Lucentile

Brynn is Bellamy's sister and a Ranger with access to her NPC specific CC and defensive spells. I'm building her as an elemental archer with CC spells and a ranger pet. I didn't learn until after picking her skills though that her spells scale off her INT, not her WIS or CHA, as you might think, since her INT starts at 10. It's a weird choice, but whatever. We finish rescuing her, do her sidequest and make our way to a creepy temple. The boss fight with Jessia can be cheesed in one of two ways: Have Brynn tank and murder since she's invincible or have Hommet land Hold Monster. 00:00 Start (Setting up Hommet) 04:30 Gilded Eye Dungeon's Dungeon 24:20 Boss: Jessia 28:20 Finishing Dungeon (Solasta Talk) 38:00 Equipping and Leveling Brynn (and others) 1:09:50 Finding Guildmates 1:31:10 Inexplicable Zombies and Fish 1:36:40 Brynn's Sidequest 2:12:40 Succubus Boss Fight 2:24:00 To Soronil, End of Session at Temple of Ghaundadaur

There's some cheese here. There's a sequence where we're supposed to sneak Larethar through the enemy base... but at the end, we "must gather our party before leaving," so we fight through the enemies anyway. What a shame; it could have been an interesting sequence. Instead it's just like every other sequence. We knocked out these two personal quests, and we're kind of running out of interesting things to do. 00:00 "Start Recording" and Ashen Priest 01:15 Special Mode For Trapfinding/Icewind Dale Discussion 12:15 Anime and Manga Conversation 23:00 Solasta Conversation 27:00 Pitching "Playing at the World" 29:15 Ashen Priest Fight and Turn In 37:30 Illydia Level 8, Paying the Cleric Tax 42:54 Larethar's Quest: To Slums 50:32 Dragonblood Fort Floor 1 1:01:00 Realizing Larethar Can't Actually Sneak Into the Fort 1:22:25 Dragonblood Fort Floor 2: The Cheese Commences 1:29:30 Parthall Level 9 1:32:02 Completing Larethar's Quest 1:39:28 Meeting Soronil and Cutlass Basement/Sewers 2:06:00 Closing Out

We were a lot closer to the end of Maferil's Lyceum than I thought, so we had time to do another random mini-dungeon. This officially also takes us to the end of Act 1. We've learned our old guildmates maybe kinda, sorta, did make a deal with a demon. Woops. We then meet a weird wizard guy and clear his tent house of monsters. It feels like we did a lot more than we really did this time. I guess Larethar got to Level 8, and Parthall got a couple of stat books and a new cape. 00:00 Annoyed With Fire Trap 01:57 Try Two 03:00 Oh, Look, A Standard Light Puzzle (Larethar Level 8) 07:45 "Very Happy We Came All The Way Over Here" 08:50 Final "Puzzle" and Maferil 21:50 End of Act 1 Cutscene 26:33 Camp Talks and Luskan 43:10 Barleycakes' Tent House of Pests 57:10 Arrival at Ashen Priest's Tomb

We actually move the plot forward, but solely to try and get ourselves the ability to fill out more sidequests. There's not much more to say about general impressions. You'll notice from the fights that pathfinding is still an issue, and the fights are still difficult at times, but nothing as hard as that double wolf at the start. 0:00:00 Laerethar and Pack of Bears 0:05:45 Wine Keep 0:12:57 Illydia Level 6 0:14:50 Done Leveling, Back at Wine Keep 0:18:35 Laerthar Level 6 0:20:30 Return to Luskan and Rescue Soronil 0:44:15 Jarhild Level 6 0:48:37 Fights at the Slums 1:16:10 Clearing Poison In the Sewers 1:31:30 Hommet Level 6 1:34:30 Sewers Part 2 1:40:35 Parthall Level 7 1:42:08 Sewers Part 3 2:06:29 Larethar Level 7 and Session Clean Up

Here we are. At the end. We might upload more things for New Game+, but Jonus finally completed the game. So did I, doing the bad ending, and cheesing with just Denam in the end, just to show people how it's done. 00:00 Preparing for the Bad Ending! 01:32 The Tomb Below 14:39 Relics of the Past 30:18 Chamber of the Seals (Martym/Barbas) 46:40 Much Preparation 1:32:46 The Final Attempt 1:41:26 Knocking Dopple-Denam Off the Edge 1:42:10 Phase 2 1:52:02 Killing Blow to Ending

Well, we accidentally forgot to record Heim. I'm the worst. If you've played the game, you know what happens. We beat up Brantyn and learn the Dark Knights have an evil plan. Our pumpkins continue to save the day. 00:00 Explaining Modron Cores to Jonus 16:30 Hanging Gardens Start! 2:23:00 Andoras

The Dungeon Crawl mode works as intended! We can get XP for other people, so we bumped Jarhild up to Level 5. A fun fact: Bellamy is available here. We also got to see the power of Animate Dead. You can see how much different Normal vs. Hard is here; we coast through the entire dungeon on Normal. No time stamps. It's just a dungeon crawl. Bellamy gets to Level 4, picking up Charge and Action Surge. Jarhild gets Level 5 and picks up Extra Attack and Action Surge 2. Alright, wonderful. We'll explore Luskan next time.

The starter dungeon is longer than I expected. Anyway. Let's tackle some wolves and get to Level 4. Level 4 is a decent level for Parthall, thanks to capping WIS and grabbing a defensive cooldown. Illydia gets Hunter's Mark, and Laerthar gets Misty Step. Solid level all around; we also replace Bellamy with a wizard, Hommett, who packs Sleep, which is a life saver. I'll probably never bother to learn how to spell any of these people's names. The game still is solidly... average. 00:00 Losing More to Wolves 06:45 Back to the Merc Cave 21:45 Meet the Wizard Hommett 29:00 Further Into the Cave 33:15 More Wolf Attempts 44:48 The Successful Wolf Attempt 53:32 Return to Merc Cave 58:04 Deeper into Merc Cave 1:21:27 Level 4 Parthall 1:25:40 Goblin Boss 1:30:50 Level 4 Illydia and Laerthar 1:35:17 Cleaning Up and Shutting Down

It took us forever to get to the point to get our Lord. Lord on the Neutral route feels right, since so much other garbage happens on this route to make us sad. We also crash once and accidentally save the Princess, so we fight Lans so many times. 00:00 Training and Getting Things 1:34:20 Gates of Barnicia 2:01:35 Barbas! 2:37:43 So Many Lans Fights

We decide to abandon attempting the Palace of the Dead for now. It's a job for Post-game I guess, or at least, Post Barnicia when we have Lord Denam. No real party shake ups here. Only new things in this run should be Lord/Princess, getting guns, shamans (though I never use them) and Buccaneers. Anyway, here's the fights on the way to Barnicia. 13:20 Return to Lhazan Fortress 55:31 The Vanessan Way 1:21:55 Lambiss Hill 2:07:12 Tzorius Field (Andoras)

Just some wandering about, doing side quests. Also, Sherri the Terror Knight is terrifying. We made Rudlum a light aligned Rune Fencer in our quest to make everyone different. We also pick up Cerya and Ehlrig, with the plan to make Cerya a gunner. Note: Dezombifying people at Lhazan doesn't do anything. Lame. 16:00 Pirates Graveyard Run (Not for the Pirate!) 2:04:11 Madura Drift 2:26:44 Belmrose Highwilds 2:44:05 Vasque 3:10:21 Lhazan Fortress Part 1 3:28:40 Lhazan Fortress Part2 3:38:25 Bortegun Fens 3:57:51 Palace of the Dead Floor 1 4:28:26 Palace of the Dead Floor 2

Our main goal here is getting Olivya and Sherri. We skip the fight at Brigantys because, obviously, we don't want to fight them, so there's some big time skips. Olivya becomes a Knight for us, and Sherri is a Terror Knight for us. Next time: To Pirate's Graveyard and Palace of the Dead. 17:50 Bahanna Highlands 1:12:38 Mount Hedon 1:36:10 Sparing Sherri at Hagia Banhamuba

Chapter 3N's finale with Ozma is way easier than I remember it being. Either or, we've got progress. 47:45 Mount Monsters 1:24:30 Return to Rhime 2:01:15 Phidoch, Part 1 2:44:40 Phidoch, Part Ozma 4:49:50 To Port Omish

Here we head to a great end to Chapter 3N, clearing out some Necromancers and Xaebos. Our party is slowly getting more focused. Here's the timers. No major party changes here. 01:22 Chasing a Necromancer at Mount Hedon 16:30 Chasing a Necromancer at Hagia Banhamuba 30:04 Chasing a Necromancer at Ndamsa Fortress 1:12:04 Coritanae Keep, Part 1 1:41:50 Coritanae Keep, Part 2 2:10:00 Training Next time, we'll wrap up Chapter 3N, the most spiteful of routes, and make some progress in Chapter 4.

So, our first time through, we totally forgot about getting Harborym. Very sad. We're going to fully embrace no one (except Mirdyn) stays as what they started as from here on out. We're slowly pairing down our roster, including removing our fairy and lizardman and most of our starter generics. So, our current roster includes: Denam (Rune Fencer), Mirdyn (Fist White Knight), Voltare (Axe and Crossbow Warrior), Chamos (Spear Rune Fencer), Sara (Bow Valkyrie), Sisteena (Swordmaster), Canopus (Wizard), Dievold (Wizard), Oelias (Beast Tamer), Random Flying Cleric to help with Exorcisms until we finish Nybeth in 3N, Bayin (Dagger/Blow Gun Ninja), Phaestra (Double Ninja Sword melee Ninja), Arcyelle (Sword and Crossbow Dragoon), Hobyrim (Dagger and Bow Archer), Tamuz (Greataxe Berserker), Presence (Greatsword Terror Knight), Folcurt (Cleric, but gains all levels as Knight). Not much fancy with this video, just rescuing Harborym, or however it's spelled now, and getting the 3N generics to replace our existing team.

We're going down the worst path, Chapter 3N. Jonus is committing to Chapter 3C. Good for him. Chapter 3N opens with us getting Mildain early followed by the Nybeth siblings. Not sure why my sound is screwed up, again. It's like I can never get it working. 00:00 Catching Up 02:50 Almorica Part 1 20:45 Almorica Part 2 39:40 Opening of Chapter 3N 1:30:30 Boed Fortress (Save the Lady in Red) 2:03:55 Tynemouth Hill (Ganp) 2:26:30 Port Asyton (Save Oelias/Dievold) 2:52:00 Mindless Training Waiting for Jonus

I hate the new names. Berserker AoE is amazing. We're nearing the end of Chapter 2C, and I'm probably going to do 3N first. By the end of this, we've added Bayin (Ninja), Cistina (Swordmaster) Focult (Knight here, but we have swapped him to a Cleric during offline training), and a cockatrice. We've dropped Drew. Sorry Drew. But Canopus is just a better Wizard. We rely pretty heavily this time around on a flight contingent to save Bayin. If you're curious at what Jonus's playthrough looks like, check out here https://www.twitch.tv/jonusfalcon -- he doesn't save Bayin, so you can see some differences. 00:00 Let's Go! 04:21 Qadriga Fortress (Saving Bayin) 37:37 Ndamsa Fortress (Save Cistina) 56:40 Return to Golyat 1:28:53 The Arkhaiopolis of Rhime (Xapan) 1:38:50 End of Rhime and Equipping 1:55:54 Some Training

This is a pretty long video while Jonus clears Phorampa Wildwood, we play around with using dragons, and then go off to save Folcurt. Not much to add here. Some gearing up and boredom all around. Canopus remains The Best. In this case, he's the best Wizard Bird. But, dragons! 00:00 Jonus starts Phorampa (Look at the top left) 1:58:15 Testing Out Dragons 2:43:00 Fight It Out: Save Folcurt 3:15:30 Lots of Gearing Up

Brief comments and recommendations on: * The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton * Rhinoceros and Other Plays, by Eugene Ionesco * Record of Lodoss War: The Grey Witch, by Ryo Mizuno * Smart Machines: IBM's Watson and the Era of Cognitive Computing, John E. Kelly III and Steve Hamm Books for early 2023 * Ideas and Answers in Law, by Steven N. Gosney * Ancillary Justice, by Ann Lecke * Explore/Create, by Richard Garriott with David Fisher * Designing Virtual Worlds, by Richard Bartle

Let's play Tactics Ogre: Reborn, with Cleric Denam! I'm also super tempted to make Canopus a Wizard just to be different. Honestly though, without Spirit Surge on Clerics/Exorcists, Cleric Denam isn't striking me as super interesting, so we may make him a Wizard after all. I've always used Canopus as a one-hander/short bow user, so maybe I'll change that up. Well, after Nybeth. Because that'll be a slog. You can view Jonus's playthrough on his Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/jonusfalcon

We were going to get super far in Chapter 2. Then after defeating Vyce for the first time... there was an area to recruit a bunch of things. We picked up some cards between what we see here and some off recording recruiting. Total gains: Presence got +3 MP, Voltare got +1 DEX, and our new fairy got +1 VIT. 00:00 Let's Go! 06:30 Fight It Out: Lake Bordu! 59:03 Fight it Out: Tynemouth Hill (again) 1:21:25 It's A Dungeon

This takes us through the first part of Chapter 2C, where we pick up a Winged Friend, a Lizard Friend and an Octopus Friend. After this video, I did some training to shift Presence to be our Terror Knight since his Mind is significantly better than Minerva's, so he'll stick spell effects like Fear better, and w made Minerva a Fist berserker. We also did a lot of crafting and re-equipping, so we've got a variety of plus 1 gear to improve our movement and ranged damage. Anyway, time stamps below! (There's a cut in the middle where I stepped away to grab a delivery, because I was sick, and maybe dying. If there's not another upload, I either died or gave up.) If you're curious who Jonus is, he's the guy in the top left, and you can see his less interesting army that actually uses Clerics. 00:00 Let's Go! 08:45 Balmamusa Part 2 1:34:49 Port Asyton (Defeat Aloser!) 2:19:20 Rhea Boum Aqueduct (Attempt 1, Xapan) 2:39:30 Rhea Boum Aqueduct (Attempt 2, Xapan) 3:25:30 Xeod Moors (Save Aloser!) 3:47:33 Clean Up and Prep

We had to change Denam from a Cleric. Clerics are just... kind of useless until we get better spells. So, a Light Elemental Rune Fencer focusing on spells with Exorcism consumables is close enough to Battle Exorcist for our purposes. To keep our number of broken characters to a minimum, we've made Canopus a Wizard and Presence/Donnalto a Berserker after we defeat Nybeth. We did have to do a training battle to beat Nybeth. But, after that, all forward -- with Vice being a jerky jerk face and stabbing the winged guy we want to recruit. Our party now is: * Light Elemental Rune Fencer Denam with Sword/Shield * Wind Elemental Wizard Canopus with Dagger and mix of Air and Debuff spells. * Water Elemental Berserker Donnalto with Fists, who sometimes gets to do AoE attacks, my favorite being when he dealt ~200 damage to two targets, the single highest damage so far. * Wind Elemental Warrior Generic (Lefwyne) with Twohanded swords * Water Elemental Archer Generic (Clarimond) with two-handed bow * Wind Elemental Wizard Generic (Drew) with staff, air missile, dark missile, and debuff spells * Earth Elemental Knight Generif (Wynefreede) with Sword and Shield * Lightning Elemental Rune Fencer (Lowell) with Spear * Ice Elemental Beast Tamer (Emilie) with Hammer and one-handed bow In our unused pile: Voltare (Ice Knight), Sara (Earth Archer), and Generic Fire Berserker (Minerfa). We did recruit a random Air Generic in the last fight, but our plan was to strip and boot. I think I was planning to swap Voltare to a Beast Tamer with Bow/Hammer and Lobber skills, and I am waiting to turn Sara into a Ninja. This playthrough is slated to go Neutral first, so I may not invest much in Aloser in case she dips out on us.

Here it is. The stunning finale. Jade Passage purchasing to start, then back to the Castle. After the block puzzle, Akamanto brings back your need to avoid Instant Death, though this one you can cleanse if you don't want to do Effigy/Hope's Cross shenanigans. It does have Utsusemi, so be prepared to either chew through the dodge stacks or just hit it with magic. The Lava Salmon section is a bit hard to get the hang of, but once you do, it's not that tricky. Just swim and jump! After that, getting to the final boss isn't that hard. All my last long and prosper tactics fail here, as Astley decides to just start banishing folks. That means, you need to do damage, and do it hard and fast. Nomad AP magic is great for that, along with Beatmaster/Valkyrie combo and a Ninja with Rogue skills (use daggers or rapiers, whatever hurts the most). My Ninja ended up with the ring that makes you undead, because the bonus physical damage was huge. Summon to paralyze the Warrior to prevent Cover, and just pour on damage. You need to drop Astley before anyone gets banished, or at most, one. After that, clean up isn't that hard. But getting to the point you can nuke Astley... that's a pain. At about 2 hours we get to a build that wipes them... though I feel like with how often I used Bardbarian, I should have thought of it sooner. ---- Time Stamps --- 00:00 Let's Go! 08:00 Back to the Castle 10:35 Block Puzzle 29:00 "It's A Boss!" Akamanto 34:22 Salmon Lava Section 41:40 Bouncy Jumps 43:34 Throne Room and Rooftop Wandering 48:27 New World Stone Exploration and Prep 1:07:06 Astley! Lots of Learning to Do! Round 1: Fight! 1:10:22 Round 2! 1:13:48 Round 3! 1:18:04 Round 4... Through A Bunch! 1:38:26 Round Whatever: At Least Beating Astley 1:41:05 Finding More DPR 1:42:35 Round Whatever Plus: Astley and Chloe Down 1:46:35 Finding Even MORE DPR 1:47:44 And AGAIN and ... 2:00:00 Finding The Perfect Build and Final Pull 2:04:45 "There We Go!"

We've got the Golden Quintar, so, let's go to the Tree. Climbing the tree is much easier without having to swap around. The boss of the tree is all about surviving pressure and managing adds quickly. Keep some power AoE in reserve for each Raise Dead, and make sure whoever is tanking can survive the Shroomy Leer and Attack Combination. As always, hard CC and interrupts will prove helpful -- especially if you save them for right after the Raise Dead. Also: Keeping up DoTs on the boss will also help you to keep chipping away while dealing with adds. It's a long fight, so stay healthy and keep the MP flowing. Setting Nomad to Emikis's secondary helped me get out some more AoE to clear the fight, but you can probably think of better tricks. The spear the boss drops is great, and the tree's final treasure is useful to get BEFORE you suffer Quintar Breeding. As it is, I've got very little to use gold on save Class Armors from Jade Passage. For Parasite X, I fought it before in my earlier explorations, so I knew to slap on some Awake Rings, making this a very easy fight, so long as you also have good AoE to deal with the Funkers. By now, you should be keen to Neo Warden's AoE nonsense. He's got a smaller HP pool than the extra bosses you've faced, so you can probably just blind/CC through with the blink Summon as extra insurance without having to set up specifically to deal with the AoEs. If you've got a Rogue standard in your party (which you probably have someone who can Rogue by this point), he'll be a push over. We'll come back to deal with the block puzzle and the rest of the Castle soon. --- Time Stamps --- 00:00 Jade Cavern and Tree Prep 05:30 Fly to the Tree and Tree Wandering 19:00 Spirit Cage: Round 1 and Setting Up 33:05 Spirit Cage: Bout 2 41:19 "Ok." More Prep... 42:15 Spirit Cage: Battle 3 47:10 More Prep, Again 49:30 Spirit Cage: Battle 4, With More Nomads 56:56 So Close... More Prep 57:43 Spirit Cage: Battle 5: With More Ninja 1:07:00 Preppering 1:09:06 Spirit Cage: Battle 6: Beat Time? 1:23:20 Hooray. 1:26:00 Castle Wandering 1:34:34 Parasite X 1:38:12 More Castle Wandering 1:45:10 "Oh Look, It's a New Boss;" Neo Warden Fight 1:49:53 Most Castle Wandering