Mostly this is math stuff, although I will point out one thing before people decide to ditch this topic: Trinchra, the 1st Target Monster on Basement 5, is vulnerable to Fire element attacks only; anything else has to contend with the insane resistance to about anything else (I think) on par with Earth element attacks against Flying monsters, on top of the high HP and Defense rating. I thought I would tell you because I came close to being defeated--only by dumb luck over choosing Kaen on my last turn (which it was either way, lest Kevin would be reduced to 0 HPs) with the hope of managing a finishing blow did I win.
Most of this is math, so you may want to ignore a good deal of the following. Also, I can't be entirely sure if all of this is right, but it's my conclusions.
*ATK for a given Skill is typically STR + Skill's Might. Bombs use Kevin's STR instead, but the one who set the Bomb will get the EXP if the monster is killed by it.
*Elements I know of are as follows: Strength, Wind, Earth, Fire, Water, Flying, Ice, and Thunder. Here's a table:
| ATK\DEF | STR | WND | RTH | FIR | WTR | FLY | ICE | THN |
| STR | - | + | N | - | - | ? | - | + |
| WND | - | - | N | + | - | + | N | + |
| RTH | N | N | + | N | N | X | N | ? |
| FIR | + | - | - | - | + | ? | + | ? |
| WTR | - | - | + | + | - | ? | - | ? |
| FLY | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| ICE | - | + | + | - | - | ? | - | ? |
| THN | + | ? | ? | ? | + | ? | ? | ? |
-Please note that my information on the Thunder element is incomplete, and Flying is likely just a monster secondary type that seems to take slightly increased damage to most attacks and has a Wind weakness (which completely overrides whether the other type is strong against Wind). And according to Japanese websites, it seems there are two additional elements: Life (inochi) and Spirit (yuurei)
*Character special abilities:
-Kaen (Fire) - can't figure out--but it likely has to do with Explosion attacks
-Taren (Water) - Nature Skill has chance of critical (which I believe is increased attack power), back attacks don't deal extra damage to him (also has extra Vision)
-Sylphy (Wind) - both allies have 8 extra points of DEF each, all allies can detect nearby opponents outside sight
-Goum (Earth) - front attacks deal reduced damage (which helps him handle his awful DEF), can step on bombs and have them blow up without suffering damage, slight resistance to Wind. (Also has extra Vision, but is slow.)
-Sylvia (Ice) - flying (ignore terrain, but weak VS Wind). WARNING: fast countdown to ensure the increased speed has to be used. Also, Sylvia takes bomb splash damage as back attacks.
*I suspect the formula is [(ATK - DEF) * Element modification / 128] * (Direction modification / 8 ). The stuff inside the brackets obviously round before the Direction stuff is handled.
*Assuming 128 (suspected to let the Element modification fit in a single address value) is the right divisor, the possible Element modifications I would be sure of thus far are: 32 (very strong), 96 (strong), 99 (strong, VS Flying), 115 (Earth VS Sylvia), 128 (Wind VS Goum), 147 (normal), 153 (Strength VS Zuul (the first monster)), 192 (weak), 198 (weak, VS Flying). There's the possibility of more.
*Direction modification is 6 for Front (5 in Goum's case), 8 for Side, Bombs, and Explosions, 10 for Back against your guys (8 in Taren's case), and 12 for Back against monsters.
*Thanks to some cheat searching and usage of Taren's henaheena skill (I'm not sure how to translate the name exactly; it's the one that lowers the unit's Strength and Defense by 5 points each), I could more easily figure out enemies' stats. It's more a speed-up process because I'm pretty sure I would have figured out the values sooner or later. And it seems there's a consistency in how much Strength and Defense are boosted:
-[(POW - 10) / 10] * 7 / 10 for Strength
-[(POW - 10) / 10] * 7 / 20 for Defense
-I'm not sure about HP, however. But it looks like there are some HP base/growth sets. They seem confusing, though. Of course, by the looks of things it's easy to determine that most monsters gain 2-3 HPs per increase of 10 POW, with some such as Nightmare gaining 2 exactly and having a 10 POW HP of 40, and the few others like Zuul and Marlinger gaining 1-2.
*Oh yeah: the highest POW rating of a given monster seems to be 360 POW--the same as the POW asked for for something called Zuul Mania.
*Zuul has higher ATK and DEF than Kevin's at the start--but luckily, his HP is low. Same with Nightmare. Kratora will, if you are battling it at L2 (the minimum) be the player's test to see if the player has the hide-and-seek style down: on top of outright superior ATK and DEF along with near equivalent HP, Kratora will have the element advantage. (Fire against Strength; Strength is Kevin's element in case you didn't figure that out.)
*Garito's ATK is lousy: 35 at 40 POW. It doesn't even have the HP or DEF to make up for it, considering at same POW levels Weineck and certainly Kratora are more dangerous. Most likely, it has some makeup trait(s) that is/are not seen easily, and just too unlikely to make it a plausible threat.
*Berny's ATK is rather high--but since its element is Strength, the damage is bound to be reduced. Of course, it would be safer to take it out fast, especially if Sylvia or Goum is anywhere nearby. (Berny's name may be different; the Katakana is BAANII.)
*Nameton's DEF is a JOKE. At 20 POW, it's only 32. Considering the DEF ratings of other monsters and the fact that Nameton has a shell on its back, you'd expect it to have more. Of course, instead, it has the Water Sling so it concentrates on offense instead. Because that makes perfect sense. >_> (Oh yeah, Nameton's Katakana is NAMETON. I'm not sure what the name should be so that it wouldn't be pronounced name-ton instead of na-me-ton.)
*There may be more stuff to look out for.
Fri Jun 13, 2008 5:59 am