phone | This shop sells, well, cell phones. The "prism rangers", | | Store | and "defender of earth" phones are available here (easily | | | obtained by repeatedly playing "reflection pond"). The | | | "Zeniski Financial" is available, of which calls the bank | | | for a loan though sometimes you lose money from this. Cave | | | of Ordeal 4 in Land of Carnage is extremely fast for money. | | | A pizza delivery cell phone is available too, but worthless | | | when you have omega heal and a RES beyond the 100K range. | | | The other cell phones are for the dark assembly. They are | | | used to increase the chances of passing a bill. These are | | | pretty much worthless outside the white dragons because | | | it's very easy to get every senator (except white dragons) | | | to "love" status anyway. A prinny runs this shop. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Space Galaxy | This isn't a single store, but all 4 of the above combined | | Department | into a single mystery room. An archer is in the front | | Store | middle (notice the level 5000?). The merchant is in the | | | front right, the cell phone store is in the front left, the | | | black marker is in the back left, and the mana potion store | | | is in the back right. Shop 'til you drop (of course, if | | | you have 4 trillion HL, you can't drop)! When perfecting | | | items, this is like a worst nightmare since shops are very | | | annoying as they're so common. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Scroll shop | The scroll shop isn't something I've seen, but it's where | | | scrolls can be bought. I've only been told about them, in | | | a very limited amount of detail. These are very rare. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ -------------------------------- | B.2 Treasure rooms **0B0200** | -------------------------------- When it comes to perfecting items, you'll learn to hate treasure rooms as well. Treasure rooms aren't as common as shops, but annoying none-the-less. The items, when you're already working with perfecting rank 40 items, are almost always useless anyway. Considering the fact treasure chests stop at rank 38, they are not worth it. +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Room | Function, useful tips, and other notes | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Unguarded | You'll find 3 treasure chests in this room. One of them is | | treasure | green (green chests always contain a legendary item), and 2 | | | others are blue (blue chests always contain a rare item). | | | You will not have to fight anything for these; grab and go! | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Guarded | You'll find 1, 2, or 3 treasure chests in this room and | | treasure | always guarded by a fire-breathing dragon named Jezeppe. | | | This dragon is at double the level the enemies are, but | | | fighting him is optional. One treasure chest will always | | | be green (legendary). Some rares might be present as well. | | | Early in the game, focus on the green treasure chest and | | | have everyone gang up on the dragon, saving the powerful | | | characters for last (combos add about 1.3% to the damage, | | | thus, a +9 combo adds about 12% more damage. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Orc pirate | You'll board the orc pirate ship for this. Check the wings | | treasure | for 2 blue treasure chests. Speaking with the orcs tells | | | you about the Land of Carnage. You won't fight anything. | | | You will not get this in the Land of Carnage. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Knight pirate | You'll board the pirate ship with a knight on it. You | | treasure | won't have to fight anything here either and speaking to | | | the knight will inform you more on Land of Carnage. One | | | blue treasure chest is to be found here. You will not get | | | this in the Land of Carnage. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------- | B.3 Bonuses **0B0300** | ------------------------- When it comes to perfecting items, these types mystery rooms are what you need. They provide bonus levels to the item. They are fairly rare which makes perfecting items take rather long. +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Room | Function, useful tips, and other notes | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Ambush | A series of 7 enemies surrounds the base panel in the form | | | of 2 pairs in the northeast, southeast, and southwest. A | | | lone enemy in the northwest with a 50% higher level is the | | | other one. Speak to any of the 7 enemies to initiate the | | | battle. This is a forced battle. If you can defeat all 7 | | | enemies within 3 turns, the item will gain 3 levels. One | | | interesting thing to note is that the enemies are always | | | monsters and always the lowest tier of that class. It is | | | possible to gency out, but only after the battle starts. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Fortune | A geomancer makes the fortune teller. The fortune teller | | teller | is both good and bad. He will give you 1 of 4 results. | | | "Horrible luck" decreases the item level by 10. "Bad luck" | | | decreases the item level by 3. Should either of these | | | occur, quit and reload. "Good luck" raises the item level | | | by 3 and "great luck" raises it by 10. Fighting is not | | | required. Speaking with the fortune teller 4 more times | | | after the fortune is given will allow you to fight him, | | | only good for exp. Strangely, fighting him doesn't appear | | | to completely negate his "bad" or "horrible" luck cases. | | | The odds, in the order listed, are 20%, 20%, 40%, and 20%. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------ | B.4 Others **0B0400** | ------------------------ When it comes to perfecting items, these mystery rooms do not help. They are still useful outside item perfection but are not very common either. +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Room | Function, useful tips, and other notes | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Hospital | This is always useful, whether early in the game or late. | | | Unlike the shops in the item world, the hospital can be | | | visited indefinitely. This hospital works exactly the same | | | as that in Holt Village or Land of Carnage. For every 5 HP | | | you restore, it costs 1 HL. For each 1 SP, it's also 1 HL. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Collector | This is a unique room and fairly rare. Inside this room is | | | a specialist, a collector. Simply walk up to it, speak to | | | it, and invite it to subdue it. This mystery room will | | | only appear when the item is not full of specialists. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Rip-off bar | This mystery room is just as it says - a rip off. A group | | | of 4 female monsters are present - 1 in front and 3 behind. | | | Upon speaking to the one in front, you'll get word that | | | they will help get the bonus gauge full. This is a lie as | | | it actually only fills it about 1/4 of the way. Worse yet, | | | you have to somehow pay for it. You can choose 10,000 HL | | | or "hard labor". The latter cuts everyone's current HP and | | | SP in half. Avoid this rare mystery room at all times. If | | | you skip upon returning, you won't get the bonuses anyway. | | | If you want the bonuses on any floor, make use of comboing | | | blind, enfeeble, and other stat-reducing spells instead as | | | this will guarantee you'll max out the bonus gauge. Oddly, | | | anti-ice, shield, etc. stops the bonus gauge from filling. | | | The only thing the rip-off bar is good for is fighting them | | | and getting those 9-figure damage popups they deserve. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ ___ ____ ____ _____ ___ _ ____ _____ _ _ ___ / _ \ | _ \ | _ \ | ___| | \ | | | _ \ |_ _| | \ / | / _ \ | |_| | | |_| | | |_| | | |__ | |\ \ | | | | | | | | \ \/ / | | |_| | _ | | __/ | __/ | __| | | \ \ | | | | | | | | > < | | _ | | | | | | | | | |___ | | \ \| | | |_| | _| |_ / /\ \ | |_| | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_____| |_| \___| |____/ |_____| |_/ \_| \___/ ################################################# #### #### # C Appendix C: list of rank 39 and 40 items **0C0000** # #### #### ################################################# Since item perfection is best with top-rank items, it is useful to know what items are worth perfecting. Due to the near-zero story progress I have, I may be leaving out some items that would be worth perfecting. I've heard, from YouTube comments, of something called "makai wars" and some journal though. I've never seen it so I have no information about it. --------------------------------- | C.1 Rank 39 weapons **0C0100** | --------------------------------- Weapons can deal big damage and thus, it is recommended that you amplify this. Rank 39 weapons are not worthy of true perfection since they all have a rank 40 equivalent. Only the staff is worth semi-perfecting. All others are only decent for quick boosting. Being rank 39, they can also be normal and rare instead of just legendary. Only boost legendary versions of rank 39 items. Use the rares and commons for their specialists. +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Item | Function, useful tips, what to perfect, and other notes | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | God's hand | This is the rank 39 fist. Like with all fists, both ATK | | | and SPD are used to determine damage. If you intend on | | | equipping this on a male ninja, boost SPD. Otherwise, | | | boost ATK. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Excalibur | This is the rank 39 sword. It looks like it has a red | | | futuristic "highway" with arrows on it (futuristic, in a | | | sense). Only ATK is used to determine damage so boost ATK. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Holy longinus | This is the rank 39 spear. It is a dark-colored 3-pronged | | | spear with light-colored tips. Spears focus on ATK and DEF | | | though only ATK determines damage. Thus, boost ATK. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Artemis | This is the rank 39 bow. It has a green edge with the tips | | | being bright red. ATK and HIT are used to determine damage | | | for all bows. Because a high HIT doesn't have much use, I | | | recommend boosting ATK. HIT is only good if on a character | | | with a high HIT aptitude like the archer class. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Megiddo | This is the rank 39 gun. All guns use HIT to determine | | cannon | damage so boost HIT. The straight-line-only limitation of | | | guns makes them almost worthless as they can't target much. | | | Want range? Put a bow on an archer with a 25 archer lover | | | and you'll cover several times more panels than any gun. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Beam axe | This is the rank 39 ax. This ax has a blue glow around it. | | | Since ATK determines damage for axes, boost ATK. Axes, | | | however, are only single-target weapons so ax-users will | | | not be easy to level up outside clone wars. Going for a | | | high countering ability and lots of "clone" geo symbols is | | | about the most effective way to level up such characters | | | outside teaching them magic. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Infernal | This is the rank 39 staff. This staff has a red center at | | staff | its top. Staves focus on both ATK and INT. However, you | | | use staves to make magic more powerful. Unlike all other | | | rank 39 weapons, I recommend near-perfecting INT instead of | | | just boosting INT, but only if you don't have access to the | | | Land of Carnage yet. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Satan's motor | This is the rank 39 physical monster weapon. These weapons | | | use ATK to determine damage, but also have a high HIT. | | | Because HIT is of little use, I recommend boosting ATK. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | The king | This is the rank 39 magical monster weapon. These weapons | | | use ATK to determine damage, but these weapons are meant | | | for magic-based monsters like ghosts and white dragons. | | | Thus, I recommend boosting INT. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ --------------------------------- | C.2 Rank 40 weapons **0C0200** | --------------------------------- All rank 40 weapons are worth perfecting. These are the only weapons worthy of true perfection. This is because there is nothing more powerful than these and these are already insanely powerful to begin with. +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Item | Function, useful tips, what to perfect, and other notes | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Ultimus | The rank 40 fist is very extreme. At 5400 for both ATK and | | | SPD, the perfected ultimus really packs, well, a punch. I | | | would recommend perfecting this for ATK. The exception is | | | when you put this on a low-HP male ninja - SPD-perfect it | | | instead as that ninja will become otherwise impossible to | | | hit outside baciels making him invincible. 3 SPD-perfected | | | super robo suits will only make things even more extreme. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Yoshitsuna | The rank 40 sword has a very high ATK rating of 6000 for | | | starters. Perfecting this for ATK is highly recommended. | | | This will ATK-perfect to 358,815 making it perfect for any | | | samurai characters you have. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Drill emperor | The rank 40 spear has a fairly high ATK rating of 5400 and | | | a decent 2100 DEF rating. I would recommend perfecting for | | | ATK as the DEF alone will make the character hard enough to | | | physically damage. A single quick-boosted super robo suit | | | provides more defense than this does, but it does help. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Lovely cupid | The rank 40 bow is a disappointment compared to other rank | | | 40 items. Instead of the usual 5400 that many other rank | | | 40 items have, this item only has 4650. When perfected, | | | ATK or HIT will be about 280,308. With 2.1 million HIT | | | from just the 200 levels and double-defeating item bosses | | | alone, you're guaranteed to hit anything, even an item god | | | 2 standing on an "enemy boost x3" effect from the front. | | | Throw in 130% aptitude, matching rarity, and lovers, HIT | | | gets so high that even an extremely rare "enemy boost x9" | | | effect isn't enough for the item god 2 to prevent from | | | being hit from the front. Thus, I would recommend that you | | | perfect this for ATK. The exception is if you intend on | | | equipping this to a character class with a very high HIT | | | aptitude compared to ATK (such as the archer). It's often | | | better to focus on range more though - you can't beat a 10- | | | panel attack range. Magic essentially caps at 9. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Etoile | The rank 40 gun is just as disappointing as the bow with | | | 4650 as the base HIT stat. When perfected for HIT, this | | | gun will never miss, except if the target is on an "evade" | | | geo effect. It would require an extreme "enemy boost x27" | | | type effect before the item god 2 even has a chance to | | | dodge this thing's hits. With the straight-line-only | | | limitation of guns, the etoile is almost worthless. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Apocalypse | The apocalypse is the game's second-most powerful weapon. | | | Only the omniscient rod, due to the 2x multiplier from | | | staff mastery, is more powerful. 7800 base ATK is crazy! | | | If you perfect this for ATK, it becomes 463,491, the | | | second-most extreme item stat for equipment. Put this on a | | | samurai (with 130% ATK aptitude), get a 25 samurai lover, | | | matching rarity (perfection on other items not required), | | | Rozalin with a 25 Rozalin lover, braveheart, and a 11,366 | | | gladiator on the weapon to get the 264,111 missing ATK and | | | you can encounter this game's 40 million ATK, the maximum | | | possible. It's the fastest way to see this game's extreme | | | maximum stats. A level 1 character can get this too! | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Omniscient | The rank 40 staff is the game's true most powerful weapon. | | rod | Due to the 2x multiplier from staff mastery, the 5400 base | | | is like 10,800 - nothing else comes close. I recommend | | | going after this and perfecting this as soon as you can. | | | Perfect this for INT and you could take out pretty much | | | anything in one hit (only an item god 2 is marginal unless | | | you have high skill mastery on some spell). Throw in the | | | versitility of magic (area of effect choices, power, and | | | range), and it's no wonder why I'm after getting several of | | | these perfected. I have 4 INT-perfected omniscient rods | | | and I'm only wanting more.... | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Babylon crown | The rank 40 physical monster weapon has a very high ATK | | | rating of 6000. I strongly recommend perfecting at least | | | one of these if you intend on having physically-powered | | | monster allies. At 358,815 for ATK before lovers, matching | | | rarity, and aptitude, this will make any physical monster | | | ally almost effortlessly get the 186,000 total levels, | | | especially when combined with the beast master's "wild | | | groom" skill, by repeatedly playing Cave of Ordeals 4. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | The fool | The rank 40 magical monster weapon has a decent ATK and INT | | | rating of 5400. Perfecting this for INT (at 323,923) will | | | make it very easy for magically-powered monster allies to | | | quickly accumulate the 186,000 total levels. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------- | C.3 Other items worth perfecting **0C0300** | ---------------------------------------------- In addition to the above, there are non-weapon items that are worth perfecting. Due to the near-zero story progress I have, some items are likely left out. Some other items that are not worth true-perfecting or near-perfecting are included for notes on them as they are still very useful to have. +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Item | Function, useful tips, what to perfect, and other notes | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Infernal | This is the rank 39 armor. Armor focuses heavily on DEF. | | armor | Thus, it's recommended you boost DEF. You could boost it | | | for some other stat as well, such as INT for wizards and | | | ATK for warriors. Being rank 39 with a rank 40 equivalent, | | | true perfection is not recommended. Legendary infernal | | | armor seems to be a very common find on enemy equipment. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Super robo | The rank 40 armor provides an insane amount of DEF, so much | | suit | that it almost seems pointless to perfect for DEF. After | | | all, just one super robo suit perfected toward a different | | | stat provides a good 5 million DEF to a skull, so much that | | | almost nothing will damage it. Thus, I would recommend | | | perfecting this toward some other stat that relates to the | | | character you intend on equipping this to. For wizards, | | | INT is recommended. For warriors, ATK is recommended. | | | For an invincible ninja that nothing can hit, SPD is best. | | | This is the most common item that I perfect and I have 7 of | | | these perfected (6 for INT, 1 for ATK). | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Universal orb | Universal orbs are rank 39 items that are worth perfecting | | | for either SP or RES. I usually prefer perfecting these | | | for SP because having tons of SP available makes it very | | | easy and fast to get skill mastery should you get a rare | | | "attack+3" type setup. Perfecting this for RES will make | | | it possible to restore 8-figure amounts of HP or make the | | | user seemingly invincible to magic attacks. Universal orbs | | | are a very common find on enemy equipment. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Cosmos muscle | Cosmos muscles are rank 39 items that are worth perfecting | | | for HP. With 12,000 as the base HP, these items provide an | | | insane amount of extra HP, so much that it will make the | | | user seem undefeatable. Even on a skull, one HP-perfected | | | cosmos muscle provides nearly 17 million extra HP. Having | | | several of these on a dreadnaught can make the dreadnaught | | | otherwise completely indestructible, restoring a rather | | | crazy 30+ million HP every turn. Think about having a | | | dreadnaught with 80 million HP restoring 36 million every | | | turn. Nothing in the game can consistently do 36 million | | | damage in one turn outside your own allies. These on a | | | dreadnaught is as close to true invincibility as possible. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Providence | Providences are rank 39 glasses. If you have access to the | | | Land of Carnage, don't bother perfecting these for anything | | | - the super robo suit is much better for both INT and HIT. | | | If you don't have a legendary infernal armor or access to | | | the Land of Carnage yet, then only consider quick-boosting | | | these. Otherwise, these are only good for getting the | | | specialists out of and for spawning dual-stat specialists. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Orion's belt | Orion's belts are rank 39 belts. They sacrifice SPD in | | | exchange for a boost in ATK. Any degree of perfection will | | | cause these items to actually increase SPD by floor 60. | | | Since the super robo suit provides an even higher ATK, I | | | would, at best, only recommend near-perfecting these. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Angel's | Angel's sandals are great for getting movement up. They're | | sandals | also relatively easy to get as enemies have them and, being | | | rank 32 (about), you can find them in chests and enemy | | | equipment. Strangely, these, even in their common form, | | | are very rarely seen on enemies or even in the bonuses. It | | | is not unusual to go through 50+ qualifying maps and still | | | never see any shoe-type equipment, let alone legendary. | | | Being so hard to find when legendary, once you get these, | | | gency out and save your game. After all, you can't miss on | | | significantly improvement movement radius, considering that | | | Disgaea 2, annoyingly, does have the hyperdrive. Pass all | | | the movement bills on these as you can and you'll go far! | | | The odds that these seem to appear is just 0.1%. Legendary | | | angel's sandals, thus, has to be the game's rarest item. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Accelerator | Accelerators are rank 39 teeth. These focus heavily on | | | increasing movement radius but are bad for stats. The 600 | | | speed for a legendary accelerator is easily exceeded by the | | | super robo suit 2 1/2 times over. Focus on getting the | | | movement range on these to 6 to make the most out of them. | | | Quick boost these toward the stat best suited for the | | | character you intend on equipping this to. Getting more | | | than one isn't easy though as the item god doesn't always | | | have the item as legendary so that's a lot of quit and | | | reload needed.... These might be where you'd have to use | | | collectors to force matching rarity after the first one. | +---------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+ ___ ____ ____ _____ ___ _ ____ _____ _ _ ____ / _ \ | _ \ | _ \ | ___| | \ | | | _ \ |_ _| | \ / | | _ \ | |_| | | |_| | | |_| | | |__ | |\ \ | | | | | | | | \ \/ / | | | | | _ | | __/ | __/ | __| | | \ \ | | | | | | | | > < | | | | | | | | | | | | | |___ | | \ \| | | |_| | _| |_ / /\ \ | |_| | |_| |_| |_| |_| |_____| |_| \___| |____/ |_____| |_/ \_| |____/ ############################################# #### #### # D Appendix D: Explanation of the stats **0D0000** # #### #### ############################################# RPGs have their characters and enemies with an assort of statistics like HP (hit points), DEF (defense), or HIT (accuracy). This section explains how the various stats work and how to make best use of them. Only the 8 primary stats are covered as they are used with item perfection. There are others such as level, experience, mana, total levels, and a few others. --------------------------------- | D.1 HP (hit points) **0D0100** | --------------------------------- HP, hit points, is a standard in every RPG and it represents a character's health. This stat actually has 2 values - the current and the maximum. In Disgaea, when a character's current HP drops to 0, that character dies and cannot be revived in battle. The only way to revive such a character is by visiting the hospital and paying a rather big fee. Restoring HP can be done in 6 ways. The first, best only early in the game, is the use of items such as mint gum or eclair. Elixirs or somas also work. The second method, best late in the game, is with magic such as omega heal (RES-perfected universal orbs will make healing easy and when on a disperse damage effect, you can bulk-heal everyone). The third method is that of certain special skills like the white dragon's dragon cure. The fourth method is the use of "heal 20%" geo symbols - stand on a geo panel with this effect and end your turn to restore 20% of that character's HP. The fifth is specific to certain character classes like the zombie or wood golems. Zombies restore HP from defeating enemies (with the "attack" command) and wood golems restore their HP every turn. The sixth and most common way is through the hospital. It costs 1 HL for every 5 HP being restored. Unlike all other stats, when it comes to leveling up, HP grows far faster, 4 times faster. It takes 15 maxed dieticians (at 19,998 each) on armor on a character with matching rarity to get what leveling up alone would do. The other stats require 4 maxed specialists of the kind that affect them to do the same thing. Thus, when reincarnating, focusing on having a lot of HP is usually quite wise. I go for 270 every time I maximally reincarnate a character (at 186,000 total levels) and doing the final reincarnation. Items like muscles provide a much greater boost toward raising maximum HP. An HP-perfected cosmos muscle can provide a bit over 23.9 million extra HP alone (with all possible boosts such as matching rarity, 140% aptitude, and a 25 lover), 2 of them will glitch the hospital. Equipping muscles will significantly increase the maximum HP a character will have, especially when perfected. Dieticians also help, though insignificantly (even 35 maxed dieticians still comes short of what one HP-perfected cosmos muscle provides). ----------------------------------- | D.2 SP (skill points) **0D0200** | ----------------------------------- SP, skill points, is also a standard in RPGs (though often under different names such as magic points, magic power, spell power, spell points, etc. (the former being MP instead of SP)). In Disgaea, SP is used for special skills. Like with HP, SP has a current and maximum value. Anything in the "special" option requires the use of SP. The more powerful a skill gets, the more SP it'll require to use. If a character doesn't have enough SP, special skills cannot be used. Characters will not die if they have 0 SP remaining - they just won't be able to use any special skills. There are only 3 ways to restore SP. The first, best early in the game, is through items like BBQ sauce. The second is through the hospital. It costs 1 HL for every SP being restored (no wonder why wizards are so expensive but they're so versitile and powerful which makes up for it). The third is through character-specific skills such as the ghosts that restore their SP every turn. Except when going after quick skill mastery (from a not-so-common "attack+3" type setup), SP much beyond 25,000 (200,000 for magic) doesn't have much use. If you want quick skill mastery, then even 2 million SP isn't enough to guarantee going from level 1 to 99 in one go, especially for the tera spells (don't look at what a level 99 tera star requires for SP for a single panel, let alone the 3x3 area of effect choice...). 2 million is enough though for weapon skills (except the top rank one) and all other special skills (like monster skills) to guarantee going from level 1 to 99 in one go. Equipping orbs will significantly increase the amount of SP a character will have. Masters also help, though not much. 3 maxed masters on a human character, however, means millions of SP for quick skill mastery. I've gotten a samurai's calamity drive skill mastery from about level 7 to 83 with about 2.1 million SP (and keep in mind, they only get 60 points per use because of a samurai's 15-point ax proficiency rating (with a 300 mentor)). ------------------------------ | D.3 ATK (attack) **0D0300** | ------------------------------ ATK, attack, determines how much damage physical attacks will do, along with most special skills. Any time the "attack" command is used, this stat will determine the damage, regardless of the character type. The actual average damage is about 45% of the ATK stat. Thus, if you have an ATK stat of 1000, you can expect about 450 damage (ignoring defense). The ATK stat is used with most weapons to determine damage. Fist include SPD and bows include HIT. Guns are the only weapons that don't use ATK. Most special skills use ATK to determine damage as well, though some use INT instead. Weapon-specific skills use the stats that relate to the weapon itself. Most weapons (guns excluded), belts, and the super robo suit significantly increase a character's ATK. Gladiators also help, though by an insignificant amount. ------------------------------- | D.4 DEF (defense) **0D0400** | ------------------------------- DEF, defense, determines how much damage the character absorbs from physical attacks. It's based on 1/3 of this value. Thus, if the target has a DEF of 1000, roughly 333 less base HP will be lost (the 45% case means the actual damage is about 300 instead of 450, given an ATK of 1000.). Should DEF be significantly higher than the enemy's ATK, all of the damage is absorbed and no damage is done (causing a 0 to pop out and the target's life bar to not be enlarged). The sole exception to this is when the element-immune monsters are hit with that element and they have a lover. For example, if a dragon with a 25 dragon lover is hit with dragon nova or big bang, the dragon will be healed instead of taking 0 damage though that only applies if that dragon would've taken damage. Of course, DEF does nothing if the attack simply misses in the first place. DEF is raised primarily with armor, especially the super robo suit. The SRS provides so much DEF that, when DEF-perfected, you can create a character that's otherwise invincible to physical attacks. All spears raise DEF considerably as well and all rank 40 weapons also raise DEF. However, DEF-perfecting an SRS is ill-advised as, even at level 200 without DEF-perfection (perfected toward INT for example), you'll have so much DEF at even just level 1000 that you're practically invincible outside a massive +3 combo or the like, let alone having 2 INT- or ATK-perfected SRSs. Some items, like belts, will actually lower DEF, but get these to floor 60 with even just quick boosting (no need to fill it with sentries) and that loss turns into a gain. ------------------------------------ | D.5 INT (intellegence) **0D0500** | ------------------------------------ INT, intellegence, determines how much damage magical attacks will do, along with some special skills. Any time magic is used, INT will influence the damage it will cause. The actual damage is about 45% of the INT stat. Thus, if you have an INT stat of 1000, you can expect about 450 damage (ignoring staff mastery, skill mastery, magic level, resistance, and, if applicable, elemental defense). Special skills like the white dragon's nirvana use INT to determine damage instead of ATK. INT is primarily boosted by staves, glasses, and the super robo suit. Because skill mastery, magic level, staff mastery, and elemental defense all factor in to boost damage, small changes in INT provide a huge overall effect on damage potential. No wonder why my most powerful wizard does 9-figure damage on pretty much everything (except those with the 50% magic defense (flowers and healers) and only if resistant to that element)! After all, 300+ million damage in a single hit without boosts is really out there and 8.45 billion damage in a single hit? That's another subject. ---------------------------------- | D.6 RES (resistance) **0D0600** | ---------------------------------- RES, resistance, determines how much damage the character absorbs from magic attacks and other special skills that use INT to determine damage. It's based on 1/3 of this value. Thus, if the target has a RES of 1000, roughly 333 less HP at the base will be lost from that hit (meaning 300 damage instead of 450 ignoring staff mastery, skill mastery, magic level, resistance, and, if applicable, elemental defense). If the RES stat is significantly higher than the enemy's INT, no damage is done. Like with DEF, the exception to this is when dragons have dragon lovers and get hit with tera fire where they get healed instead. The RES stat is also used to determine how much HP gets restored with healing magic and other such special skills. RES is primarily boosted by orbs. The rank 39 and 40 staves provide a fairly good boost on RES as well. One RES-perfected universal orb provides so much RES that it makes the character otherwise invincible to magic attacks. That character could also heal tens of millions of HP, best used when you target your own allies on a "disperse damage" effect to bulk-heal everyone. -------------------------------- | D.7 HIT (accuracy) **0D0700** | -------------------------------- HIT, accuracy, determines how likely a character will hit their target. Guns and bows use HIT to determine damage as well. The probability of hitting the target is based on HIT/SPD. If HIT is higher than the target's SPD, you are guaranteed to hit the target (unless an "evade" geo symbol is present and the target is affected by it). The sole exception to this is the baciel class - they are always guaranteed to hit, regardless of the target's SPD or its HIT. If attacking the enemy from the side, a 1.2x multiplier is added. Hit the enemy from behind and it's 1.4x instead. If HIT was 750 and the enemy's SPD was 1000, you'd have a 75% chance of hitting it from the front, 0.75*1.2 or 90% chance from the side, and 0.75*1.4 or 105% chance of hitting it from behind. The odds of hitting cap at 1% for the minimum from the front, 40% from the side, and 80% from behind. A low-HP male ninja has a 0% cap on all sides (not entirely certain on this) which makes SPD-perfected items for a low-HP male ninja a must as that ninja will become truly invincible as nothing, except the baciel class, will ever hit it. The game does mislead you with its showing of 99%, but any time HIT is greater than SPD, hitting is guaranteed unless an evade geo symbol is affecting the target. The rifle demons (baciel class) never miss, even if HIT was only 500 and the enemy was on enemy boost x12 with 400,000 SPD). HIT much beyond about 250,000 doesn't have much use (500,000 if dealing with an item god 2), except if a bow or gun is used since HIT is used to determine damage. HIT is primarily raised by glasses though the super robo suit does better. One HIT-perfected super robo suit is the perfect accessory for gun users. ----------------------------- | D.8 SPD (speed) **0D0800** | ----------------------------- SPD, speed, determines how likely a character will dodge an attack. HIT/SPD determines this probability. Fists use SPD to determine damage. Raising SPD is best done with fists (especially the ultimus) and the super robo suit. Shoes, like angel's sandals, and accelerators also work, but the super robo suit is far more effective, 2 1/2 times as effective as an accelerator. One SPD-perfected ultimus and 3 SPD-perfected super robo suits on an HP-critical male ninja with a 25-ninja lover makes that ninja impossible to hit, thus truly invincible (except to rifle demons). With speed at 18 million like this (ignoring coaches and the minusule boosts provided by leveling up), it'll take something with a HIT stat of around 26 million to even hit the ninja (and what in the game even has a HIT stat of 26 million anyway?). Only the baciel class can hit such a ninja. I don't know the exact formula for how ninjas provide speed boosts, but I'm guessing 50% with a 25 ninja lover given what I'm seeing with other such characters (it may be 45%). ------------------------- | D.9 Counter **0D0900** | ------------------------- Counter is the number of counterattacks, at the maximum, that character can do in a single turn. Using a special skill or attacking takes 1 counter away. Choosing "defend" takes 2 counters away. Using lift/throw or just simply moving doesn't use any counters. Only regular attacks can be countered, not special skills and when attacked, there's about a 90% chance of a counterattack occurring. For example, consider a character with a counter of 5, 1 for starting, 2 from having a fist, 1 for passing a bill in the fist item to increase the number of counters, and 1 for passing a bill for improving the character's counterattack. Let's say this character, with a crazy high defense in the midst of clone wars, attacks an enemy, defeating it (and leveling up), then ends his turn. Then, the enemies gather up and surround that character on all 4 sides missing or doing 0 damage without using special skills. Then, from there, each attack on that character will be countered, up to 4 counterattacks in total, each with a 90% chance of occurring. This makes characters with a high counter easy to level up with the clone wars trick. The most useful thing about counterattacks is getting weapon mastery up very quickly. When you have 2 characters with a 1900 armsmaster and really high counterattack ability (the maximum possible is 8) standing on invincibility or reverse damage attack each other, weapon mastery can be obtained insanely fast, not to mention the "Counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-..." appearing at the top of the screen and spanning so long that 2 screen widths are needed. In fact, 15 consecutive cases of "counter" appearing is the most possible. This is my top favorite part about Disgaea 2. There are 3 ways to improve counter attack. The first is to simply equip a fist. Doing this increases the number of counterattacks by 2. A legendary item can have up to 3 bills passed. This means up to 3 more counterattacks can be added. Only weapons can have counterattacks improved upon. The last method is passing the "improve counterattack" bill for the character itself. ---------------------------- | D.10 MV (move) **0D1000** | ---------------------------- MV, move, determines the maximum number of panels that character can move in one turn. A bug in the game can allow this to be doubled. For example, an "MV" of 5 means that character can only move 5 panels. Why only 3 at times? Characters have to go around obstacles such as enemies, geo symbols, specialists, standard obstables, or a cliff that's too high to jump up. If surrounded on all 4 sides, movement is impossible unless the obstructions are removed, picked up by another character, or the character has a natural ability to go through things such as the white dragon I frequently use to run to the dimension gate in the item world, the closest thing to a hyperdrive that Disgaea 2 very disappointingly doesn't have. There are 3 ways to increase movement. The first is to equip shoe-type equipment or accelerators. Except for angel's sandals, a very rare find to begin with, let alone legendary angel's sandals, all shoes add 1 to movement. Angel's sandals add 2. The accelerator adds a very nice 3. The second method is to increase any equipable item's movement ability by passing the related bill. The third method is passing the character's "improve movement" bill. With the weapon having all 3 such bills passed, and 3 legendary accelerators with all 3 movement bills passed, and the character's movement improved, that's a total of 22 extra panels on top of the character's base movement ability. For a white dragon, this means 27 panels in one turn which makes almost any dimension gate in range (I've still had very rare cases where, with 23, I need a tower lift of 3 characters just to get there as being 40+ panels away doesn't help). What's this double move glitch? Pretend a character has a move of 5 and moves 5 panels away from the base panel on the first turn, attacks, and the turn ends. After resuming, the character moves to the base panel, 5 panels away, comes back out again, then can move 5 more panels farther away into the distance from where the turn started. This is the double move glitch, of which, as hinted here, doubles your movement distance. Disgaea 1 also has it. Another glitch in the game involving movement is when enemies have movement-increasing equipment. For some strange reason, even though move may be 8, the enemy can only move 5. However, should that enemy get cloned (from the "clone" geo symbol), the movement of 8 does take effect and it works as expected. This bug is also present in Disgaea 1. ---------------------------- | D.11 JM (jump) **0D1100** | ---------------------------- JM, jump, determines the maximum elevation at which the character can climb across a single panel. If you move a character 1 panel and the height changes from 32 dm to 62 dm, you'll need a jump of 30 (sometimes 31) to get up that. With jump at 25, the character has a take a detour around that high point. Jump, annoyingly, cannot be used to jump over areas that have a height of 0. There are only 2 ways to increase jump. The first is simply equipping shoe-type equipment or the accelerator. Each higher step for shoes, starting from 5, adds 5 to jump. Falcon shoes, the 4th step, adds 20 to jump. Angel's sandals, the 5th and second-to-the-last step adds 25 and the accelerator adds 30. The second method is to increase an item's jumping ability. This bill adds 10 to jump each time it's passed. By filling a character up with nothing but angel's sandals or accelerators, these jumping improvement bills are pointless to pass as you'll have so much jumping ability that you'll be able to go anywhere, obstacles aside. Like with movement, an enemy with shoe-type equipment jumps as if it didn't have the shoe-type equipment unless cloned (of which only the clones get it). ------------------------------------ | D.12 Elemental defense **0D1200** | ------------------------------------ Elemental defense comes in 3 flavors and plays 2 roles. Fire is the element of heat and flames. Wind is the element of storms. Ice is the element of cold, though the game mixes it up between "ice" and "water". In some cases, it's called "ice", and in others, it's called "water". This is apparently an oversight glitch upon the conversion to water from Disgaea 1's ice-only references. The first role is reducing damage, by up to 90%, of certain elements. That is, if 3000 damage was to be taken from a big bang attack (a very useful fire-based fist skill), you'll only receive 300 damage with fire defense at 90 or higher (of course, geo symbols affecting the elements adjust this). The second role applies only to magic users. A red skull with a fire defense of 50% will do 50% more damage with fire spells. If fire defense was 99% instead, the maximum (it might be 100%, I can't tell), magic damage with fire spells is 99% stronger (nearly doubled). This means, instead of dealing 3000 damage, you could be dealing 5970. Weapon-based and character-based skills are not affected. Big bang, whether fire defense is -99 or 99, will always do the same. There is only 1 way to raise elemental defense. This involves gathering the elemental specialists, the firefighters, aeronauts, and cryophiles as seen on armor (check the armor shop repeatedly to find such specialists on demand). Unfortunately, you won't be able to get all 3 elements to 99% for most generics because the elemental specialists cap at 100 (unlike Disgaea 1) and they cannot be stacked. The sole exception to this is if that character has 0 for all elements. ---------------------------------- | D.13 Ailment defense **0D1300** | ---------------------------------- Ailment defense information seems to be strangely absent from Disgaea 2 - I can't find where this info is hidden at. Regardless, there are 5 total ailments in Disgaea 2 (and 1). Poison deals 20% damage every turn, much like standing on "damage 20%" or "ally damage 20%" and ending your turn on such a panel. Poison is very devistating so it's important to have a very high defense toward it. Deprived has 2 functions. The first is that it prevents the character from being able to level up. The second is that it also weakens the character, lowering the stats by about 20%. Think of it like a curse. Paralyze simply prevents movement. Even with espoir fixing it, that character cannot move until the next turn (unlike Disgaea 1). Movement is still possible, but only indirectly, such as through the use of special skills like spear storm. Sleep prevents the character from doing anything and, if that character gets hit with a damaging attack, a critical hit is guaranteed. The last ailment, amnesia, prevents the character from being able to use special skills. The use of "attack", "defend" and lift/throw are still possible. For a wizard, amnesia is devistating. If you use special skills a lot, like I do (since they have huge multipliers when mastery is high), amnesia spells trouble. I'm unsure how ailment defense works, but, as far as I can tell, the number is the resistance toward that ailment, the reduction in probability. If at 21 (from a 20 physchologist, for example), you have a 79% chance of getting hit with amnesia. The recovery rate seems to be far higher though. There is only 1 way to raise ailment defense. The ailment-prevention specialists raise the defense against the ailments: pharmacist (poison), medicine man (deprived), social worker (paralize), coffee maker (sleep), and psychologist (amnesia). ------------------------ | D.14 Level **0D1400** | ------------------------ Level is a standard in almost every RPG. Unlike most RPGs, level caps not at 99 or 255, but an incredibly high 9999. Level is increased by gaining experience (see below). Level affects 3 things. In Disgaea, it has its strongest effect is on the "etc" equipment (shoes, armor, belts, etc.) and monster weapons. Second, as levels increase, the character's baseline stats increase, a very tiny increase compared to equipment. Third, it affects stealing. The higher the level of the thief, the better the chance of stealing from an enemy (the HIT stat of a hand also plays a role though generally insignificant). As explained in section 2.1.4, level determines level points. From levels 1 to 100, you gain a level point for every level you gain. From levels 100 to 500, you gain a level point every 2 levels you gain. From 500 to 2000, it's a level point for every 5 levels and beyond 2000 means a level point every 10 levels. Each level point adds 0.0099001 to the multiplier, of which starts at 1. This means there's a total of 1398 level points - 99 from levels 1 to 100, 200 from levels 100 to 500, 300 from levels 500 to 2000, then 799 more from levels 2000 to 9999. This means the multiplier is potentially 14.841598 at level 9999, a fair amount greater than weapon mastery provides (that's 13.75). A related element is total levels, of which is only relevent from reincarnation. The number of total stored levels determines how much bonus you can distribute. This maxes at 186,000 where, beyond this, there's no point in storing any more total levels. At this point, you have earned the full 200 bonus (which, compared to equipment, is still very insignificant). Why is it 220 at the most? You get 10 more for reincarnating into a genius then 10 more by reincarnating into the same class and tier as before 10 times in a row (noted by the character jumping on the screen). ----------------------------------- | D.15 EXP (experience) **0D1500** | ----------------------------------- Experience is used solely to determine a character's level. The amount of experience needed, even for the same level, varies depending on the character. Some characters, like thieves or skulls, only need about 61 billion experience to max out. Most characters, like Adell, Rozalin, and rune knights, need 76 2/9 billion total for level 9999. Some characters, like the ninjas, need 91 1/2 billion total for level 9999. I've seen enemies with almost 137 billion total exp. Given this, there seems to be some sort of multiplier. 3 is the lowest and rare, 4 and 5 are fairly common, 6 is fairly rare, and 9 is a one-of-a-kind. This means level 1 needs either 9, 12, 15, 18, or 27 experience to reach level 2. Beyond there, I don't know that formula. For levels beyond 99, the amount of experience needed for a level up increases by about 505 at the base for each level up, maxing at about 15 1/4 million for the last level up. Level 99 is an odd ball though as it needs considerably more experience than it took to get to level 99 from 98, of which you won't see that amount again clear until you get to about 300. ----------------------- | D.16 Mana **0D1600** | ----------------------- Mana is like money, in a way. It is obtained by simply defeating enemies. Destroying geo symbols and opening chests also counts. Another method is through the use of mana potions. It is used at the dark assembly to pass bills like "stronger enemies", "improve movement", or "triple exp", or the bills to be able to create new types of characters. The biggest expense with mana, however, is reincarnating and creating new characters, especially the "genius" type. Everything else costs an otherwise insignificant amount of mana, especially late in the game when you're after perfecting items. One play of Cave of Ordeals 4, even without managers, gives so much mana that you can create several new genius type characters. Just one play! --------------------------- | D.17 Felonies **0D1700** | --------------------------- Because I haven't advanced the story in Disgaea 2 beyond chapter 1, I don't have access to felonies. Thus, this information is provided from what I've seen on YouTube comments and comments while streaming. Normally, you'd think of felonies as a really bad thing, obtained by robbing stores, attacking someone, or other such very bad behavior that results in going to prison for a long time. In Disgaea 2, they are obtained through various means, none of which illegal in the real world (thankfully). I think I recall one of them being where you have to get a 500 geo color chain hit (I've had 11,000, maxing the counter), others from having high stats (seeing the game's maximum stats (like the 40 million INT I've seen on 2 independent characters at once in the same battle even (Maladroit and Emily, soon to be Melissa, all for INT) or the rather crazy 53+ million HP my Adell has that glitches the hospital (of which thinks Adell only has 9 million - my dreadnaught will get over 100 million eventually))) is rather excessive). There are probably several others, but knowing 300, there must be a ton of objectives to accomplish to get them all. Felonies, as far as I know, have 2 benefits. The first is accelerating the amount of experienced gained upon leveling up. The second is that they reduce the prices of items in the shops. A few-hundred-turn round of clone wars with level 9999 clones or a few plays of Cave of Ordeal 4 can completely eliminate the money issue so that 60 million is dirt cheap, all without the need of brokers. As to how you obtain felonies, the dark court is involved, of which I've never seen (due to near-zero story progress). --------------------------------- | D.18 Weapon mastery **0D1800** | --------------------------------- Weapon mastery is the mastery of a given weapon, of which only applies to human-type characters. It consists of 2 parts actually, the level, and experience. For levels 0 through 19, the amount of experience needed for that weapon increases by 100 to up to 2000. This means, at mastery level 16, you'll need 1700 experience. For levels 19 and beyond, the amount is always 2000 experience. Weapon mastery level maxes at 255. Each time the weapon mastery level goes up 1 level, 0.05 is added to the multiplier. At a mastery of 10, the multiplier is 1.5x. At the maximum of 255, it's 13.75x. Weapon mastery is best obtained in one of 3 ways. The first is endlessly attacking an "invincibility" or "reverse damage" geo symbol, best when on an "attack+2" (or the related) panel. The second is similar to the first but more limiting though faster. Upon creating a new character or reincarnating, playing Cave of Ordeal 1 or looking for a map with "attacks+3" will greatly accelerate mastery of anything, but you need to be as weak as absolutely possible without leveling up that character's students either. This will minimize damage and allow you to keep at it for a long time. The third method is through long counterattack chains. Get some weapons that are optimized for a high number of counterattacks (pass all 3 such bills), find a map with invincibility or reverse damage present with 2 adjacent panels with these effects then have the 2 high-counter-attack characters attack each other. All methods are best done with a 1900 armsmaster (on both characters for the third case). ------------------------------------- | D.19 Weapon proficiency **0D1900** | ------------------------------------- Hidden from the player and only hinted at in skill mastery growth (not magic) is weapon proficiency. The game only tells you E, D, C, B, A, and S, but there's actually a value from like 3 at the low end to 30 at the high end. This value only determines how much experience that character will get toward weapon mastery when using such a weapon. Skill mastery is based off this, multiplied by the power of the mentor present. That is, if a character has a B for mastery, with 16 for the proficiency, you'll gain 16 experience (320 with a 1900 armsmaster) toward weapon mastery and 16 (64 with a 300 mentor) toward the weapon's skill mastery. Even with 3 for the score, it's still possible to get 255 weapon mastery - it just takes an incredibly long time to do and maxing skills is another subject. ___ ____ ____ _____ ___ _ ____ _____ _ _ _____ / _ \ | _ \ | _ \ | ___| | \ | | | _ \ |_ _| | \ / | | ___| | |_| | | |_| | | |_| | | |__ | |\ \ | | | | | | | | \ \/ / | |__ | _ | | __/ | __/ | __| | | \ \ | | | | | | | | > < | __| | | | | | | | | | |___ | | \ \| | | |_| | _| |_ / /\ \ | |___ |_| |_| |_| |_| |_____| |_| \___| |____/ |_____| |_/ \_| |_____| ############################################# #### #### # E Appendix E: List of perfected values **0E0000** # #### #### ############################################# This appendix lists what the perfected values are for each base value, for those I have recommendations for. It seems that 1500, 5400, 6000, and 4650 are the most common for an item's base stats. To find what the perfected value is for a given stat, refer to this chart, comparing the base values (what the item starts with at level 0 before specialists and as a legendary item) with the perfected values. I have listed them in order from highest to lowest. Anything below 1500 for the base is not recommended for true-perfecting. Near-perfection and quick boosting are the only things I recommend for these lower values (near-perfecting not recommended for values below 300, though quick boosting recommended at any time, even with rank 1 items first thing in the game). +--------+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+ | Base | Perfected* | Item(s) that have this | +--------+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+ | 30,000 | 1,754,491* | elixir, sundae | | 13,500 | 794,965* | elixir | | 12,000 | 707,735 | cosmos muscle | | 7800 | 463,491 | apocalpyse | | 6300 | 376,261* | super robo suit | | 6000 | 358,815 | yoshitsuna, babylon crown | | 5400 | 323,923 | several rank 40 items | | 4650 | 280,308 | lovely cupid, etoile | | 3000 | 184,354* | Multiple high rank items | | 2400 | 149,463 | universal orb | | 2250 | 140,470 | multiple items | | 2100 | 132,017* | drill emperor | | 1500 | 97,125 | super robo suit, multiple other items | +--------+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+ Table footnotes: * Because I haven't perfected items with values marked with the asterisk, and since I don't know the formula for how specialists and the "more [stat] growth" bills affect items, I can only estimate these using simple ratios. In the estimate, I'm assuming that the "more [stat] growth" bills have the same effect regardless of the stat's base value, and assuming that specialists provide only 9698 to a given stat (200 extra from the item level, giving 9898). The 9898 comes from using the known values and solving a pair of equations then taking the average of these. Thus, the stated value should be within about 10 for the most part. Thus, there is some uncertainty on the ones place so it may be off and the tens place slightly off (usually by 1, rarely 2).