Oh the grinding!

A little note before I get started. My Ninja is past 40, as mentioned in previous post, but no Radiants yet. This is because Eugene is the main quest giver and as long as he has a quest for me available, he cannot give another quest in the list. Eugene is the Ninja Radiant quest giver. If I want him to give me Ninja Radiant quests, I have to do the main story quest first. But I don't wanna do that yet. I haven't beaten the game yet. I don't know how far I am in the game but I am now clocked at 75h play time.

Swordsman

Well the other night, I did Swordsman marathon and got it up to 48. Over-leveled a bit since I wanted Hi-ougi unlocked eventually (curious). As usual, the Radiants I got were just plain crap (except for the shield) compared to what I've found and crafted. Swordsman was meh - okay. Definitely a lot different and slower compared to Fighter which I was so used to for a long time. I'm just gonna move on from here but I might have a different say about Swordsman later on in this post.

By the way, the Swordsman (aka. Fencer) Radiant set makes my character look so cute.

And of course, this is how I look like most of the time because Radiant Armor set stats sucks, forcing me to use low level gear but very good stats. Thanks for the shield, though.

Magic Knight

Heh, I never thought I'd actually play this class. Actually, neither was Swordsman. Last night, again I marathon Magic Knight all the way to 57 and unlocked Hi-ougi. The best I've seen. Better than Fighter, that's for sure. Got Radiants, obviously, and of course... you guessed it! They're crap! With a tiny exception for the gauntlets. It actually replaced my green Hyper Gauntlets, but not so much. Let's take a look at the set.

And my current look... as well as my new party.

Sigh. Unfortunately for me, stats are prioritized before looks. Same for people. Can be an exception sometimes ^^; It's the inside that counts!

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Let's get straight to the point of why I'm doing all of this and torturing myself. "Luceid, why don't you just go with Fighter or Ninja and finish the game?" Well, the reason is simple. Once you get all the Magic Knight Radiant set, you obtain the title "Paladin".

Neat huh? Though it's not full immunity. I'd say it works about 70% of the time. It definitely makes the game a lot funner and not stupid where you get nicked once and you're stuck and wide open for more than a second just waiting for those enemies to surround you and do some insane damage with combos. Not anymore with this bad boy title.

To summarize my experience with these two completely different class (compared to Fighter), my time with Swordsman was terrible. Three Oh-So-Slow sword swings at a time and half the time, I can't even complete those 3 hits. Sometimes they don't even connect! Enemies will sometimes get an attack off right in the middle of the swings. Terrible! With Fighter, you walk up to an enemy, press attack 3 times and you made a 3-4 hit combo in less than a second. It was definitely a completely different experience. Not to mention, no "dash-through". But whatever, I did it. Though, not yet finished. I still need to get to 57 to learn its Hi-Ougi. It's currently 48, but I have a feeling that I will enjoy these 9(+) levels......

Frustrated, I fought Kratos, which didn't even try to cast First Aid on himself. I guess I got lucky. Unlocked Magic Knight. I headed over to Doplund to gather my Radiants and fought the R-Fencer boss. Piece of cake. Switched to Magic Knight, picked my mercenaries, entered Hallowed Bastion, WHAT! I have to cast First Aid 50 times? As levels rise, I was overwhelmed by long casting, high TP cost spells that I need to cast 50 times each in battle in order to master. Along with sword skills, which aren't a problem. But magics??? Argh! It was brutal. Fortunately, some sword Artes learned were already mastered, thanks to Swordsman.

To put it simply, the levelling/grinding process of Magic Knight was just extreme compared to Ninja and Swordsman. (See how much I'm complaining here when I don't have a clue what frustration means! The Japanese version of the game have much higher TP cost on almost every Artes and needs to be used 100 times each to master! The US version have been toned down.)

Anyways, back on topic. I finally did it. Mastered everything. Unlocked Hi-Ougi/Mystic Arte. Looks awesome and very useful. (Unlike the Fighter's that misses/slides away half the time.) As soon as I was MK 46, I went and hunted my Magic Knight Radiants. I found a useful combo that made me like MK a bit. Sword Rain/Demon Fang > Lightning Tiger Blade > Guardian Field/Light Spear Cannon. Sword Rain start for bosses to quickly stagger them and do combos. I use Demon Fang > Sword Rain: Alpha > Guadian Field normally.  I also found from GameFAQs forums that if you use Sword Rain: Alpha and Guardian Field over and over, it connects for an infinite combo which is what I used to quickly dispatch of the R-Paladin bosses.

I used SR > LTB > GF > SR:A > GF > SR:A (repeat). Paladin title obtained after MK Radiant set was completed. I have to admit, after playing Swordsman then Magic Knight, I'm starting to get used to (if not already) its playing style. I really like it. So comes to my next subject.

Let me talk about the effect of the Paladin title. This thing makes you immune to staggering 70% of the time (rough estimate). Its beauty shines as soon as I started using it. It was just unbelievable how much funner the battles became. Before the title and playing these 2 sword wielding classes, I would run up, block, retaliate, swing, gets hit, stagger, gets hit more, and more... okay, back up, heal up, repeat. I did mention the enemies sometimes gets an attack in the middle of your sword swings or just hard to make them stagger and combo. There's just so many wrong things happening and it makes these sword wielding classes difficult. (Compared to Fighter/Ninja/Thief. These guys, you can just dash through enemies and attack from behind.) With Paladin title, it's a whole new game. I'd just walk in and combo any lone monster or two even with them getting an attack off, I'd still be killing one. Even if you do stagger from a hit, it's not repeatedly like before and you can easily bounce back and retaliate.

With my bit of love for the Magic Knight (and possibly Swordsman too, now that I know how to use them better), combined with Paladin title, I am now having a hard time deciding if I should go back to Fighter or Ninja or stick with these Sword & Shield classes. MK's Mystic Arte defeats Fighter's. I have yet to see Ninja and Swordsman, however. My next project will be to unlock them both and decide once and for all.

This is Magic Knight's Mystic Arte/Hi-Ougi, Shining Bind! Until next time!