- Chapter 5 -
Second Wind
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- Level 41 -
14/12/2024
Little over 3 months after my last update, I am back! :D
So, after making that big video, which I still really like, the celebration of all the things I achieved in level 40, it's back to the challenge. I gotta do the exact same 3 more times, and while I did take 3 months to get here, I am feeling extremely optimistic about my time expectations of grinding. I do need to focus on other things, but my grinding has gotten so chill, I wouldn't be surprised if I got another level far faster than I imagine... But I would also not be surprised if I take far longer, but that's life :v
Well, here goes the beginning of the 2nd quarter of the challenge. Let's see if it brings up any surprises.
- Level 42 -
9/1/2025
Another level done.
It took a little bit under a month, and honestly that feels very appropriate. Short bursts, long sessions, it was pretty fun and laidback. Wish I had more to say, but honestly it was legit just fun to get into battle after battle after battle... Damn I love this game.
11/1/2025
TODAY I REMEMBERED THIS
I knew I had something else to say, and it was that now, at level 42, I'm at the highest level I have ever reached in The Legend of Dragoon!
This picture here is the PS3's Memory Card Utility thingy, and this save file is from when I FIRST BEAT THE GAME, reaching level 41... Also took a bit under 50 hours, look at that, and here I am with 430 hours and counting, but there you go, this is the highest level I have ever gotten in The Legend of Dragoon, and it's at the very beginning of the game... And I thought I was running out of milestones B)
- Level 43 -
29/1/2025
Managed to get it before the end of the month!
While I got through all these battles, I got a couple of thoughts, like what's the optimal order to kill enemies for faster battles. I actually got a made up metric to see if a battle is properly fast or not, and is tied to the battle song. The song starts with some sick percussions and harp arpeggios, then goes into some string verses, then a synth section and then loops, so if I can end the battle before the synth part starts then I did a good job on having a fast battle, and funnily enough I achieve that more often when I'm paying the least attention to the game.
Besides that, I have been thinking a lot about the upcoming characters, in the case I have to grind for them too, and a mechanic I should be looking out for. So, this game has a split EXP system, the EXP is divided by the number of alive members at the end of the battle. Right now Dart is alone so he gets all the EXP, and I don't know if once I get to Lavitz, even if Dart cannot get more EXP, he will take half of the EXP and screw Lavitz over a little bit, so I will try to keep Dart on the red of health for as long as I can until I can test out this suspicion, as if it happens to be true, then I would have to get him KO'd ideally every battle for Lavitz to get optimal EXP gain... Oh yeah, party members are revived with 1 HP if they were dead at the end of a battle, it's usually very useful, but may pose an issue here. Also, right now Dart is still taking damage from the enemies in Forest, so I can still work on his health going low, but in the case he stops taking damage, I will have to just worry about not hitting the Shield button, which heals and reduces damage by half, which would make him immortal in normal battles, and HOPE the Hellena wardens can deal damage to him. I already got a strategy involving Charm Potions to make Lavitz untargettable and lure all enemies to Dart, but that's ONLY if he takes any damage. After that I can rely on poison to get a character killed, in case they're too strong for physical damage, and by the end of Disc 1 I can rely on 00PARTS to kill me if needed.
I know there's a tale about the daydreaming milkman, who got a big delivery to make and, while walking with all his bottles of milk on hand, was daydreaming of all the things he could do with the massive pay he'd get for this one job, and in his lack of focus he tripped and dropped all the bottles, all of them broke and he was left without pay. It's about not getting lost in the future while you're getting there... But look, I'm loving the present and having fun looking forward to the future. Whatever comes, I'll make the most out of it, and it's inspiring me to get there, so I'll hopefully be fine.
- Level 44 -
27/2/2025
And here we are, yet another level down and managed to get it before the end of the month! This one was very fun to get to because of my plans to get Dart low on health. You see... I remembered an extra way to get damaged: Counterattacks.
Dart has 3 additions with Counterattacks, and I think my favorite addition, Crush Dance, just happens to have the highest chance of triggering a counterattack. My plan for a while was inverted from the plan of getting through battles as fast as possible, I had to target the enemy whom I think is least likely get a turn right after mine, trying to guarantee the other enemy can attack me, and pray that I get a counterattack on every attack I make and deliberately fail it. From this I noticed the possible range of damage I can take from the 2 types of available battles types. From 0 to 5 in double battles and 0 to 2 in the encounter with a single Goblin. Let's start with the Goblin, it's the most straightforward. The ideal battle has the Goblin attack me first and then I get counterattacked when I attack it. For double battles the ideal battle has both enemies attack me before I get a turn, then I attack the enemy least likely to attack me next hope to get a counterattack, then hopefully the surviving enemy attacks me again and I get another counterattack for a total of 5 damage... I didn't say it before but counterattacks deal 1 damage, same as the enemies themselves. The worst case scenario would be the enemies getting no turns and me getting no counterattack prompt, thus, 0 damage.
All this makes battles take a lot longer, I'd say a total of 50% longer than my speed strats, but since I only take 1 damage as of now, I could reach a point where I take 0 damage, and since I may need Dart to die once I get Lavitz due to the whole EXP sharing deal mentioned on the previous entry, this would be some good future proofing.
I eventually got Dart on the red, 1/4 of his max HP, and then got back to the speed grinding strats. I still managed to lose 300 HP between then and the level up, and will ONLY heal him through a Guard once he drops under 10 HP, maybe under 5, I took a bit of time to check if he still takes damage, and yep, at lvl 44 he still takes 1 hit, but now I can just keep him as barely alive as I can and just focus on speed grining.
Other than that, the grinding has gone smoothly, fun and remarkably engaging. Still having a blast here, and considering that I need less than 10K EXP for the next level, I have a good feeling about the days to come... Unless I take a sudden break, who knows :v
- Level 45 -
14/3/2025
Alright, for this level I gotta go over what I said on the previous entry because it has all had developments.
At level 45 I still take 1 damage from every single enemy in the area, so I have no reason to trigger counterattacks. I did try to avoid healing as much as possible, but I literally got from 400 HP down to 3 HP without the use of a single counterattack, so at least for now I can just grind at full speed and just worry about not dying. I do have some strategies to check my standing on the health and all that, but I don't know if Dart will ever stop taking damage, so I will just rely on the more precise checks rather than future-proofing every single moment of the grind, it's gonna slow down a lot if I don't chill a bit.
For the next level I will need barely less than 10 thousand EXP, not unsubstantial at all, so yeah, I better stop worrying about the damage until I'm like 20 EXP away from leveling up.
The only other cool thing I can share is that I am over 500 hours into this save file. Looking forward to seeing it go over 999 hours, and I also plan on maxing out the Gold counter eventually :P
