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Down the Original Tree in HD, B11-B12
Sep. 2nd, 2024 04:04 pmB1-B5 | B6-B10 | B11-B12 | B13-B15 | B16-B18 | B19-B20 | B21-B25 | Postgame 1 | Postgame 2
Five quests unlocked upon reaching B11. One again wanted me to take the farming party to mine on B10. Another wanted me to go there to kill some vermin. The latter required an Amber Lump. Easy enough to get given the encounter formation that had five Waspiors. So of course they wouldn't drop the first time. Once I got the goods (three in fact), I went to a room and fought some renamed Venomflies. They died in one round each. Former was pretty bland.
Another involved finding the treasure of a so-called Bandit King. This was in the hidden area of the first stratum, which I'd already unlocked.
This involved fighting the Golem, a recurring boss that runs the gamut from first boss (under a different design) to postgame gatekeeper. Here for me, it was more of an annoyance. I got Erasure on Trumpet to manage its buffs and cycled the usual attacks. I actually made heavy use of Rear Guard here; front line was fine but it could get precarious if it kept attacking the back. Needed some Medica IIIs here.
Conditional is to instantly kill. Can't do it just yet, none of those classes that can are trained up.
One wanted me to do a solo fight. Okay, easily done, but didn't feel like making experience unequal just yet. The last of these involved exploring B11, so I may as well do that now.
I unlocked the Ronin class as part of the floor's exploration. Would be okay if it wasn't unlocked so late and Etrian 1's formulae were very unfriendly to low level characters and the stances weren't buffs that got in the way of the typical trinity, but hey, at least I can grind it in Picnic mode.
There were some tortoise FOEs running around, which I was already leveled sufficiently to handle. Immunize shut them down like it tends to shut a lot of things down.Meconopsis was even fast enough to get it off without 1st Turn.
A brief foray into B12 unlocked two more quests. One was another material gathering one. But the other was to navigate to a certain room of B10 by opening only ten doors at maximum. I used six and beat up the reskinned miniboss at the end. The reward was the Bardiche: an insanely powerful axe for this part of the game.
After mapping the upper floor out and reaching B12 proper, I eventually came to the main ant section. Even as FOEs they're intended to be beaten so they weren't too tough. Only problem is that I forgot their gimmick at first so I killed more than I really had to. Also I guess the egg sacs were a remake thing, but still a thing to target and kill. Didn't have on a sword either so that got annoying at one point.
Also it's around this point that I realized that Etrian 1's dungeon design is actually different from Untold 1's. Thought they were identical for the longest time at first for whatever reason. Knew 2/U2 are very different though. I had the vague idea from Wyvern's room being different than I remember (tiny little room rather than a big laser beam dodgy puzzle) but I dismissed it as just misremembering.
Well, brought me to Royalant eventually. Again, I thought it would last longer than it did and used boosted Defender to start. Actually hit pretty hard anyway.. But with MEDIC SMASH doing like 800 and Apollon landing for 1200, yeah. One of the ants got to join in, only to die on the same turn as the queen. Oops.
Should be a good spot to break this up, I think.
Five quests unlocked upon reaching B11. One again wanted me to take the farming party to mine on B10. Another wanted me to go there to kill some vermin. The latter required an Amber Lump. Easy enough to get given the encounter formation that had five Waspiors. So of course they wouldn't drop the first time. Once I got the goods (three in fact), I went to a room and fought some renamed Venomflies. They died in one round each. Former was pretty bland.
Another involved finding the treasure of a so-called Bandit King. This was in the hidden area of the first stratum, which I'd already unlocked.
This involved fighting the Golem, a recurring boss that runs the gamut from first boss (under a different design) to postgame gatekeeper. Here for me, it was more of an annoyance. I got Erasure on Trumpet to manage its buffs and cycled the usual attacks. I actually made heavy use of Rear Guard here; front line was fine but it could get precarious if it kept attacking the back. Needed some Medica IIIs here.
Conditional is to instantly kill. Can't do it just yet, none of those classes that can are trained up.
One wanted me to do a solo fight. Okay, easily done, but didn't feel like making experience unequal just yet. The last of these involved exploring B11, so I may as well do that now.
I unlocked the Ronin class as part of the floor's exploration. Would be okay if it wasn't unlocked so late and Etrian 1's formulae were very unfriendly to low level characters and the stances weren't buffs that got in the way of the typical trinity, but hey, at least I can grind it in Picnic mode.
There were some tortoise FOEs running around, which I was already leveled sufficiently to handle. Immunize shut them down like it tends to shut a lot of things down.Meconopsis was even fast enough to get it off without 1st Turn.
A brief foray into B12 unlocked two more quests. One was another material gathering one. But the other was to navigate to a certain room of B10 by opening only ten doors at maximum. I used six and beat up the reskinned miniboss at the end. The reward was the Bardiche: an insanely powerful axe for this part of the game.
After mapping the upper floor out and reaching B12 proper, I eventually came to the main ant section. Even as FOEs they're intended to be beaten so they weren't too tough. Only problem is that I forgot their gimmick at first so I killed more than I really had to. Also I guess the egg sacs were a remake thing, but still a thing to target and kill. Didn't have on a sword either so that got annoying at one point.
Also it's around this point that I realized that Etrian 1's dungeon design is actually different from Untold 1's. Thought they were identical for the longest time at first for whatever reason. Knew 2/U2 are very different though. I had the vague idea from Wyvern's room being different than I remember (tiny little room rather than a big laser beam dodgy puzzle) but I dismissed it as just misremembering.
Well, brought me to Royalant eventually. Again, I thought it would last longer than it did and used boosted Defender to start. Actually hit pretty hard anyway.. But with MEDIC SMASH doing like 800 and Apollon landing for 1200, yeah. One of the ants got to join in, only to die on the same turn as the queen. Oops.
Should be a good spot to break this up, I think.
