#dip plays eov

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At long, long last, we're finally wrapping up 1F.

We finally return this guard's chickens, and in return he immediately gives one away to the party.

This chicken stays with Jenetta at the inn, and will lay eggs for the party every couple of days. This will be very helpful in time.

I also farmed up a boatload more Conical Canines to fully forge Aurora's Kopis and (not shown) Berry's Madfa. As said before, Berry won't do much attacking with it—even with the weapon upgrade, and even with that weapon fully forged, her damage is still really hella shrimpy (and it can't even activate chains!)—but it's forge bonus is a solid HP Up, which is perfect for her.

With all that said and done, though, we won't have much business on this floor for a very long time. Finally, we'll be heading up to 2F.

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Back in town, our freshly-plucked dog teeth make us some new equipment. I don't much care for the Madfa unlock, for a reason you'll see extremely soon, but that shiny new Kopis is perfect for Aurora; I'll be getting it for her right away.

Meanwhile, at the bar, we accept a quest from Syrik that just so happens to require us to unlock... a Madfa. Having already done so, we quickly turn the quest in, and receive...

...a Madfa! Berry promptly replaces her old Fire Gun with it, though she won't get much use out of it herself, on account of her having a party to guard.

On that note, I won't actually be using Gunmount at all until... basically the end of the maingame, if not postgame. The main reason for that is just that Berry won't ever really need it. Yeah, it does save hella TP at it's earlier levels, but in later strata, she'll be wanting to use other artillery skills over Gunmount.

Plus, I also just have something of an aversion to skills with prerequisite skills that I'll never use. In this case, the prerequitsite is Heal Guard (no, not the Nexus version. It wishes it were half as good). I'll never use it, and it clogs up my skill list!

Anyways, while forging up Berry and Aurora's newly acquired weapons, I get some Short Bows for Denica and Chloe and forge them up. In the former's case, the extra damage will be nice. In latter's case? Well, Chloe's not doing any respectable STR-based damage as a Celestrian, so the main draw is the AGI bonus you get from forging. Eleanor's gonna get her own bow in due time. I'm not too pressed about her acting faster or doing any more bow damage.

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Now, we are finally getting close to wrapping up the first floor. I swear not every floor is gonna take 600 updates. I swear.

(Imagine Berry doing this two more times) I actually... forgot to tell that guard that I saved all of his chickens, so the reward for that will unfortunately have to wait...

In the dreaded northern area, we run into this ugly mug. This is the third reason I got the party to Lv5. Simply put, it hits hard, and has a line-target defense debuff that makes it hit even harder. I didn't want to take any chances with this guy.

Thankfully, a Hunter Shot from Denica and a good old-fashioned walloping from Aurora rendered the thing dead before it could do anything with that debuff it slapped on the front row. I may have overestimated the Wild Dog.

I take it upon myself to hunt down some more Wild Dogs for their Conical Canines, which I'll need for a quest very soon.

This is a very silly formation, but at this point, we can take on Air Squirrels just fine, thanks in no small part to Eleanor's newly acquired Wing Thrash. Unfortunately, as seems to be a running theme with most of Hawk spec Rover's skills, it synergizes weirdly/poorly (read: not at all) with Fencer's Chains. In the case of Wing Thrash specifically, it's faster than even a Chain skill's initial prep. It will not and cannot proc Chains at all.

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Anyways, the team has at last reached Lv5. Now, I can share with you second reason why I did this:

Denica finally gets Hunter Shot, which is basically her best skill until gaining access to Legendary Titles. Though, the main event is actually Berry acquiring Animal Care.

Earlier on, a guard near the entrance requested for us to find his lost chickens. Now that we have Animal Care, we can get thst done.

Additionally, if you're especially sharp, you may remember that Eleanor is a Brouni, and as such has had the ability to learn Animal Care since lv1.

While neither Eleanor or Berry are particularly pressed for skill points (nor will they really ever be) I gave the point in Animal Care to Berry simply because, between her and Eleanor, she'll be slightly less in need of SP over the course of the first two strata. Thus, she has slightly more to throw into Passives (like Animal Care, for instance!), Union Skills, and the like.

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While I was getting the party up to lv5, there's a particular event I wanted to make special note of. Those who have played EO5 before may remember the event on the first floor surrounding the snapping turtle guarding the copper coin.

The way the event plays out is that, after attempting to grab the coin multiple times, and getting your fingers chomped on by the turtle in most of those attempts, you're given the option to take a breath and calm down before continuing.

As you do so, one of your characters will suggest simply moving the turtle and then grabbing the coin. You can choose to do this, and the event will end with you taking the coin, no more pain required. This is how I assume most players have done the quest.

However, you can also choose to keep on grabbing at the coin, despite the rationality of the other choice. What you might not know is that if you choose this, you can still successfully grab the coin without moving the turtle.

I don't know if it's an AGI check or what, but after a few more attempts, Aurora here eventually managed to evade the turtle's jaws, and nab the coin at last.

The end result is the same, so the extra effort is more or less for naught...

...and you've the potential to take quite the beating, too; each bite from the turtle deals 20 points of damage. Still, I don't think damage from anything outside of battle can kill a party member; had she been bitten one more time, Aurora would have likely been left with just 1 HP.

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Since I now have some fresh new Lv1 characters in the party, I took it upon myself to rest Berry and Denica back to Lv1 to match. For the sake of synced exp bars of course.

Now, I'm gonna go run around in the southern part of 1F until the party reaches Lv5. There are three main reasons for this. The first one being to make up for the levels that I just rested off of Berry and Denica (and that Aurora, Chloe, and Eleanor never got). The other two reasons... I will divulge in due time.

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Our first battle, and it's...

Honestly kinda toothless.

Berry just uses Line Guard on the front row. The worst a Roper can do at this point is use a basic attack, which can sting, but not as much as an Air Squirrel's Balloon Drop. Mercifully, no such enemy is present.

Terry's put one point into Chain Shock (on account of the dreaded Air Squirrels being weak to volt), and a bunch of other points into passives that don't really matter right now.

You may have noticed in the first screenshot that I FORGOT TO SUMMON MY DOG. If she want's to contribute to Chain Shock—and she does—Denica's got no other skill to use but Target Arrow (which has a nifty defense debuff attached, so it's not all bad). But that's not the end of my forgetfulness...

Yeah... there's no excusing this one. I straight up forgot to invest ANY points into ANY skills on Pearl and Louisa. Thankfully, they both have bows equipped, so their basic attacks can still activate Terry's Chains—which is arguably more important than whatever else they could have done if they DID have skills to use—but still.

The rest of the battle was nothing to write home about, and I imagine things will stay that way until we encounter the Dastardly Balloon Squirrel. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some skill points to spend...

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Lmao I play the game with voices muted so these stratum intros are complete dead silence with text crawls until the music starts

But that aside HOLY SHIT IT'S TIME TO FINALLY PLAY THE VIDEO GAME

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I don't know if anyone else does this (someone out there probably does), but I have a strict order in which I organize equipment on characters. From topmost to bottom-most slot:

1. Weapon

2. Shield

3. Headwear

4. Body Armour

5. Armwear

6. Legwear

7. Accessories

I adhere to this order always, and you can trust me when I say that when the game gives you a temporary party member, and their equipment doesn't follow this rule, I shake my head in disappointment and breathe a heavy, saddened sigh.

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I've mentioned in the past that my playstyle in EO games is quite grindy. The earliest example of this is that whenever I start up a new file, I spend several minutes to create new characters, only to take their starting equipment, dismiss them from the guild, and then sell their stolen belongings.

Through doing this here, I've managed to rack up additional 500 ental, more than doubling my starting funds of 300en.

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I usually rush through this mission pretty quick because the first floor is brutal (as first floors in EO tend to be) but also not that large.

However, I'll be able to rush through even quicker now because...

As I said before, I'm carrying over maps from new game plus, making this already easy mission even easier! All the better for me, because access to reclassing requires completion of this mission as a prerequisite, and I'd like to get to that as soon as possible...

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Introducing the fine five members of Meriband (most of which are only temporary)...

Berry, who will be our Dragoon, and eventual Cannon Bearer. (I've always liked this Dragoon portrait, but nobody ever seems to give it much love >_>)

Terry, who will be our Fencer! Don't get attached to him, though. You see why in time.

Denica, who will be our Rover and eventual Hunting Hound! (Fun fact: her pretty little face is also my profile pic most everywhere on the internet that isn't here. If you ever see me/her around, say hi, why don'tcha!)

Pearl, our Botanist who you also should not get attached to!

Louisa, our OTHER Rover who will also not have the pleasure of being a permanent fixture!

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Back in December of... 2021, I believe, I played my first EO game... EO3. (Not EOIV, despite my love and nostalgia for it) In a stroke of genius, I came up with the guild name "Meriband." It's a cute one, I'd like to think—a merry band of adventurers? Eh?

...I've used the name for all playthroughs of EO games since, because I frankly can't come up with anything better. That, and there's sentimental value to it!

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Chain Killer... I'm coming for you...

So yeah, by popular—by which I mean singular—demand I'm gonna liveblog EOV

I've probably said at least once that EOIV is my favourite game in the series but that game doesn't have Chain Duelist (Link Landy is NOTHING to Chain Duelist) so I actually HATE it (a joke, of course) (though this game is probably my favourite in the series. that much is true)

As a side note, I'm doing a new game plus run but I'm only carrying over map data because I'm playing this on a cellular telephone and my fingers are too voluptuous to map comfortably on this tiny screen. Plus I spent a lot of time putting a lot of detail into my old maps and I'd hate to just throw them away

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Hell yeah baby!!

With this, I bring you the replacements for Terry, Pearl, and Louisa...

Aurora, who will be our Chain Duelist!

Terry was good, but hoo boy is Aurora gonna be a lot better. Alter-classing a Therian into Fencer is great for additional TP over Earthlains, and of course that sweet, sweet strength stat.

Chloe, who will be our Graced Poisoner!

She's gonna be using a lot of her Smoke skills, even before we get Chain Killer, and a Brouni's Luck stat simply won't cut it for me, even with the resistance debuffs attached to Snoke skills. Celestrians have a decent Wisdom and Luck, meaning Chloe's both a decent inflictor and healer, both of which being roles that a Graced Poisoner fills.

And Eleanor, our Flying Falcon.

I'll admit, Brouni Rover is a dubious choice. To be honest, the only reason she's a Brouni at all is for Take (you get real nice items from Take Points) and an Animal Therapy that heals more than a quarter-point of HP. Still, the sheer power of the Hawk she fights alongside more than makes up for her lack of Strength, as well as the fact that she can still activate Chains just fine.

Rest in who-knows-where, Terry, Pearl, and Louisa. You may be missed, but also maybe not.

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Alrighty it's time for take 2! We're gonna get through a lot quicker this time.

This formation isn't very threatening in the slightest. When Rabid Acorns have a significant chance to defend on any given turn, and their offenses are nothing special, this formation serves to take up your time more than anything else.

And yeah I forgot to summon my animals before that fight...

Say hello to our now-named Hero the Hound, and Beck the Hawk! They may not do too much earlier on, but in time the two of them will become forces to be reckoned with, I can assure you.

Despite having an already-finished map, the game still requires you to have SEEN most of the area with your own two eyes for it to deem your map completed. Now that I've done so, I can finally head on back to town with the mission all wrapped up.

BUT NOT BEFORE DENICA GETS HIT BY THE DREADED BALLOON DROP (and lives!)

For completing the mission, we of course get a "good job" and a pat on the back from our buddy Ramus.

As well as some exp, bringing the party to level 3! Hooray!