Phantom Brave "Divine Sword Hunter" FAQ [Version 1.0] ____________ |Legal Stuff \ |_____________\_______________________________________________________________ \ Before we begin... This FAQ is Copyright 2004 CrimsonKnight (Michael Gelshion). You may only use this faq for personal use. Any attempt to copy, re-post, or sell this document without permission will result in your paying a hefty fine as defined under Title 17 Chapter 5 Section 506(d) of US Copyright Law. As of right now, only GameFAQs has permission to display this FAQ. However, if you would also like to post this FAQ(unedited) on your site, and without the risk of breaking the law, send me an email at Nevalis10000|a|hotmail.com. Simply ask, and most likely I will be happy to help. Also, all references, characters, and names in Phantom Brave are Copyright by Nippon Ichi Software (NIS). __________________ |Table of Contents \ |___________________\_________________________________________________________ \ I. Introduction II. The Divine Sword III. Dungeon Creation IV. Character Preparations V. Dungeon Crawling VI. Credits VII. Contact Information VIII. Version History ________________ |I. Introduction \ |_________________\___________________________________________________________ \ Ah, Phantom Brave. If you're reading this FAQ, then I don't need to indulge you on the seemingly endless character and item customization this game brings to the table. Of course most of the silly trinkets the game considers weapons do not satisfy, and hence you're here to seek the ultimate weapon; the coveted Divine Sword. Before you continue, be aware of this fact. Getting the Divine can be a long and boring process filled with disappointment and anger. It personally took me at least 12 hours of dungeon runs to finally acquire this item, but that's only a rough estimate. It could you take you longer or less depending on luck, mostly. I won't lie and herald the Divine Sword as the best weapon ever as this game allows any weapon to achieve a godly level of power. So, if you wish to have a powerful weapon, your time will be better spent fusing other weapons together. But, if you want the satisfaction of obtaining one of the rarest items in the Nippon Ichi universe, while also having a very powerful and kickass looking weapon, then you've come to the right place. The goal if this FAQ is to provide you with the necessary dungeon and tools to fly through a 99 floor dungeon as quickly as possible, while also delivering vital information to make your quest slightly less irritating than it already is. _____________________ |II. The Divine Sword \ |______________________\______________________________________________________ \ The Divine Sword; its name conjures up thoughts of greatness, while its appearance confirms it. Those who have played Disgaea before will recognize its design to be similar to the ultimate weapon of that game, the Yoshitsuna. However, lets not waste time with mere descriptions. Here are the base stats of the sword: Item Rank: 16 Guard: 50 Steal: 100 | Stat Increase | Confine Ability (%) | Equip Ability (%) | HP : | 100 | 20% | 70% | ATK: | 75 | 50% | 130% | DEF: | 50 | 30% | 80% | INT: | 60 | 20% | 60% | RES: | 40 | 20% | 60% | SPD: | 40 | 40% | 70% | Skills: Angle Slash Burst Aura Blade Chi Chopper Dimension Slash As far as skills go, Dimension slash is very nice, but you can get that skill from the Legend title, which is much easier to find than one of these. The other skills aren't bad, but they are simply icing on the cake. This weapon easily has the best stat growth, confine, and equip abilities compared to anything else. The confine ability percentage, though impressive, seems like a waste since wielding the weapon would be more beneficial. I guess it's nice knowing that if you must confine someone to it, he will receive some nice bonuses. Now, I'd like to divert your attention from the flawless stats to the two key numbers that make this weapon so tough to get; those being the Item Rank and the sword's steal rate. The steal rate will be discussed in further detail later on, though I'll simply state it makes it a pain to swipe. I'm pretty sure you are aware how 16 is the highest an Item Rank can go, and if you didn't know, now you do. In fact, this rank is reserved exclusively for the Divine Sword, how lovely...What this means is there is only one way to even have a chance at getting this item to appear, and this is by traversing through a 99 floor dungeon without leaving once. If going down a dungeon was all that was required, this would be a very easy item to get. However, it is a bit more complicated than that, and this is when probability kicks you in the groin. Assuming you've reached the 99th floor without leaving, the only time the final floor will spawn a Divine Sword is when there is a boss on the level. Of course, there are 7 possible final floor scenarios; only three of which contain a boss. So, without even including the Divine Sword, you are investing time just for a 43% chance for encountering a boss. Say you go down the dungeon in one shot, and manage to get a boss battle, now the game will equip that boss with a random item ranging from rank 10-16. If the game weighed each rank equally when choosing, you would only have an overall chance of 6% to get a boss battle with the Divine Sword. However, through personal experience and other players' experiences, it seems that rank 16 has a better chance to appear than the other ranks. My guess is that you realistically have a 15-20% chance of getting a boss with the Divine Sword, but this has no supporting evidence; it's just a personal opinion. Regardless, the odds are against you. ______________________ |III. Dungeon Creation \ |_______________________\_____________________________________________________ \ This section is dedicated to help you create the ideal dungeon to crawl through. I mean, descending down all 99 floors in a single sitting is very tedius, so you should try to take advantage of as many shortcuts as you can. Be aware that for each second it takes to finish each floor it's going to take 1.65 minutes longer to finish the dungeon. Anyhow, these simple steps should generate a dungeon that will almost maximize dungeon running efficiency. 1. Create a new dungeon monk. Don't bother investing any experience points in him. You just need a character that can create the lowest possible starting level dungeons. 2. Choose "Create a dungeon". If the max floor isn't 80+, then repeat this step until you get a dungeon that does. Once it meets the first requirement, make sure it has ALL of the following sub-requirements except 2d. If the dungeon doesn't meet any one of these, continue with dungeon creation. 2a. Now check to make sure the starting level is low. With a level 1 dungeon monk, the starting level should be under 30, usually under level 10. You could try for a higher starting level dungeon, but it only makes the divine sword harder to steal. 2b. After checking that, make sure the area size is "Small" and there are "few" enemies. 2c. Finally, be sure there are no restrictions what- soever. It's just a hassle to not have a weapon sometimes, especially on random battle floors, and the final floor. 2d. (Optional) If you really want, you can see if the floors have a certain trait such as slippery, bouncy, etc. Personally, I feel abnormal floor conditions are a nuisance for speed runs, though you are free to use a floor condition if it suits your style. 3. Having created a dungeon that contains these qualities, it would be a good idea to save your game. 4. Now go into the dungeon, and see how many enemies are there. If there is more than one, destroy the dungeon, and repeat step 2. Now you might be asking why after going through all the trouble of creating it, and the answer is this. With only one monster in non-random battle levels, it will literally take seconds to big bang it to move on. Also, there is a chance no monsters will appear at all, which is always nice for a divine sword hunter. Anyhow, if the dungeon checks out, reset your game, so the dungeon doesn't think you're trying to "leave". ( NOTE: If you only have one enemy per floor, there is a slight chance that in the event of getting a boss battle on the last floor, there will be no one there. So, if you want to play it safe, you could opt to have two monsters per floor.) 5. After you spawn a dungeon that has the following: -At least 80 floors -Small area -Few enemies -A normal floor has only 1-2 enemies You are ready to apply a title. 5a. If the starting level is around 10, applying a level 4-7 rank title should bring it above the minimum level 19 mark. You can tell the rank of a title by taking its experience or bonus % and dividing it by 5, then add 1. For example, the Legend title has a 30% bonus, so dividing it by 5 gives you 6, then adding 1 gives you 7. Hence, it is a rank 7 title. The reason you need the starting level to be at least 19 is because the level of enemies on the final floor have to be at least 200 for the divine sword to even have a chance to appear. The formula for calculating the level of enemies on each floor will be explained shortly, but just trust me that 19 is the minimum level. 5b. While making sure your starting level is at or above the minimum, you'll also need to ensure that your dungeon will have 99 floors once you apply the title. If it doesn't, you would have to add another title, and that may increase the starting level further, which is something that you shouldn't have to do. A rank 7 title will add 21 floors to a dungeon, so your dungeon should be in the clear. Of course if the dungeon originally had 90+ floors, you can apply lower ranking titles, so long as the starting level is above 19. What I suggest is adding a title that sounds cool, so you can use it on a character/weapon afterwards. ___________________________ |IV. Character Preparations \ |____________________________\________________________________________________ \ Even if you have the perfect dungeon to use, it is worthless without a solid team to explore it, or rather, run through it. This section will inform you on the bare minimums needed as far as number of characters, levels, weapons, etc. Naturally, let your own preferences take priority, but if you want advice on how to save time and effort building a small but effective team, then read on. First off, it would be wise to have Ash above 600, though being around 800 is probably better. Even though the vast majority of enemies won't even come close to that level, a few enemies do. For this reason, you should make sure that Ash is capable of handling such enemies. A powerful weapon will lessen the need for such levels, but the levels still serve a good purpose of lowering the chance that the enemy can steal from you. As for Marona, I would say her being at least half the level of Ash will work. However, if you want to save even more time, you can ignore her level. I only suggest this, so she won't be killed off so easily by some of the stronger enemies. If you are confident that your strategies will keep her in the clear, then there is no reason to dedicate time to level her up. The last two characters that are essential to the "Divine Hunter" Team are two bottle mails. One will be appointed the task as stealer; the other the obtainer. Of course, you'll need to make sure they are the proper levels to steal and obtain the Divine Sword as it would be a shame to do all that work and only have a 1% chance to get the sword. It has happened to me, and needless to say, I was pissed. (NOTE: You could get away with not using a stealer bottle mail if you choose to use hurricane slash to disarm the sword. The risk here is you may accidentally destroy the weapon and/or the boss in the process. For that reason, I prefer just to train a stealer to eliminate that risk altogether.) Before I explain what levels the bottle mails need to be, lets first take a look at how you can determine the approximate enemy levels on a specific dungeon floor. As you are probably aware, as you progress further down the dungeon, the enemies will become stronger. However, their strength is not increased randomly; it follows this basic formula that is defined in the Official Strategy Guide: [(1+(floor # - 1) * .1) * starting enemy level] For the most part, the only floor you will be interested in is the 99th floor, considering there's where all the action really takes place. Therefore, to simplify this equation, use this formula to determine the level of enemies on the final floor: [10.8 * starting enemy level] If you were skeptical about my saying that the starting enemy level has to be at least 19, here is where you can prove me wrong. However, if you plug that into the equation, the final floor will have enemies with a rough level of 205; just barely making the cut. If the starting level was 18, enemies will only be around level 194, which is close, but not enough. Now that you know what your approximate enemy level is for the final floor, it's time to train your bottle mails, right? No. If you remember, the Divine Sword can only spawn on a Boss, and that boss's level is mutliplied by one of two numbers; 2 or 2.5 So if the starting level was 19, it's true that enemies will be around level 205, but the boss could be anywhere from level 410 to 513, which is quite a difference. The reason why this level is so important is it factors heavily into the stealing/obtaining equation, which I have conveniently provided for you here, courtesy of the Strategy Guide. The formula is as followed: [(char_steal/10)*(10+char_lev) - (enemy_steal)/10*(10+enemy_lev)+40] Though since the target is an enemy, you would subtract 10 from the results. The formula for obtaining an item after confining it is the same, except I don't think you reduce the success percentage by 10. Though, when in doubt, assume it does. I'll now present a short example to give you a better idea on how this all works. Say you make it to the bottom floor, a boss has loading, and he has the Divine Sword! OMG! But then you see the boss's level is 973. So lets find out what level bottle mail you would need to claim this prize: I will assume the following: -The title on the dungeon is giving the boss around +30 to steal, which should bring it to approximately 50. -Your bottle mail only has its base steal of 70. Now it's time for some algebra. I can hear your cheerful glees. Anyhow, by plugging in all known values, this is what you get: [(7)*(10+x) - (5)*(10+973) + 40 = 110] (The chance needs to be 110 since stealing from an enemy naturally reduces success by 10) However, to make things easier for you x, meaning char_lev, would need to be at least 702 to just take the Divine Sword from the boss. Of course, obtaining it is another story. For that we have: [(7)*(10+x) - (10)*(10+973) + 40 = 100] Now you see why the Divine Sword's steal rate of 100 makes it quite difficult to get. Unfortunately for you, the minimum bottle mail level needed to obtain this example's sword is 1402. Luckily, by applying a title on the bottle mail to bring its steal to 100, the level requirement is reduced to around level 979, which is a vast improvement. So in conclusion, I cannot say what level your bottle mails should be to have 100% success. You'll have to plug the numbers you have into the aforementioned formulas to determine that yourself. But I will offer some last advice for your bottle mail levels. Whatever value you get for the minimum level, make sure your bottle mails are 10-30 levels above it. This is to ensure that your bottle mails will have a near 100% success rate in the case the boss's level is slightly above your expected calculations. After your main team has met the levels required or otherwise desired, you should then make sure your phantoms have the following skills: Level 99 Big Bang Level 99 Parting Gift Level XX Healing Steps (Max is preferred, but isn't necessary) Other useful but optional abilities are: Level XX Healing Birth Energy Saver (Applies primarily to Ash) Quick Attack To get big bang and parting gift to 99, just combine the phantom you want to learn it with prinnies, using that phantom's mana to purchase the skills prior to fusing. The levels will increase each time. (NOTE: I know the titlist and some other monsters have these skills at higher levels, but I'm just using prinnies as a convenient example.) (Another NOTE: You can make Big Bang and Parting Gift more powerful by applying titles to your phantoms that gives a decent boost to hp. The Meh!? and Atlantis titles are good choices as they provide 60% and 50% hp boosts respectively. However, a bottle mail's steal is more important than extra hps, so don't use hp enhancing titles unless they maintain a max steal for the bottle mail. As far as weapons are concerned, you'll want something that'll has decent speed and attack. Dark Weapons make a good choice, combined with the Empath title. The Victor title is ideal, but a pain to get since it requires you to have traversed further than 61 levels of a previous dungeon. In most cases Ash will be doing the majority of fighting, while the bottle mails will simply explode upon entering/leaving, so their weapons should focus on speed more than power. For Marona, I suggest equipping something for the sake of having an object to confine a phantom to in the situation where dungeon items are scarce or unreachable. A trolly isn't a bad choice since it provides a natural 30% speed confinement bonus. There is one last thing to do before you are actually ready to start the dungeon; and that is create a small legion of archers, though do not equip them. The reason behind this is during your travels, you will inevitably run into random battles that have 10-15 enemies. This is very annoying when you're trying to rush through. Therefore, these battles are finished more quickly by having a bunch of archers throw as many enemies off the field, minimizing the work Ash has to do. I suggest creating six archers. Ok, I lied before. The last thing you do after you've made the archers is to check your item inventory for space. You can only hold 120 items, and the only thing worse than having a 1% success rate for obtaining an item is having a full inventory, preventing you from claiming the sword. When clearing out your inventory, keep in mind that you will win many combo prizes as you complete the floors. While this number is random, assume that you'll pick up anywhere from 20-40 items in a dungeon run. Having room for 40 items is probably excessive, but it should remove any risk for running out of inventory space. ____________________ |V. Dungeon Crawling \ |_____________________\_______________________________________________________ \ Well, here you are. All preparations are complete, and you are now ready to actually attempt to find the Divine Sword. If you've been following the FAQ up until this point, then your strategy for each floor is simple. All you need to do is get an object close to the enemy, then confine Ash to it to for a pretty explosion, leaving nothing left. Of course it would be wise to keep Marona outside of the the blast radius. Don't forget that your objective is to get to floor 99 as fast as possible. Therefore, do not waste time searching for titles on the random items during your descent. You can if you want, but it will just slow you down. As mentioned earlier, you will usually encounter some random dungeon floors, some are easy, but most are just time wasters. Here are some that are rather annoying: "Bite the Dust" "Good Night" "Chance" "Cursed strike" "You" "Brigands" "Minor team" "Close Call" "Desperate" -The last three are VERY annoying as Minor Team and Desperate load 15 enemies, which could take a good minute to clear out the stage. Close Call is possibly the worst random battle you could get. Not only do you have to deal with 10 enemies, but they are also afflicted with the gamble status ailment, making your attacks miss quite often. This becomes a major problem when your phantoms run out of time. It is in this situation that archer team becomes invaluable as they can chuck the majority of the enemies out, minimizing the luck you'll need to finish this stage quickly. Anyhow, if you go as quickly as possible, and only have to deal with 8 or so random battle floors, it should take around 30-40 minutes to reach level 99. Now here's where you start praying. The three final floor battles that contain a boss are: "Join Forces" (Has a level multiplier of 2.0) "Beat the Boss!" (Has a level multiplier of 2.0) "Self-styled God" (Has a level multiplier of 2.5) If the final floor doesn't is not one of these three, or if the boss doesn't have the divine sword equipped, reset the game. Yes, I know you gained a lot of levels, and picked up some wicked titles along the way, but remember that you're trying to get a Divine Sword. By reseting, you can go through that simple single enemy dungeon again without the trouble of creating another dungeon. If you feel you MUST keep what you've picked up in a failed dungeon run, be prepared to waste time spawning a new dungeon with all the desirable characteristics mentioned earlier. Well, that about wraps this FAQ up. I hope it will aid you in your quest for this insanely rare prize. If it doesn't, refer to the Contact Information section to find out where you can send complaints. Anyway, good luck, and remember to have patience. Perseverance usually pays off. ____________ |VI. Credits \ |_____________\_______________________________________________________________ \ I'd like to thank Atlus for having faith in Nippon Ichi and bringing Disgaea to the U.S. If not for that, we may not even have this game. Of course I can't forget Nippon Ichi for creating this addictive game. Double Jump Books for writing a fantastic guide. CJayC for GameFAQs, and the following Phantom Brave Message Board users: -JungleJim -DJKC -Cacticus _________________________ |VII. Contact Information \ |__________________________\__________________________________________________ \ If you wish to make any comments, whether it be to complain, praise, correct, add to the FAQ, or perhaps use it on another site, send me an e-mail at Nevalis10000|a|hotmail.com. If for some reason that email doesn't go through, and you must send me your comments, you can use Nevalis10000|a|yahoo.com. However, I rarely check that account. ______________________ |VIII. Version History \ |_______________________\_____________________________________________________ \ [Version 1.0] -Basically converted posts from the Phantom Brave Message Board into a hopefully more readable and accessible format. -Changed the contents a bit based on feedback from Message Board.