RPGM The Last Sovereign [v0.77.2] [Sierra Lee]

[zoyle]

i find this game too hard with the limited exp it almost feals like if you dont 100% the exp gain you will be fucked over in the latter battles and the more exp you miss the more the game stacks agenst you

The game does play like a Bioware RPG due to the limited amount of exp available: you should maximize it and make sure you kill everything you can for the best outcomes.

With that said, MOSTLY fights feel harder until you learn what is and isnt effective in this game: for most random encounters, the best strategy is balls-out offense, and you should never have a healer-type character in your battle group if you can avoid it. Some boss fights will require one, and the best strategy for them is a healer + defensive buffs + offensive debuffs (via Aka usually). Judicious use of debuffs is also important: buffs change stats A LOT, and debuffing with weakening strike early in the game can really defray damage taken. Sometimes the best strategy is for Aka to use Weakening on a monster you aren't targetting while everyone else goes max offense into something you want to kill ASAP.

Early on there are a couple -very- challenging areas (most notably the insect house in Stineford) that are intentionally extremely difficult. I've played the game 3 times; I've won some of the most difficult fights in it on my first attempts. The simple reality of the spider house is that you need optimized tactics AND good luck (via Aka crits or enemy attacks missing) or you won't win the fights against 3 enemies at once. EVERYONE wipes there.

But in general, the game very much rewards and to some extent requires you to figure out the correct strategies - especially early on, there's a number of situations where extremely dangerous monsters literally don't have regular attacks and will not act at all if you silence them with Simon, or you're expected to stunlock them with him, etc. Later in the game, after Chapter 2 is completed, Simon should often effectively be your group's healer, and the best way to resolve random encounters is to have him alternating between Support Allies and Lust Renewal while going balls-out massive offense with your remaining 3 party members (usually some combination of Robin, Varia, Riala, Altina, and maybe Aka). Choose equipment for every character but Hilstara based first and foremost on how much it increases attack or magic, and then prioritize agility. Most difficult random encounters are best solved by killing 1-2 enemies before they even get to attack. If you can't kill, incapacitate (via stun, blind, or silence). This makes knowing enemy weaknesses important, and Robin your most effective party member : Anything weak to an elemental lance can usually be killed in a turn, and a central strategy of random fights is to take the most dangerous enemy and do exactly that.


Similarly, stuff weak to lust and not elementals can be incapacitated via lust statuses. Yarra's Haze of lust does this well early, but later in the game, Incubus King's Emmissary and Bolt of Lust can both inflict Lust Death - sometimes ON BOSSES (several bosses that are weak to lust are susceptible to Lust Death, meaning you can literally kill them in one hit with those attacks if the status effect lands).

Purely defensive characters like Hilstara and Carina are significantly less effective at random encounters, and you should generally only use them if you're forced to. Qum is intermediate, becuase unless she's paired with Robin (Pretty Lance) she ha no offense, but arousingaura increases damage enormously, but usually not on turn 1 (because the attackers will usually act before Qum does, as Aura doesn't have healing speed priority even though it heals for a lot). In general, when you have the option of picking party members, pick for offense, and when you don't, fight strategically with debuffs and crowd control.

Simon's strikes do more damge than his regular attack on purpose - you're supposed to use them almost every time. It's pretty rare that mana management is an issue in this game due to limited numbers of fights and (usually) the ability to go back to other areas to rest if you run out . So you should, in general, use your most powerful attacks all the time.
Basically, in random encounters your goal should be to either kill via massive damage or incapacitate (via stun, blind, silence, lust stun/lust mad, or even Yarra's Flirt) 1-2 enemies before they can act: almost everyone in your party should act before random monsters do, and the most dangerous random monsters in the game are the ones that reliably act before very fast characters like Aka, Simon, Robin and Riala.

 

[Razor679]

The game does play like a Bioware RPG due to the limited amount of exp available: you should maximize it and make sure you kill everything you can for the best outcomes.

With that said, MOSTLY fights feel harder until you learn what is and isnt effective in this game: for most random encounters, the best strategy is balls-out offense, and you should never have a healer-type character in your battle group if you can avoid it. Some boss fights will require one, and the best strategy for them is a healer + defensive buffs + offensive debuffs (via Aka usually). Judicious use of debuffs is also important: buffs change stats A LOT, and debuffing with weakening strike early in the game can really defray damage taken. Sometimes the best strategy is for Aka to use Weakening on a monster you aren't targetting while everyone else goes max offense into something you want to kill ASAP.

Early on there are a couple -very- challenging areas (most notably the insect house in Stineford) that are intentionally extremely difficult. I've played the game 3 times; I've won some of the most difficult fights in it on my first attempts. The simple reality of the spider house is that you need optimized tactics AND good luck (via Aka crits or enemy attacks missing) or you won't win the fights against 3 enemies at once. EVERYONE wipes there.

But in general, the game very much rewards and to some extent requires you to figure out the correct strategies - especially early on, there's a number of situations where extremely dangerous monsters literally don't have regular attacks and will not act at all if you silence them with Simon, or you're expected to stunlock them with him, etc. Later in the game, after Chapter 2 is completed, Simon should often effectively be your group's healer, and the best way to resolve random encounters is to have him alternating between Support Allies and Lust Renewal while going balls-out massive offense with your remaining 3 party members (usually some combination of Robin, Varia, Riala, Altina, and maybe Aka). Choose equipment for every character but Hilstara based first and foremost on how much it increases attack or magic, and then prioritize agility. Most difficult random encounters are best solved by killing 1-2 enemies before they even get to attack. If you can't kill, incapacitate (via stun, blind, or silence). This makes knowing enemy weaknesses important, and Robin your most effective party member : Anything weak to an elemental lance can usually be killed in a turn, and a central strategy of random fights is to take the most dangerous enemy and do exactly that.


Similarly, stuff weak to lust and not elementals can be incapacitated via lust statuses. Yarra's Haze of lust does this well early, but later in the game, Incubus King's Emmissary and Bolt of Lust can both inflict Lust Death - sometimes ON BOSSES (several bosses that are weak to lust are susceptible to Lust Death, meaning you can literally kill them in one hit with those attacks if the status effect lands).

Purely defensive characters like Hilstara and Carina are significantly less effective at random encounters, and you should generally only use them if you're forced to. Qum is intermediate, becuase unless she's paired with Robin (Pretty Lance) she ha no offense, but arousingaura increases damage enormously, but usually not on turn 1 (because the attackers will usually act before Qum does, as Aura doesn't have healing speed priority even though it heals for a lot). In general, when you have the option of picking party members, pick for offense, and when you don't, fight strategically with debuffs and crowd control.

Simon's strikes do more damge than his regular attack on purpose - you're supposed to use them almost every time. It's pretty rare that mana management is an issue in this game due to limited numbers of fights and (usually) the ability to go back to other areas to rest if you run out . So you should, in general, use your most powerful attacks all the time.
Basically, in random encounters your goal should be to either kill via massive damage or incapacitate (via stun, blind, silence, lust stun/lust mad, or even Yarra's Flirt) 1-2 enemies before they can act: almost everyone in your party should act before random monsters do, and the most dangerous random monsters in the game are the ones that reliably act before very fast characters like Aka, Simon, Robin and Riala.

ya well i like to blow through the story so at this point im going to only play the modded version with the istent kill item as the combat balance has and will coninue to send me in to an infinit game over loop forcing me to back track my saves i cant tell you how meny slave slots i need in order to progress and how meny times i have lost over 20+hrs over an backtacking then making a dumb mistake do to skipping text cuse im losing pachance over this

I love the story and the game play but i HATE THE COMBAT as it is too havey handed and unfairif you dont do all the side stuff which should be optinal you get screewed over and form the persion that replyed to me first even maxing your level withcheatingthe battles late game are still hard as fuck soi'll play for the story and use the item to skip combat as the combat is so aimed at fucking you over its not right

 

[zoyle]

In fairness you also get quite a bit suboptimal storyline outcomes if you don't do optional stuff.

It's a RPG with sex in it, not a porn game.

And fwiw the late game battles are only hard if you're not prepared. I played through Ch5 of my last playthrough yesterday and this morning, and it was all pretty smooth because I was prepared. I even did Skittering Nightmare without wiping once this time (Carina, Vhala, Robin, defensive rain+shield, kill the smaller spiders first). Really, onceyou get to the later game and aren't forced into specific party setups, you should just always use the same 5 or so characters for random combat: robin, riala, altina, and varia. Just pure, raw fucking damage all the time - buy 3 assault rods when you get to Stenai for the mages, and use blood slash and blade dance on Varia. As long as you know elemental weaknesses and keep a buttplug on Riala so she has access to her sex spells when you need the,, you'll carve through pretty much everything. And you can go balls to the wall, because you don't use Varia, Altina or Riala for boss fights most of the time (sometimes Riala, when you want sex damage), so it doesn't matter if you deplete their mana by using their most expensive abilities - for bosses, you'll switch in someone with a debuff skill and/or a healer (usually both)

 

[Archaon11111]

In fairness you also get quite a bit suboptimal storyline outcomes if you don't do optional stuff.

It's a RPG with sex in it, not a porn game.

Funny enough about the sex in this game according to polls majority of the players skip it, it really is the least concerned part of the game. Unlike most projects where the main goal is to unlock every CG/Scene

 

[zoyle]

Funny enough about the sex in this game according to polls majority of the players skip it, it really is the least concerned part of the game. Unlike most projects where the main goal is to unlock every CG/Scene

You know Sierra's not a bad writer, and some of the scenes, if you read them, are fairly well-written erotica, but yeah, this is mostly a game with sex in the plot, not fapping material. A lot of the things that seem like they might be (dominated varia, cockwhore altina) really aren't particularly interesting, either.

The sex is far more of a plot and humor (the succubi with fetishes for extremely normal things are always hilarious, "I have a sober economic realism fetish", etc).

 

[Deepsea]

for most random encounters, the best strategy is balls-out offense

Still gotta disagree, a solid defensive build can make most monsters negligible and the damage they do can be only low double digits or in the case of getting Hilstara a Tower Shield on the first trip to Eustrin, outright negated.

 

[zoyle]

Still gotta disagree, a solid defensive build can make most monsters negligible and the damage they do can be only low double digits or in the case of getting Hilstara a Tower Shield on the first trip to Eustrin, outright negated.

Given how many later chapter monsters spam 1-1.5k to the entire party or use attacks with Nothingness, etc, I'll continue to just kill them before they can act.

IMO Hilstara's basically the worst party member in the game for the entire span in which she is optional (eg Chapter 4-5). She is sometimes useful, but it's rare. In Ch5 with Aegis Assault she becomes quite a bit more effective, but she's still too slow.

 

[Deepsea]

she's still too slow.

She's the tank, she's meant to be slow. The mammoth set ups her defense to such an absurd degree that paired with provoke from shield wall, she only takes a few hundred damage. Coupled with Carina and you've got a defensive overlay. Each defense arrow also boosts the stat by 15% so doubled stacked defense is about ~650 buffed then combine that with aegis assault that draws from defense not attack for damage I think and the result is almost 7k physical damage.

Nothingness can just be ignored really while you focus on one enemy at a time, keeping the party alive with defensive buffs should be a priority.

 

[Lolicon Kami]

Given how many later chapter monsters spam 1-1.5k to the entire party or use attacks with Nothingness, etc, I'll continue to just kill them before they can act.

IMO Hilstara's basically the worst party member in the game for the entire span in which she is optional (eg Chapter 4-5). She is sometimes useful, but it's rare. In Ch5 with Aegis Assault she becomes quite a bit more effective, but she's still too slow.

She's better that Qum, IMO, cause she at least attacks. And she's useful in the just-survive situations (like the partial-unsuccubus in Incubus King Castle, one of the Fucklord battles, and

Spoiler: 2nd Gathering Spoiler

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[Ripe]

Even with Level 99 party most of the end game fights read all of chapter 4 onwards are just as hard, I know this cause I used to have a EXP hacked game save. Level is really only super important early game thanks to skill unlocks see maximising EXP games to get the lance Unpeople are weak to before the fight.

note even before that fight they were fights you could still wipe in easily

Keep in mind that there is several times where game checks your level and if it's too high you get a penalty which effectivelly blocks you from achieving best result on that particular check...

 

[zoyle]

She's the tank, she's meant to be slow. The mammoth set ups her defense to such an absurd degree that paired with provoke from shield wall, she only takes a few hundred damage. Coupled with Carina and you've got a defensive overlay. Each defense arrow also boosts the stat by 15% so doubled stacked defense is about ~650 buffed then combine that with aegis assault that draws from defense not attack for damage I think and the result is almost 7k physical damage.

Nothingness can just be ignored really while you focus on one enemy at a time, keeping the party alive with defensive buffs should be a priority.

Aegis Assault is great, and Hilstara can be quite useful in boss fights like Lustlord with a lot of single-target, high-damage attacks, though honestly my strategy for that fight is 3 offensive characters + Carina, and when he starts doing his OHKO lust attacks, Carina just revives that person each turn while the other 2 continue to nuke him into the ground. The way that healing abilities get insane speed bonuses helps mitigate Carina being one of the only slow characters in the game, and ensures that even after he starts using his self-buff to buff his agility, he acts after the whole party.

For most of the combat in this game, especially non-boss encounters, Hilstara's not that useful because the enemies do not make those kinds of attacks. When the most dangerous enemies spam fire breath or aoe 'pulse energy' type attacks, there's nothing Hilstara can do to keep that off the party. Similarly, even tanked up to the absolute max, there's fights where drawing damage to her doesn't meaningfully protect the party (for example, it's almost impossible for Hilstara to survive a round of combat against Skittering Nightmare with Shield Wall up, until you get multiple debuffs on everything at least: The best way to prevent your healers from being overwhelmed is to kill the lesser Dwaregast before they get to take their turns).

I play primarily defensive characters in most games, and I played defensively on my first playthrough. The reality of this game is that the random combat is best approached via maximum offense and some disabling. Boss fights are often best approached with some kind of defensive tool (stat debuffing and/or Carina's shield).

The later random combat in this game is balanced around your mandatory party member having a 2k group heal that revives everyone.

I've focused most of my commentary around regular encounters because IMO that's where people encounter difficulty and have problems with it. People expect boss fights to be challenging: they don't always expect random encounters to have a significant risk of wiping the party entirely, but in some areas of this game that is a real possibility.

The game isn't so hard that you can't use a wide range of tactics and be successful: I played primarily defensively for my entire first playthrough, using Carina almost all the time, using Vhala and Aka's debuffs extensively, etc. I just finished my 3rd playthrough, and I will tell you that my experience is that overwhelming, high-agility offense is the best way to reliably clear random encounters.

As I mentioned earlier, it's also a big advantage that you're often still bringing in more defensive or flexible party members for boss fights: You can have characters like Riala, Varia and Altina use their most powerful attacks over and over again and not worry about resource depletion because you won't be using them for the boss encounters anyway.

The purpose of my posts was not to suggest that it's impossible to do anything; it's possible. But if people are struggling with the combat difficulty in this game, my advice to them is 'kill things faster, and focus on debuffing or cc'ing things you can't kill fast'. And always use Robin if you can, because she's easily the best non-Simon character in the game from about the Ardford summit onwards (I have the summit provide basically Robin's entire gearset: Crusader staff/robe/charm + unperson circlet, eventually swapping the staff for an assault staff). Equipment-wise, outside of specific situations (like Robin's Magekiller fight, where using Otherworldly Robes is obviously insanely OP), characters should always maximize offensive statistics over defense in equipment choices (IE the Crusader Robe is the best in the game, and all the other casters should use lingeries, etc). A party setup of Simon + Riala + Robin + Varia/Altina will reliably kill 1-3 members of any random enemy party before they take their first turn if properly equipped. (Simon opens with Precise + Robin/Riala jointly target an elemental weakness + Blade Dance).

Depending on the boss fight, I pretty much always swap in Carina (for the Varia/Altina slot), often swap in Aka or Vhala (in the Riala spot, depending on whether the boss CAN be debuffed or whether you need a sex attack), only removing Robin for the very, very few fights where elemental attacks are worthless (Robin's Magic should always be so high that it doesn't matter if things are moderately resistant: She'll do more damage than most party members).

IMO, Qum is the most useful healer because of Pretty Lance, but most of the time you want a healer that isn't Simon (who has infinite resources, so he's your primary healer), that character will be healing every turn so Carina's better anyway. But bringing Qum for things that are susceptible to Lust is pretty good (though I'd usually rather have Riala's Sexual Lance).

In the later game, I find Hilstara and Yarra to be pretty poor and Uyae to be a frustratingly limited character - with strong attacking weapons, Takedown and Shockwave are quite powerful, but her best weapon options are pretty poor, and given there are segments where you are forced to rely on her as your primary healer, I have a tendency to set her up with double magic gloves, which makes her a relatively unimpressive offensive character, though Takedown can still be pretty effective). Yarra would really benefit from another 25 SP skill besides Haze of Lust - something like Pretty Lance/Sexual Lance that deals single-target damage and does more damage than Succubus Kiss/Sexual Torment. Incubus King's Emissary is wildly powerful but 50SP is too steep a cost for most random battle scenarios, as you end up actively farming SP with Masturbate for the next fight, which is slow and clunky. As I mentioned in another post, though, Incubus King's Emissary joins Bolt of Lust as an easy-mode button for certain scenarios where things that would surprise you are susceptible to Lust Death, including some optional bosses. There's nothing quite like killing a dangerous optional boss on the first turn with Lust Death, lol.

The offensive strategy is definitely extremely dependent on knowing enemy weaknesses: If you don't know what element to exploit to kill something in one turn, you really can't use that strategy. But it's by far the most effective and efficient way to tear through difficult random monster encounters like you find in some segments of the Tower. This is only exacerbated by how few AoE skills in this game are really significantly powerful: Even Altina's Quake is often pretty underwhelming. Riala's got the best AOE skills in her elemental lust attacks, bringing sizable damage and CC capabilities.

Party selection considerations and relative party member strength are relatively insignificant early in the game because you rarely have options: Your character choices are usually dictated to you by the game, and it doesn't matter if you want to use a given character because you don't really have choices. For that reason, it's definitely important to learn the most effective ways of using every character.

Another consideration for the max-offense approach is that it's pretty mage focused and consequently gets to avoid the very bad Evade/Miss RNG elements that you see with Hilstara's axes and, for reasons past my comprehension, Aka and Vhala even with their weapons having significant 'accuracy bonuses'. I don't understand how Vhala with a +100% accuracy Lean Unbow can miss so fucking often, but having her whiff on an Arrow of Abstinence you're depending on to kill something is sure frustrating. Varia still misses more than you'd like, but when you're primarily using a move that gets 5 swings (Blade Dance) the individual misses are less damaging - though I've definitely had Varia miss 2 or even 3 times in a Blade Dance and therefore not got the result I wanted, lol)

All of these 'preferences' are really out the door for the hardest boss fights where the ideal strategies are usually pretty specialized and specific.

 

[zoyle]

She's better that Qum, IMO, cause she at least attacks. And she's useful in the just-survive situations (like the partial-unsuccubus in Incubus King Castle, one of the Fucklord battles, and

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I mention this above but if you're using Robin, which you should be, Qum has a very powerful Lust Attack which is the primary thing that distinguishes her as a useful healer (Pretty Lance).

I understand why people might struggle with the Chosen of Ivala fight the first time when you don't know what's going to happen, but honestly the Chosen should never actually taken an action - they expode on Turn 2, and you are faster than they are, and it is trivially easy to kill all 3 of them before they act a second time. They are so easy to kill that 2 of them should die on turn 1.

"Endure" fights like Lustlord 1 or Fucklord Zirantia obviously expect strategies focused around that and favor characters who are good at it, but IMO they're not super challenging anyway and it's pretty easy to spam heal through them until their turn limits: I've never come close to wiping to Fucklord, and I'm kind of confused how people would do so: He wastes his turn 3 on a self-buff, and then only uses a single target attack in Turns 4-6: How could you wipe in that fight? I don't understand.

Lustlord 1 feels dangerous but once you recognize damaging him is irrelevant it is trivial: you just heal every turn and wait out the timer before doing the fight for real.

edit: I have a save right at the Chosen fight. I loaded it up:

Sexual Lance + Flame Lance = 1 Chosen dead
Blade Dance = 2 Chosen Dead (Varia even missed once and didn't crit, so it was an unlucky Dance)
Doom King uses Doom Lance - 3rd Chosen at 10% HP.

If you think this fight is 'difficult' or dangerous you are absolutely doing it wrong. And it illustrates the broader point: The best way to mitigate damage is to kill things before they can act, because many enemies have dangerous AOE attacks that Hilstara can't soak.

 

[Lolicon Kami]

I mention this above but if you're using Robin, which you should be, Qum has a very powerful Lust Attack which is the primary thing that distinguishes her as a useful healer (Pretty Lance).

I understand why people might struggle with the Chosen of Ivala fight the first time when you don't know what's going to happen, but honestly the Chosen should never actually taken an action - they expode on Turn 2, and you are faster than they are, and it is trivially easy to kill all 3 of them before they act a second time. They are so easy to kill that 2 of them should die on turn 1.

"Endure" fights like Lustlord 1 or Fucklord Zirantia obviously expect strategies focused around that and favor characters who are good at it, but IMO they're not super challenging anyway and it's pretty easy to spam heal through them until their turn limits: I've never come close to wiping to Fucklord, and I'm kind of confused how people would do so: He wastes his turn 3 on a self-buff, and then only uses a single target attack in Turns 4-6: How could you wipe in that fight? I don't understand.

Lustlord 1 feels dangerous but once you recognize damaging him is irrelevant it is trivial: you just heal every turn and wait out the timer before doing the fight for real.

edit: I have a save right at the Chosen fight. I loaded it up:

Sexual Lance + Flame Lance = 1 Chosen dead
Blade Dance = 2 Chosen Dead (Varia even missed once and didn't crit, so it was an unlucky Dance)
Doom King uses Doom Lance - 3rd Chosen at 10% HP.

If you think this fight is 'difficult' or dangerous you are absolutely doing it wrong. And it illustrates the broader point: The best way to mitigate damage is to kill things before they can act, because many enemies have dangerous AOE attacks that Hilstara can't soak.

Thanks! That's very helpful

 

[zoyle]

Thanks! That's very helpful

There's a phenomenon in this game where damage grows rather substantially with relatively small changes in attack/defense (which is why buffs and debuffs are so powerful). A side-effect of this is that character's natural level up scaling mostly keeps pace directly with the enemy base stats scaling upwards as enemies get stronger. What this means is that equipment selection makes a significant impact in damage output: If you maximize Robin's Magic via equipping her with Crusader Robe + Unperson Circlet (the two highest magic options in the entire game for her, available in Chapter 2), plus Crusader Charm + the biggest staff you can get for Magic, her lances will end up hitting so hard it doesn't matter if things are resistant. In those screenshots above, Robin is level 80 and has 412 Magic, so even though the Chosen resist elements, her Lightning Lance still does 3500-4000 damage to them. It does 6500-7500 damage to the Lustlord in the following fight, as he's weak to Lightning.

Those Chosen have 10k health. So for a less offensive party, yeah, doing over 20k damage per round of combat is a tall task, and there's a risk of them living to explode. But for characters prepared to maximize damage, they won't even act. Blade Dance as 5 hits of 2000-2500 (non-crit) by itself kills one from full, etc. And I didn't even take Yarra (who could probably nearly clear this entire fight by herself with 2 castings of Emissary). Yarra's damage ends up lagging fairly significantly since her whips offer inferior magic to what you can get on Assault Rods, but IKE is so powerful and these guys are weak to Lust. Swapping her in for Robin might make this a 1-round fight; I'm gonna try that. (edit: the answer is "yes, if Varia doesn't attack the same target as Riala and kill the Chosen that's already damaged, because Yarra's too slow and acts 3rd"). And to illustrate the degree that Yarra's attack lags because of her whips, Incubus King's Emissary, an enormously powerful attack hitting a weakness, did about 4500 damage to the Chosen: only about 800 less than Robin is doing with an element they resist. (lol) This is true even though Yarra's got the best available equipment: a sublime whip, the crown of lust and a sublime lingerie. She has only 321 magic, when Robin, Riala and Altina all have 50-100 more than that).

If you want to play with this and see what I mean, here's the savegame. Being right before the Chosen fight with Lustlord to follow is a pretty good testing scenario, as it turns out. The 3 offense+Altina crew fairly reliably kills Lustlord before he uses his big heal+buff move a 2nd time (in fact, using Varia+Riala+Qum+Robin, he just used it the first time with 5% health and died the following turn, so that's a ..5 round fight? and the damage was low, because he kept hitting Varia and she didn't have the health to select Blade Dance and had to use Blood Slash and Flurry instead; if he'd hit someone else, he would have died before he used his buff)

 

[Fulminato]

you should never have a healer-type character in your battle group if you can avoid it.

qum arousing aura >>> all.
increase the DMG of the whole party by 30/40% she is fast and her buff is applied before the other party memeber act (aka excluded) so you can benefit from the buff bonus in the first round, with dildo/butplug and masturbate+ you can spam the aura without problem. and with robin synergy (pretty lance) she gain a offensive skill. {robin is the best magical dmg dealer, so you want her in your team} usualy the normal fight for me don't go over two round.

 

[zoyle]

qum arousing aura >>> all.
increase the DMG of the whole party by 30/40% she is fast and her buff is applied before the other party memeber act (aka excluded) so you can benefit from the buff bonus in the first round, with dildo/butplug and masturbate+ you can spam the aura without problem. and with robin synergy (pretty lance) she gain a offensive skill. {robin is the best magical dmg dealer, so you want her in your team} usualy the normal fight for me don't go over two round.

Arousing Aura is great but I don't usually use Qum that frequently because she's too slow to use Aura before the party, and I'm much more interested in maximizing damage on turn 1 before the enemy has acted than I am maximizing it on turn 2 after they've been able to act.

But as you mention she's by far the best healer-type for random encounters; all things being equal, though, I'd rather take another character who uses an offensive attack on that turn, as the extra damage on the 2nd turn is not significant, and Qum is 100+ agility behind all the damage dealers so getting her to use Aura before Robin, Riala, etc act is unrealistic (and in my case, even Varia is significantly faster because she has Duelist's Pin II).

Another consideration is that Qum can't use her abilities that frequently without having to waste turns on Masturbate+ which is pretty detrimental to killing everything in as few turns as possible; consequently I mostly only use Riala of the Succubi, who doesn't need her Lust attacks that often and can passively regenerate her SP whenever she's using regular Magic (further, Riala's faster than everyone but Simon, so it's easy to slip in an Aura Masturbation in the final round of a combat when the others will be adequate to finish the monsters, whereas you have to actually waste extra turns guarding to masturbate with Qum). But arousing Aura is indeed fantastic. Aura helps recharge itself, but Pretty Lance doesn't and it costs 25/100. Riala's got a nearly identical skill (though bolt is only 20 SP), but she's also got her regular magic and can passively regen SP while continuing to help kill things: Qum can't. Consequently I generally only put a healer in the party for boss fights. The extra damage from Aura on turn 2 is just not worth getting nothing on turn 1. If Aura had healing-ability-speed advantages, I'd probably use Qum all the time. She's just too slow.

In my game she's 72 AGI behind Riala, 27 behind Varia, 45 behind Robin, and 36 behind Altina: it's just too big a gap to get her ability to fire before those characters take their turn 1 actions. If I could get Aura followed by Fires of Lust, I'd do that a lot, but it's not realistic. Qum's too slow. And no, giving a Maranite Cloak is not an option: using a character without a protective pin is insanity. Even then, the Cloak wouldn't make up the gap to Riala or Simon (who is almost 100 agility ahead of Qum).

 

[Fulminato]

Arousing Aura is great but I don't usually use Qum that frequently because she's too slow to use Aura before the party, and I'm much more interested in maximizing damage on turn 1 before the enemy has acted than I am maximizing it on turn 2 after they've been able to act.

But as you mention she's by far the best healer-type for random encounters; all things being equal, though, I'd rather take another character who uses an offensive attack on that turn, as the extra damage on the 2nd turn is not significant, and Qum is 100+ agility behind all the damage dealers so getting her to use Aura before Robin, Riala, etc act is unrealistic (and in my case, even Varia is significantly faster because she has Duelist's Pin II).

my qum AGI is 345. higher of most my party memebers (robin 341, varia 307, yarra 302, Nalili 305, Uyae 312) only riala is slightly higher (357), but buff and healing spells have a speed bonus and she can cast the aura before her.

Another consideration is that Qum can't use her abilities that frequently without having to waste turns on Masturbate+ which is pretty detrimental to killing everything in as few turns as possible; consequently I mostly only use Riala of the Succubi, who doesn't need her Lust attacks that often and can passively regenerate her SP whenever she's using regular Magic. But arousing Aura is indeed fantastic. Aura helps recharge itself, but Pretty Lance doesn't and it costs 25/100. Riala's got a nearly identical skill (though bolt is only 20 SP), but she's also got her regular magic and can passively regen SP while continuing to help kill things: Qum can't. Consequently I generally only put a healer in the party for boss fights. The extra damage from Aura on turn 2 is just not worth getting nothing on turn 1. If Aura had healing-ability-speed advantages, I'd probably use Qum all the time. She's just too slow.

if she start with full SP (and she should) can cast aura first turn. if the fight don't drag in the third turn in the second she can use masturbate+ and she will be full again, if the fight reach the third after two aura she use masturbate+ and her SP are 95 (aura cost 25, but net a +5 SP for each cast, so you spend 40 SP, three turns mean a normal sp regen of 15 and masturbate+ grant 20) so you need at least 15 fight in a row to depleat her SP pool. if you don't find a fight you end in the first two turns, or you can waste a fight each four/five using masturbate+ a couple of turn to be full again.

and a side bonus you can have the party end the fight often with more HP they start with. all of them without cost you a single mana point. and if healing are needed after the fight carina is perfect for off fight healing duty

 

[zoyle]

my qum AGI is 345. higher of most my party memebers (robin 341, varia 307, yarra 302, Nalili 305, Uyae 312) only riala is slightly higher (357), but buff and healing spells have a speed bonus and she can cast the aura before her.

and i use the naked apron on riala, with that qum AGI will be a total monster.



if she start with full SP (and she should) can cast aura first turn. if the fight don't drag in the third turn in the second she can use masturbate+ and she will be full again, if the fight reach the third after two aura she use masturbate+ and her SP are 95 (aura cost 25, but net a +5 SP for each cast, so you spend 40 SP, three turns mean a normal sp regen of 15 and masturbate+ grant 20) so you need at least 15 fight in a row to depleat her SP pool. if you don't find a fight you end in the first two turns, or you can waste a fight each four/five using masturbate+ a couple of turn to be full again.

and a side bonus you can have the party end the fight often with more HP they start with. all of them without cost you a single mana point. and if healing are needed after the fight carina is perfect for off fight healing duty

yeah, I use Carina and more frequently Uyae for off-fight healing (Uyae if I want to conserve Carina for a boss fight). I'm not sure how your characters are slower than mine, even with the Maranit Cloak Qum wouldn't be able to keep up and I'm not super comfortable having her not use the Sexual Pin (Yarra's my only character who doesn't always have a pin equipped, using whip+plug+masturbate+ charm, and she gets status effects so often I hate using her). Growths are static so I think it's mostly gear choice.

I don't find that Aura gets that healing buff speed advantage: Qum using Masturbate+ or Healing Kiss will act before Varia (27 more AGI), but Aura never fires before Varia's move. And Simon and Riala are so far ahead that getting them the benefit on turn 1 is quite unlikely if not impossible. For perspective, my Simon has 382 AGI (would be 392 if I switched Lustplate up to Sublime), Riala 367, Robin 341, Altina 331, Varia 322, and Qum has 295. I could get Varia behind if I took off Duelists Pin 2 (but 35 str is a huge loss, so I dont want to do that), but Maranite would only get her ahead of Robin and Altina, and Riala and Simon are impossible. Looking at other characters, Nalili is just as impossible (392, she has Tormented), and even Ginasta and Vhala are out of reach (350 and 336 respectively). Qum actually has the 4th-lowest Agility in my party (her 295 is ahead of only 292 from Yarra, 171 from Carina, and 1 from Hilstara). That's a problem. Aka, of course, is at like 430 or whatever.

I used the aura tactic you describe a lot more in Chapter 3 and sometimes in Chapter 4, but by Ch5 the agility gaps are too large and I just want more damage (especially since you're talking about losing Varia or Riala's damage for Qum if Robin is a static member, which she should be). Aura doesn't make up for Blade Dance or the many options Riala provides, especially given that Riala's 2nd to act (making the cc effects on her Lust Magic spells particularly useful)

And FWIW gearwise my characters are in parity: Riala, Altina, Yarra and Qum all have Sublime Lingerie (+50 AGI), and the alternatives you might use instead (like Stenai Lingerie and Naked Apron) also have substantial agi buffs. Qum's AGI growth just precludes this tactic working well after a certain point IMO.

edit: One consideration is the Lustlord Collar, which is +30 AGI, but even at 325, Qum's slower than the others, unfortunately. I don't see a way to get her ahead without using the accessory slot, given that her weapon and offhand slots are locked.

lol this did all remind me I never bothered to make the First Slut pin after the 2nd gathering, unfortunately, Yarra's gear is super awkward.

 

[Fulminato]

yeah, I use Carina and more frequently Uyae for off-fight healing (Uyae if I want to conserve Carina for a boss fight). I'm not sure how your characters are slower than mine, even with the Maranit Cloak Qum wouldn't be able to keep up and I'm not super comfortable having her not use the Sexual Pin (Yarra's my only character who doesn't always have a pin equipped, using whip+plug+masturbate+ charm, and she gets status effects so often I hate using her). Growths are static so I think it's mostly gear choice.

I don't find that Aura gets that healing buff speed advantage: Qum using Masturbate+ or Healing Kiss will act before Varia (27 more AGI), but Aura never fires before Varia's move. And Simon and Riala are so far ahead that getting them the benefit on turn 1 is quite unlikely if not impossible. For perspective, my Simon has 382 AGI (would be 392 if I switched Lustplate up to Sublime), Riala 367, Robin 341, Altina 331, Varia 322, and Qum has 295. I could get Varia behind if I took off Duelists Pin 2 (but 35 str is a huge loss, so I dont want to do that), but Maranite would only get her ahead of Robin and Altina, and Riala and Simon are impossible. Looking at other characters, Nalili is just as impossible (392, she has Tormented), and even Ginasta and Vhala are out of reach (350 and 336 respectively). Qum actually has the 4th-lowest Agility in my party (her 295 is ahead of only 292 from Yarra, 171 from Carina, and 1 from Hilstara). That's a problem. Aka, of course, is at like 430 or whatever.

you have an agility overkill. values that high are basicaly useless, i my party act before most enemies, and it's enough to blast them without much room for take dmg. qum is the least party memeber need protective pin. most condition on her are harmless, the only two real hampering her are silence and sexbind. both of them are very, very rare in the game. so for most of the time any protection on her is a waste on equip slot. and even in the situation she will be disabled you efficiency is only mild reduced, because she had casted at least one aura, so her works is largely done. in focus your party so muchin agility you sacrifice to much other stats [i will never use duelist pin or maranite cloack, is a waste of equipment slot, because i sill act before the enemies].

nalili need a butplug for sp preserve, so tormented shield is out for her, any other party memeber use their mana, so that shield is a white elephant. and even a +150 ATK increase the dmg very little, most of the heavy hitting duty is on the mages shoulder, expecialy because you can exploit enemy weakness.

I used the aura tactic you describe a lot more in Chapter 3 and sometimes in Chapter 4, but by Ch5 the agility gaps are too large and I just want more damage (especially since you're talking about losing Varia or Riala's damage for Qum if Robin is a static member, which she should be). Aura doesn't make up for Blade Dance or the many options Riala provides, especially given that Riala's 2nd to act (making the cc effects on her Lust Magic spells particularly useful)

i usualy don't use varia. her dmg output is usualy an overkill, a well place elemental lance does often a similar dmg [you need to remeber the dmg buff of the aura], and very few enemy are weak to physical (plus you are struck with simon 90% of the time, a physical dmg dealer), but a lot are weak to elementals. arcane magic si king in this game.

And FWIW gearwise my characters are in parity: Riala, Altina, Yarra and Qum all have Sublime Lingerie (+50 AGI), and the alternatives you might use instead (like Stenai Lingerie and Naked Apron) also have substantial agi buffs. Qum's AGI growth just precludes this tactic working well after a certain point IMO.

i upgraded to sublime equip most of my party, only few members missing it, and if need to use them can shuffle the equip as needed. i don't waste money on consumable, i sell them (unique and orc potions excluded) and buy better equipment as ASAP. the edge granted by better equipment is far graat of few consumable they use a precious action to use in combat (and if you are out of combat use them is a double waste)

edit: One consideration is the Lustlord Collar, which is +30 AGI, but even at 325, Qum's slower than the others, unfortunately.

having an utitlty attribute like AGI above the threshold needed to reach the priority in action order is useless. you can use equip buffing actual used attribute (atk/mag) instead.

 

[zoyle]

I mean, my characters aren't equipped optimized for agility: it's just naturally on their equipment.

I rarely waste a turn to use Varia's self-buff either, actually, as it's mostly a wasted turn. As I mentioned, I tend to swap between Varia and Altina depending on whether I want raw damage (blade dance) or elemental. However, Precise Strike alone is often inadequate to clean out physical-weak monsters. Simon+Robin+Riala is the core, and the last slot is changable, though it's usually Altina or Varia - sometimes it's Vhala, and often for boss fights I just stick Carina there to handle shield buffs and healing. I don't think I've voluntarily put Nalili, Uyae or Hilstara in my party, well, ever? And Aka really drops off in the late game game outside of situations where you want Deathblow (which is pretty good actually in a lot of scenarios, but it does let the enemy attack before they die, which is problematic when you're trying to remove threats before they kill your squishy-ass party)

As for Nalili, I almost never use her, and agree the plug is probably better, the shield was better for the last time I used her in combat (her solo section of the Erosian War).

And agreed on equipment, though I prioritized stuff I knew I would keep forever or would last a long time (a couple durge swords, assault gear for aka and varia because it's more or less sublime-equivalent, etc). I am fairly judicious with Sx expenses until Ch5 when ProN conversion becomes a tiny blip in your ProN pool.

And yes, above a certain point agility only matters in that it controls how characters act relative to each other. Unfortunately, especially in the sexual bodygear category, everything naturally has agility on the stuff that's otherwise the best to use, so it ends up being a wash. Extra agility doesn't matter in terms of whether Qum acts before enemies, but it matters a lot whether she acts before her party members, as her turn has no damage impact if she doesn't use Arousing Aura until everyone else has already acted. When the Aura buff doesn't impact damage output until turn 2, its much harder for it to be worth the tradeoff vs another damage dealing character. I could have Qum use Lustlord Collar and Maranite Cloak and she would buff Robin and usually Riala before they acted, but she'd still not get ahead of Simon, and she'd be very vulnerable to status effects. My strategy is that it's very important that things die on turn 1, preferably the most dangerous enemies, but if those can't be 1-rounded due to HP/resistances, then the things surrounding them need to be (preferably more than 1) so that no one dies to the spammy AOE. When Qum doesn't kill things on Turn 1 (but stillacts before the enemies, wasting all the healing that comes with the aura), she's terrible. Arousing Aura is great, but it's not very useful when the combat looks like this:

Simon
Riala
Robin
Arousing Aura with everyone at 100% HP!
All the enemies do their 1500-2k aoes or attack for 3k and kill people

In that scenario, you want someone else who kills shit to reduce the incoming damage on the enemy turn. The arousing aura has literally no impact until the following turn, and given 3/4 of your party are squishy, if Simon/Robin/Riala were not capable of killing or incapacitating multiple targets, there's a high chance someone has died, losing the buff. Now Simon is using Support Allies and not using his buff anyway, and only 1 attacker is using the buff on turn 2. That is -terrible-.


For perspective my characters look like this:

Simon: Sublime sword / incubus glove / sublime helm / lustplate / Givini II
Robin: Assault Rod, Arcane Crystal, Unperson Circlet, Crusader Robe, Crusader II
Varia: 2x Reforged Givini Blade, Assault Helm, Sublime Armor, Duelist II
Riala: Assault Rod, Plug, Sublime Collar/Lingerie, Succubus Pin
Altina: Assault Rod, Enchanted Wand, Sublime Collar/Lingerie, Mother's Pin

and Qum:

Zirantian Vibe/Plug/Sublime Collar/Sublime Lingerie/Sexual Pin

The agility overkill is just latent parts of what people are already using for other reasons.

the issue here is that I'm looking at level 80+ characters, so the relatively small gaps in Qum's agility growth have become substantial barriers. Earlier in the game, the aura strategy works fantastically and Qum will naturally be using Lingerie and other characters won't have equipment with incidental agility bonuses in most cases, so she can maintain parity or act ahead of most of them. The endgame gear kind of flattens that by giving everyone similar benefits, and makes it difficult or impossible to make up for the growth gaps. Qum has naturally 30-50 less Agility naked than these other characters do at this point; that's why she's behind them.

Stripping everyone's gear, Qum has a natural agility of about 250, whereas Simon has 302, Robin 301, and Riala 297: It's just too much for her to overcome. Everyone's getting 30-40 free agility because it just happens to be on gear that's otherwise their best option (and in some cases where they are the only option: Robin has Crusader II, but very few characters can use that item, so replacing it with a different pin with +Magic on it isn't really viable, as there's no good home for the removed Charm)

My personal preference in games like this, FWIW, is to avoid ever being close to the enemy's agility levels. I like knowing decisively which characters will act before the enemy and which characters always act after (mostly Carina and Hilstara, though sometimes Carina's heals will fire before the enemies attack). Carina's so slow that there's no real cost to giving her the 'earth' items (staff of stone, sphere of earth) with their agility penalties.

It's unfortunate that the gear options for sexual and magical characters are very linear: There's only 1 robe comparable to lingerie, and it can't be used by Altina or Yarra anyway (Crusader), so Robin uses that and everyone else uses sexual gear; the succubi all need buttplugs, and there's only a tiny handful of protective pins with significant stat bonuses as well (givini II, crusader II and duelist II mostly; Heirloom II is only really relevant for Aka and Vhala with its huge luck buff), and the best staff also just randomly has agility on it.