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Pretty awesome so far. Gy-Laguiah looked especially good (and really fast). Juza, a bit less so. Rika even missed with an attack - not sure if that cost any time or not, of course, it just looks weird. I guess you'll probably be doing that part again anyway because you need fewer dimates. Two questions: 1) Are you sure it's faster to get that Wave-Shot? It seems like it's probably a good idea based on how much Demi contributes in the fight, I was actually more suspicious about the Wave-Shot in the previous run than this one, but just wondering if you tried it both ways. 2) Do you need dimates at all? Suppose instead of three dimates, you have Gryz take a hit and die, Chaz take a hit and die, Rune take a hit and live, Rika take a hit and live, Demi use Medic Pw, Gryz take a hit and die again, and maybe have Rika use Res once or twice to get Rune able to take one more hit. It could skip the trip and maybe be faster due to fewer healing actions (although Medic Pw takes a little longer to animate than dimate).
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in chronological order - I redid the run and bought only 3 dimates - I saved nearly 800 frames with Juza by keeping Alys alive instead on Hahn AND by not missing a hit - I need the wave shot, if not for attack then for its resale value - AS for the healing : I guess I would need to test it.
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IIRC, Medic Pw would revive everyone who's dead, so that'd bring back Chaz as well, so that's another free hit because he needs to be dead at the end of the fight.
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http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1322002901/Phantasy%20Star%20IV%20%284%29%20%5B%21%5D.gmv damn. I DON'T need dimates. Which means I don't need this extra telepipe. as for the weapon : it has the potential to do 80 damage. It's a must keep; the other weapon bearly does 30 damage to Zio
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Okay, I ran some numbers for you. Typically, Tsu with Shadwblade on a level 4 Chaz does about 450 damage, and Chaz has enough TP for three uses, so that's about 1350 damage. When you fight The Profound Darkness, Raja can refresh that three times with Ataraxia, for an average total of 5400 damage. Thing is, in the current run, Chaz's total damage output in that fight is around 8200, so unless you plan to abandon the Shadwblade during that fight, you need some other way to make up the damage gap. I think FreshFeeling's suggestion about yoinking Hahn's MahlayDggr would be the best way to do that. It would give Raja something to do as well.
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if I remember one of my FAQs, I think only Hahn can do anything with the dagger... What about the eclipse torch or laco-rod? would it be worth it? Getting Raja would be a good idea too; since rika, rune and Wren would get higher since Chaz doesn't level up, maybe he (and the others) would be at higher levels. but would he be more useful than demi? her medical power can resurect after megid in a single round...
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That is awesome that you don't need dimates. This run is going to be pretty radically different from the current one! As you suspect, Hahn, Gryz, Demi, Raja and Kyra will rejoin at higher levels if Chaz is dead. Anyone you have already met who is outside your party basically gains experience equal to the amount gained by the surviving members of the party. I'd guess the endgame partners will have roughly the same amount of addtional levels as Rune has (compared to your previous run). You can get the ram offsets for everyone's experience from that lua script. Basically Chaz's experience is 00FFF50A through 00FFF50D (4 bytes), Alys' is 00FFF58A through 00FFF58D, Hahn's is 00FFF60A through 00FFF60D, and you keep adding 80 to go through each character. You could set up a ram watch for this if it becomes important. The rest of this post is endgame stuff: Only Hahn can equip the Mahlaydggr, but anyone can use it for an itemcast. Laco-Rod and Eclpstorch do useful holy damage but their base power is pretty low. Laco-Rod will only do maybe ~48 damage to a vulnerable enemy, and Eclpstorch marginally more at ~72. You lose the Eclpstorch automatically when you get the Hydrofoil but it might be useful for DF2. Mahlaydggr's itemcast is something like ~160 damage to the endboss. Chaz can do more than that with the Elsydeon and a regular attack, even at level 4... but he loses his 255 mental Tsu thing without the Shadwblade. Of course if you were planning to use Chaz with the Elsydeon at the end of the game you might as well let him survive De-Vars and/or Sa-Lews and collect some exp. He should be able to gain a few Crosscuts from just that one battle. Strategy 1 - Elsydeon: ~200 damage per turn, maybe a few crosscuts for ~360 each (these numbers will be higher if Chaz gains some levels) Strategy 2 - Shadwblade: ~450 damage per turn for three turns (times at least three if Ataraxia is used), followed by ~160 damage per turn if Mahlaydggr is available I'm not sure which is better right now. The second strategy will do more damage faster, but you need to unequip Shadwblade when you collect Elsydeon, you need to get the Mahlaydggr, and reviving after Megid will be slower. Demi might work better with the first strategy.
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You guys have calculated out where 255 Chaz is better than the other run, and worse. It seems like he stops being better right around Air Castle. My question is, is the amount of experience lost by not having Chaz fight bosses from Juza to Lashiec really insurmountable? Seems like you could just take a small detour and kill some LifeDeletrs or something and bulk Chaz up for the bosses afterwards - the first fight will gain him a significant amount of levels. (Or even just a Prophallus right before PD.)
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life deleters are at the vahal forteress. Which means I would have to get to Aiedo and to the forteress. It's quite a detour... speedrun is about speed. I don't think I will level up Chaz
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You can also get Wiredines and Arthropods to combine into Lifedeletrs at the Weapon Plant on Dezolis. Or would Holyword maybe work on Prophallus? If so, there's a real simple way to power up.
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Keep in mind that in the current run, Chaz is dead for the entire Lashiec fight. The fight will probably be about the same speed regardless. Actually, with this new strategy, the whole party will have slightly higher levels so it will probably be at least a little bit faster. Personally, I think janus is right and that any intentional levelling is going to be slower. He's done an awesome job with the in-battle manipulation and I think you'd need a few big fights to make any significant difference. However, if he DID want to level the party in general, or even just Chaz, the best plan would be to kill the Phantoms in the Elsydeon cave while Chaz is alone. They're 1000 exp a pop, they die to a single attack, and because Chaz is alone every single other character also gains 1000 exp. Lifedeletrs are worth a lot more (10000) but that'll be divided among survivors, they're harder to kill, and they're really far out of the way. Levelling could maybe be worthwhile if someone is really close to learning a big ability, like Rune learning Nafoi or something.
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I missed Solon's question. Prophallus is immune to all forms of status/instant death except the element shared by Explode, Crash and Negatis. He's partly resistant to that element and he has really high stats, so it may be statistically impossible for that to work. Not enough known about status effect calculations at this time. But yes, that would be pretty awesome.
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I suggested Prophallus because I thought it wasn't immune to instant death attacks, my bad.
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http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1346645225/Phantasy%20Star%20IV%20%284%29%20%5B%21%5D.gmv I admit that Chaz doing nothing for 2 rounds doesn't look good, but it's still 800 frames shorter than the preceding version (which is 10k frames less than the original one).
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http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/11360821/Phantasy%20Star%20IV%20%284%29%20%5B%21%5D.gmv now almost 13k frames shorter after DF I. I did take the napalm shot, hoping it will create more damage in the future... btw, I was able to reach 600 damage with tsu
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It's nice to see an improvement so soon. I thought about waiting to see the final product without watching any WIPs before that, but I might take a look at it sooner.
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Napalm Shot should mean slightly higher damage to everything except De-Vars. You don't want to use Flare against De-Vars so you'll probably want another weapon for Wren during that fight. Against Lashiec, Wren's normal attack with Napalm Shot will be stronger than Flare.
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janus wrote:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/11360821/Phantasy%20Star%20IV%20%284%29%20%5B%21%5D.gmv now almost 13k frames shorter after DF I. I did take the napalm shot, hoping it will create more damage in the future... btw, I was able to reach 600 damage with tsu
Wow, that's not the current WIP is it. That's actually a really old file isn't it. There's no shadowblade in that or anything. Or am I going crazy! Ah!
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http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/642710951/Phantasy%20Star%20IV%20%284%29%20%5B%21%5D.gmv Now 15k less frames. However, I need to redo it; I can make a macro with Chaz
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Something I'm not clear on; why do you enter Krup when you're on the way to Tonoe? If memory serves, you'll warp there anyway once Alys gets hit by the Black Wave after rescuing Demi, and that'll add it to your Ryuka list.
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if I don't formally enter it, it won't appear in the ryuka list. don't forget that ''normal'' playing would make me enter the city
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I like how you managed the Lashiec fight and got Chaz to use his three shots of Tsu. But it does involve him being brought back to life with Rever twice. Since Chaz was able to be alive during a Posession turn, his Reinforce turn, and another Posession turn, that makes me think that it's possible to only revive Chaz once. However, I fully understand that this is probably slower since Lashiec only uses Reinforce when he's already quite weak. Good job on those last few fights! The planning seems well done. I guess the Eclpstorch didn't help at all for DF2, but it doesn't seem like you really needed it for damage.
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Since Chaz was able to be alive during a Posession turn, his Reinforce turn, and another Posession turn, that makes me think that it's possible to only revive Chaz once.
actually no. don't forget that lashiec casts his thunder attack every second round and chaz can't survive it.
However, I fully understand that this is probably slower since Lashiec only uses Reinforce when he's already quite weak.
no again. I gained frames at every fight including lashiec http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/74371752/Phantasy%20Star%20IV%20%284%29%20%5B%21%5D.gmv i saved another 2,5k for darf force 3. now 18,5k less frames
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