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Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby puzzled » Wed Jan 06, 2016 5:07 am

Played through the game twice, and the second time I beat it on Maniac with Rogue/Minister/Crusader/War Monk.

In my opinion, three characters are mandatory

1) Minister - the money he generates your team is amazing and cannot be overlooked. You get +1% of your party's gold on every victory, up to a maximum of 60 gold bonus (when you have 6000 or more gold). This may not seem like a lot, but it makes grinding incredibly effective. I ground on the slimes/dogs for about 2 hours at the beginning of the game and was able to purchase 3 x Nord Axe for my team (the one that costs 6999 gold), and this was before I attempted the first mission! These Axes lasted me completely until I got Legend class weapons. If you try to grind this kind of money without the Minister you would be spending probably ten times as much effort for no real gain; buying powerful equipment makes a HUGE difference in this game.

As an added bonus, the Minister also gives your team an exp bonus later on, and provides some small bonuses to your team with coaching. Since he can equip shields, he is also one of the last to fall in battle. For better or worse he cannot equip very good weapons himself; it's good because it saves your team even more money so you can focus the best stuff on others. I would equip him with a Death weapon (like the underworld staff) to allow him some effectiveness later in the game in attacking.

2) Crusader - (the physical paladin fighter guy). His Boss Smash lets him hit a boss 5 times. That is crazy! He also has a move that lets him attack 4 times at random. That is very useful for non-boss fights. Being able to equip anything in the game gives him extremely powerful passive defense and flexibility in using the best weapon you have at any time regardless if it's a spellbook or axe. He can also boost your entire team with Resistant which is an added bonus. The 2 x attack relic is overhyped in my opinion; the crusader's 4/5 hit moves make that thing look silly.

3) War Monk - he lives to complement the Crusader. Shards of the Earth guarantees fragile status on the enemy even if they are normally immune to it, which effectively doubles all physical damage you output from the Crusader. He can also guarantee the Weak status to give you a chance to survive the hardest hitting physical attacks. As an added bonus, he can cure a lot of weird status ailments at cheap mana cost, he can equip decently hard hitting stuff like the Nord Axe so he is a great fighter early in the game, and he has an instant death move to use on the annoying Horror Spiders towards the end of the game. While you can try to make him into a later game fighter with the double attack relic, it's a bit of waste since he spends a lot of time debuffing enemies for the Crusader anyways (or using healing items in the hardest fights). I would rather stick the God's Burden in his shield slot.

The 4th character is flexible; ultimately I regretted using the Rogue. Why? She's ok for the most part being very speedy and can equip good weapons like the Nord Axe, but her abilities are actually pretty bad overall (they are all single target, they try to inflict some status ailments but this is usually done better by the Monk, and they don't do good damage; her normal attack with a good weapon will outdistance even her level 43 ability!!!). Her counterattack is OK but overall very very so-so; not that many enemies will physically attack her.

Actually the real reason I regret using the Rogue is because I realized, when you get to a really hard fight like the very last one, you will regret not having someone who can guarantee the Idiotic status. The team I used did have one (Minister's Congress of Idiots), but he was the leader and as you know the leader is disabled in the very last fight. If you can't guarantee the Idiotic status on the last fight you will suffer a lot of defeats (at least I did), even with an amazing combo like War monk + crusader.

I still made it by, but it was partly luck and partly tons of equipping resistances to elements and trying to buff the party with Resistant and light/dark/elemental protection. With the Idiotic status, you give yourself huge breathing room by cutting the HUGE magic damage in half.

I haven't used the Pyro Witch at all yet, but she is one of the two characters who can cast Air Head that guarantees idiocy. The other one, the Air Archer, I don't think I would take with me on Maniac Mode; her damage output is incredibly poor and the free shots don't kill much on Manic Mode. She also lacks some sort of "kill this Horror Spider now!!" ability. The archer's air slaughter is a convenience for some nasty fights like in the Isendra tower but ultimately not hard to get by without. And the Pyro witch can equip a War Book to get pre-emptive, which is nice.

Overall I think the optimal combination again is Minister for incredible money (and you can toss him away without a glance at the last battle), Monk+Crusader for huge damage output, then the last slot should be an Air Head character to deal with mega magic damage at the end.
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Indinera » Wed Jan 06, 2016 5:56 am

Well I can say this is a very convincing approach to the game, and your team seems extremely capable, assuming you do ditch the Rogue for the Witch. That said, I wonder how adding the Commander to those 2 brilliant fighters would fare... doesn't seem half bad to me.
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby puzzled » Wed Jan 06, 2016 6:07 am

Indinera wrote:Well I can say this is a very convincing approach to the game, and your team seems extremely capable, assuming you do ditch the Rogue for the Witch. That said, I wonder how adding the Commander to those 2 brilliant fighters would fare... doesn't seem half bad to me.


This is a great observation but the thing that kills the Commander is no idiocy-inducing. You might be able to get away with no Idiocy if you have Walls of Jericho, maybe.
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Indinera » Wed Jan 06, 2016 8:47 am

but if minister does it?
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby puzzled » Wed Jan 06, 2016 11:19 pm

Minister is my leader though. It defeats the point if the crusader/monk/commander is leader for the last fight, since you lose the optimal "trio."

You don't really "need" idiotic status until the very last fight.
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Indinera » Thu Jan 07, 2016 10:10 am

air head is very good against most bosses to be honest, it gives security
but yeah, good pt about losing minister
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby puzzled » Fri Jan 08, 2016 3:38 am

Just redid the game on Maniac with Minister/Crusader/War Monk/Pyro Witch.

I think this is the optimal team. Having Air Head on Gemini (through Pyro Witch, since Minister was disabled) made it very simple. Also, the Pyro Witch has some very decent synergy with fighters: her "Fire Up" move gives your whole team "Strong" which is another 50% damage to your Crusader's output, and she can use "Infernal Assault" to make your whole team attack again as well (if she's not busy casting items or something else). On top of this, her Breeze of Victory and Clouds of Eternity give your team some extra "permanent" sustain.

Unfortunately on Maniac mode, her Giga Fireball doesn't one shot Horror Spiders, so I equipped her with a "death"-inducing staff to help against them on Gemini (it's not 100% guaranteed to work, but feels like 80% or so death rate on them when she whacks with the underworld staff).

I can't imagine a more optimal setup than this TBH. Although the Air Archer can learn Airhead (and also Clouds/Breeze), her lack of "Fire Up", "Infernal Assault", and also very important cannot wear a shield!! (witch is pretty tough with a solar shield) seems like a bad deal and she doesn't hit hard enough on Maniac mode.

Crusader/War Monk are for maximum damage and you need an Idiotic-guaranteed spell; I think the only one left besides the Minister's Congress move (which can't use on Gemini since minister gets disabled) is Air Head and of the only two characters that can learn Air Head, the Pyro Witch is by far the best on Maniac Mode.
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Indinera » Fri Jan 08, 2016 8:36 am

seems like u nailed it +::Thumbup

i wonder tho if another totally different combo could rival
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Tomas » Fri Jan 08, 2016 1:23 pm

This seems to be a pretty strong team.
And thinking how much time I coud've saved by recruiting the Minister when playing my game... +::grrr
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Cassiopeia » Fri Jan 08, 2016 1:45 pm

puzzled wrote: and also very important cannot wear a shield!!

She can wear the Tower Shield. But she's slow anyway, and the shield makes her even slower.
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Indinera » Fri Jan 08, 2016 3:34 pm

Tomas wrote:This seems to be a pretty strong team.
And thinking how much time I coud've saved by recruiting the Minister when playing my game... +::grrr


tons of weapons and armors can be found in dungeons if you know the game really well
in fact i wonder if a team that could rival that of puzzled wouldn't be one *without* the minister, since he is a bit of a dead weight during fights
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Indinera » Fri Jan 08, 2016 3:35 pm

Cassiopeia wrote:
puzzled wrote: and also very important cannot wear a shield!!

She can wear the Tower Shield. But she's slow anyway, and the shield makes her even slower.


at least she has good protection with that
in story/easy mode she is a destroyer lol

i really like what i achieved with this game, that a given mode's favorite isn't necessarily one in another mode 8)
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Tomas » Sun Jan 31, 2016 11:16 am

I couldn't resist starting over with the Minister/Crusader/War Monk/Pyro Witch combo.
With all the money Minister helps to earn and the expensive weapons I could afford due to this, this team is ridiculously strong. The Maniac Difficulty feels more like the Easy one. At least for now, I know it will be different later in the game.
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Re: Thoughts about Maniac Difficulty Team

Postby Indinera » Sun Jan 31, 2016 1:40 pm

Tomas wrote:I couldn't resist starting over with the Minister/Crusader/War Monk/Pyro Witch combo.
With all the money Minister helps to earn and the expensive weapons I could afford due to this, this team is ridiculously strong. The Maniac Difficulty feels more like the Easy one. At least for now, I know it will be different later in the game.


Yes when playing a game in its hardest modes, it's important to observe which parts are easier, which are harder...
TKH is designed in a "continent-area" way so basically there are 5 bits:
a) 1st island
b) part whose name escapes me (2 towns)
c) jericho (big place)
d) karkaris
e) damna-dara (final place)

assuming you never grind but just focus on progressing in the game, it would be interesting to see how they fare during each big step of the game :)
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