Pokota
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Joined: 2/5/2014
Posts: 778
ais523 wrote:
Later in the game, against units with a lot of damage, combos are likely to be the better option (if you initiate a combo with 10 JP, and at least one other unit participates, you're doing at least 5× regular damage).
To my knowledge you'll only get one mythril weapon without trading so that's Marche (whose special perk is that he starts with the Soldier combo) and whichever Mythril Weapon you end up manipulating. Bear in mind that to participate you have to be in range for your combo skill - for example, Marche's requires that he be adjacent to the target, regardless of his current weapon. E: With that said,
  1. which single mythril weapon would best suit the route? If we were going magic-heavy a Mythril Staff grants combo to all races except Moogle (though you'd need access to Bishop to get it onto a Bangaa),
  2. apparently you can also get mythril weapons as town clan battle drops? I've never seen it happen and there's no way it'll speed up any% since you'd have to win an entire extra battle, but it might be worth considering for All Missions (if that can ever even happen... how long would that take?)
Adventures in Lua When did I get a vest?
Editor, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
It's not random, it's always a Mythril Sword. You can get more from random encounters but that seems like too much a waste of time, so I guess you'd just have to put a human in Soldier or bangaa in Warrior for a bit, which shouldn't be too hard. The thing about combos, though, is that as long as you have at least 1 helper and a bunch of JP, they do massive damage even if nobody else helps (and in fact, you'd want to stay restricted to 1 helper for animation length reasons). Also, only JP on the initiator matters, not on anyone else. If you have two units adjacent to an enemy with 10 JP each, they can each combo in turn and end up doing 10× the damage of a regular attack.
Pokota
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Joined: 2/5/2014
Posts: 778
Huh, for some reason I always thought it was random. I know at one point I had a Mythril Sabre...
Adventures in Lua When did I get a vest?
Player (242)
Joined: 5/12/2017
Posts: 31
Sorry for the inactivity. I've submitted my 2nd attempt. I replaced the Humans with Vieras this time. Almost every segment was improved, except for Totemas and final bosses, where I took longer due to lower levels. http://tasvideos.org/forum/t/19420 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvTbUXnGqpI The combo idea could be interesting, seeing how I have two Warriors that can benefit from the Mythril Sword. JP at the end game, however, is far from 10, so I don't know how well that would go. Edit: I recently considered using Aim: Vitals, which has a 5/101 chance of reducing enemy HP to 1. Unfortunately it doesn't work on bosses. Edit 2: By my calculations, Combo would make the final bosses slightly faster, but: a) at the cost of a much slower Materite Now (Totemas would use up JP, and the enemies start very far away from you), and much more menuing/re-equipping/AP watching b) only the Estreledge Bangaa really benefits from the 5x multiplier - everyone else does <30 damage due to their low levels c) it would be a one-time use, so only one of the final bosses (preferably Li-Grim, of course) would be faster Granted, it could potentially take Li-Grim from a ~8HKO to an easy 2HKO. I'm just not sure if it's worth all that extra time.
#6717 Interested in: GBA Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (any%) GBC Dragon Warrior III (Pachisi glitch - skipping Kandar 1 means Kandar 2 won't be triggered)
Pokota
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Joined: 2/5/2014
Posts: 778
(Time to necrobump) I'm starting research for my own personal run, trying to clear all 300 missions (for the first time ever). Anybody got (a link to) the plan for All Missions? I may as well use that as a general guide for my personal game. On the old subject of combos: Combos would be far more practical for All Missions, since you have more AP (and theoretically more levels) to work with, but without running random encounters I believe you're still limited to the Trade Goods mythril sword.
Adventures in Lua When did I get a vest?
Player (242)
Joined: 5/12/2017
Posts: 31
Will you be TASing this "all missions" run? I'm not aware of a route myself, but I've asked around on the RTA discord.
#6717 Interested in: GBA Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (any%) GBC Dragon Warrior III (Pachisi glitch - skipping Kandar 1 means Kandar 2 won't be triggered)
Pokota
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Joined: 2/5/2014
Posts: 778
Myself? No (I don't have the patience to TAS something to completion), but I could use the All Missions route for my personal game (replacing "luck maniplulation" with "spending realtime time" where appropriate - I don't need to recruit a Viera Assassin if I'm taking the time to get enough AP to make one from scratch) to make sure I manage the quest items correctly. I've screwed so many casual runs out of 100% by not correctly managing quests. I'm mostly asking since I don't want to have to do all the required pre-planning on my own if someone else has a better plan already.
Adventures in Lua When did I get a vest?
Editor, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
Avoiding screwing yourself out of a true 100% is very difficult (there are a lot of minor things you can do wrong that will cause you to lock yourself out of getting particular items and/or the abilities they teach, or certain Monster Bank entries). A few years ago I was working on a guide to this, but never finished it. If all you care about is a 300-mission completion, though (which is all that the speedruns care about), it's much easier to avoid a mistake. All you need to do for that is to avoid discarding important mission items; the basic issue is that there isn't much of a clue in the game as to which are important, and the capacity is somewhat limited, making it very easy to discard an important item by mistake. In case it helps, here's a guide to what can safely be discarded: Can be safely discarded, and will be easily reobtained lategame if you discard it: - Fire Sigil, Water Sigil, Wind Sigil, Earth Sigil - Magic Trophy, Fight Trophy (note: do not discard Sport Trophy) - Zodiac Ore, Mithril/Silvril (depending on translation), Materite, Leestone, Adamantite - Jerky, Gyshal Greens, Telaq Flower - Helje Key, Ancient Medal, Magic Cotton, Panther Hide, Encyclopedia, Rabbit's Tail Can be safely discarded, but will be more difficult to replace if you do: - Badge (note: this must be "Badge" alone, do not discard other items with "Badge" in their name) - Mind Ceffyl, Body Ceffyl, Spiritstone - Magic Cloth, Cyril Ice, Magic Vellum Discarding any other mission item will lock you out of a full complement of that item permanently, and this has a high chance of permanently locking out some mission or other as a consequence. As far as I know, there's no intended way to lock yourself out of any mission unless you discard mission items. (There are online rumours that there's a glitch that permanently locks out "Free Bervenia!", but they differ in the details of what triggers the glitch, and as far as I know there's no confirmation that it actually exists. If you want to make sure, purchase and complete the mission as soon as it becomes available, making sure that you do not lose the resulting battle; this avoids every rumoured trigger for the glitch. There are comparable rumours related to "Left Behind"; the recommended way to avoid any issue here is to save before accepting it, to make sure that it's the only mission in the mission list when accepting it, and to complete its entire plotline before saving again. The plotline ends when you recruit a special character.) There is also a mission called "Memories", which you're unlikely to come across at all (it's hard to get it to come up if you don't know what you're doing). This isn't a real mission, but rather unsets the "game complete" flag upon being accepted. If you do see it, I recommend not saving while the mission is accepted (if you accept it and then re-complete the game, the game simply just resets to your previous save file). Also note that the "reserve missions" are intended to only be completable with the help of multiplayer. There is a 1 in 4 chance for any given save file that the reserve missions can be completed without trading; otherwise, you'll be stuck with some uncompleted missions as a consequence. These do not count as part of the 300-mission total, so won't lock you out of an all-missions completion.