Today, I managed to push my secondary party through to the end game of Malefia. Right now, I’m merely grinding out levels. While I’m not exactly struggling, I do find a few situations to cause my party a little grief, namely with regards to my Monk. Originally, I had wanted a Monk as part of a leveling group. And while Monks are fantasy mid game fighters, in Malefia they simply do not output enough damage. So I’m left with a dilemma: should I convert my Monk into another Geomancer?
While a high level Monk can hit virtually anything by the time they reach Malefia, the generally do around 2k worth of damage. Many monsters simply exceed that limit. In fact, even with Divine Intervention and having a full 16 attacks, you probably can’t kill the bulk of the monsters in Malefia. In addition, there are no items that provide any sort of critical hit ability for the Monk, not even the Strifespear (which I generally give to my Bard) So the only real purpose in having a Monk at this stage is a fancy mule.
What I’ve been doing though is gathering gear in preparation to convert my Monk into a Geomancer. I think I’m missing some Wargloves, a Titan Suit, a Diamond Suit and a spare Stoneblade. I ended up creating a new Hunter mule to hold my spare gear. The hardest to come across in this group is a Titan Suit. Also, I could exchange the Wargloves for Mages Gloves but I’d prefer to hand the Mages Gloves to either my Archmage or Chronomancer as these are super rare and the only gloves that give the normal magic user type a boost in AC. I might initially just give this new Geomancer a Breath Ring and Staff of Gods as well and stick her in the 5th spot until she gets to a reasonable level.
The thing is that the journey for a new Geomancer is a bit painful. It takes some time before they start performing. For instance, my current two Geomancers in this party are levels 32 and 34 (I think) or so. They’ve just started being able to hit monsters with their Stoneblades and are starting to cross that threshold to be able to cast a Divine Intervention spell (one can at least). But I think it’s still rather sketchy because many monsters resist spells in Malefia if you’re below level 50. Also, their attributes will take another 13-15 levels before they’re maxed out.
On the positive side, my Monk’s attributes are already 30 across the board and she’s level 100. I will lose her carrying capacity by switching over but there’s really not much new gear I need once I’ve got all the basics covered. And she has over 1k HP. Having a Breath Ring will help in resisting Gremlin’s attacks, which means the only thing that could threaten her is a Storm Demon. My guess is that it’ll take me 2-3 runs before I see another Titan Suit. I could always just transfer gear from another character that has the stuff she needs (not from my main party) but I prefer just trying to earn it. That way, I can keep leveling her as a Monk, give her more HP and continue to work on the other two Geomancers so that they become more reliable in melee.
Now, it might seem strange that I just don’t power level that new Hunter. Even though I can do that, it just isn’t much fun at this stage. I already have another party with a Hunter as the primary melee person. But in all honesty, a Hunter is really good for melee in Malefia. I know they can critically hit using a range weapon but the one monster where this could make a difference (Gremlin) is immune to everything except melee attacks. And that fight is the only one that would be worth having a ranged Hunter if it could work (since Gremlins are super annoying).
With Geomancers, you can get a similar effect with the Rock/Petrify spell which can effectively critically hit at 60′ range. So the idea of having three Geomancers seems more appealing, even though you need to put in quite a bit of effort before they become pertinent. It might seem strange that I didn’t convert my Monk beforehand. And it’s going to be really annoying going back and traveling through the sanctuary to convert the Monk. But in the scheme of things, it might be better. She’ll be behind the rest of the party but she was already ahead of them previously (hence the high HP and max attributes)
The thing is that I’m not really seeing much use for my Monk in Malefia. I have top gear already (except the ever elusive Mages Gloves) and there’s little need for having a mule dedicated for Harmonic Gems. My Archmage and Chronomancer have both Staff of Gods and the Familiar Fgn with the latter providing spell regeneration. And my Geomancers both have that Familiar Fgn. When I do need to cast NUKE, it’s generally done by the Archmage and/or Chronomancer with my highest level Geomancer casting it in occasional emergencies.
So I think what I might end up doing is experimenting a little. I think once the two Geomancers are hitting regularly (which also means they’re turning all enemies into stone), the third Geomancer can eventually be a dedicated spell caster. I could just keep both the Stoneblade and Staff of Gods and swap depending on my need. Most of the time, you really don’t need to cast more than 1-2 NUKEs. 4-5 NUKEs are only required when you’re facing really bad odds but almost never happens. But having three NUKErs around is a nice QoL for a party while your two other Geomancers can help decimating enemies with their Stoneblades.
The only bad thing is that I think Hunters have the best hit chance of all the classes. I noticed that my main Hunter is the only class capable of smacking one of those Rock Men. The rest miss all the time (maybe Divine Intervention can help there). So not having a Hunter means that you won’t be able to hit everything if you rely too much on melee. But with sufficient spells points and a solid high level, a Geomancer’s ROCK spell should be enough of a substitute.
At any rate, this does help motivate me to continue this thought experiment and continue leveling this secondary party. I’m eager to see the gradual efficacy of this party improve.
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