Granblue Fantasy at level 180 – Still playing, but not really

The one that got away

It’s been 9 months since I did my level 175 post. Initially I was doing these update posts mainly to track my progress, but also encourage myself about how far I’d come and remind myself how far I had to go. On some level, I guess I’m also trying to leave a record for myself when Granblue Fantasy eventually goes down.

For the first two points, they don’t really apply any more because I think I’ve come far enough. There’s still a ton of things I can do to improve my grids, but as I mentioned before, as you go along, it takes more and more effort to make a small blip in your strength levels. For example my Earth party is definitely not crap any more, but it’s taken months and years of trading prestige pendants and beating Alexiel (who never, I repeat, never gave me an axe) to get to that point.

And after all the time I spent sparking and grinding up my Varuna grid, I recently learned that the Varuna meta is no longer Fimbuls but rather some other weapon I hadn’t thought about. Doesn’t matter, my current grid is good enough. And in fact, all my current grids are good enough. I don’t intend to put much effort into improving them from now on, so there’s no need to post grid updates either.

Does that mean I’m stopping Granblue Fantasy? Of course not. And I’ll thank you kindly not to bring up my dark history of trying and failing to quit this game in the past. It just means I’m going into coasting mode – in fact I’ve already been in coasting mode since the year started – where I focus on doing events as best as I can but don’t grind or actively try to get stronger. I’m also super-idly working on FLBing the eternals and unlocking new classes, but veeeery idly because I’m not going to do anything with them. Still I’m leaving the door open for Cygames to bring out some wonderful new content that sends me running back to computer day and night etc etc not holding my breath etc etc. You never know.

Achievements since my last post

-FLB’d Eahta. I mentioned I was working on Niyon earlier, but my Earth party needed more help at the time. Through the triple combo of FLB Eahta, Mahira and a better grid, I can finally do good damage to Europa and other useless Water enemies of her sort. Let’s see if I can OHKO Leviathan Omega at strike time before I brag… eh, can’t be bothered to check. Just take my word for it.

I’m working on getting Seofon as well. Wind has fallen behind a bit in my party rankings… but that’s not the reason why I want him. The real reason is because he’s my first Eternal and I’m actually very fond of him. FLB’ing Eternals is a tedious process so I might as well do it for a character I care about.

-Unlocked the Doctor and Soldier class. And maybe some other classes, but I can’t remember them. Maybe Monk? I should really level them up for the mastery bonuses but I’ll save that for the next magnafest, which should be around the corner now that Summer characters are starting to appear.

Actually, come to think of it, I have so many elixirs and berries that I don’t need to wait for magfest to grind anything. But somehow grinding at full cost feels like a rip off, and besides my mind is already attuned to playing seriously during magfest so… yeah.

-Raised total number of level 100 characters to 29. Black Knight, idolmaster water girls, Rackham, Ayer, Percival, Zeta, Tiamat, Lennah, Eahta, Io, Katalina, Mahira, De la Fille and Anila are all between 91 and 99.

-Uncapped all Seraphic weapons like I said I would. I can’t even remember if they made any difference to my strength, but I guess more stats are always welcome.

…That’s it. I may have done some other stuff but I don’t remember so that’s okay. I still need to unlock the Lumberjack, Cavalier, Monk, Nekomancer, Tormentor and Rising Force classes, but I’m too lazy to rack up Prestige pendants these days. Next magnafest, maybe. As for Arcarum, it’s too much work lately so I’ve been sitting on a full 90 tickets for a while. Meh.

Grids, grids~ Get your grids here!

Earth

It’s peforming much better now that I’ve replaced some Yggdrasil swords with Alexiel’s axes. I believe I’m also supposed to add some Alexiel swords to the mix at some point, but no rush.

Trying to get some cuties up to level 100. They have good skills…? I think? Most of the time I just auto-away.

I only recently found out that the Xeno harp can go up to level 200. That means I missed out on getting the fire Xeno scythe to level 200 as well? It looks like lv. 150 is becoming the new standard, 100 is obsolete and 200 should be aspired to.

Wind

Same as last year. I haven’t used this year’s Anniversary Ticket yet, so I idly considered getting a second Grimnir harp. Still idly considering it, maybe I will, maybe I won’t.

Still testing out different party combinations and trying to get everyone’s levels maxed out for the lulz. I have so many characters, I don’t even remember their skillsets half the time.

Bullying Vohu Manah out of revenge for all the times she bullied me. But not really because I don’t really care.

Fire

FLB’d the Ancient Ecke Sachs but haven’t gotten them up to level 150 yet. What is that gun supposed to be? Huh, I don’t remember getting that… let me check… [Beast Weapon] Summer’s Mirage? Umm, can’t remember where I got that from but it has to be good because I put it in my grid. Yeah.

Raising characters to level 100 and I believe I have Magisa for the veil? And the blind debuff, yeah. She’s a handy gS

Same old summons as always. Both Lucifer and Bahamut are almost level 200 but not quite.

Water

Old Faithful. Now with more plus marks! I do at least one 10-roll every time there’s an “all plus marks” banner. It’s an easy way of adding more stats to your party. Eventually I might start to add them to my characters as well.

No need to show my frontline party because it hasn’t changed in ages. Same with the summons.

Dark

I think I said something about changing my main weapon? Never got round to it, but I did FLB a Hermanubis for Berserker shenanigans which I also haven’t gotten round to.

The mouse, the knight and the armpit.

Light

Same as last time. I don’t have any intentions of changing it either.

My latest pulls.

They get the job done. What more do you want?

Summary

Yeah, I’m pretty done with Granblue Fantasy. But not done done, just done. I’ve accomplished enough, now it’s time to just coast and enjoy what I’ve achieved.

Other games?

As I explained in the post before this one, I’m still playing games very actively. It’s just that they’re all mobile or casual games, so I don’t have much to say about them. I have a lot of “proper” games I want to play as well – for example I recently pulled Suelle in Atelier Online and she’s cute, so I kinda want to play Atelier Lydie & Suelle – but I’m really lazy. I need to force myself to just start something, but the will is not there. So if this blog is silent, it’s for lack of new games to play, not because I’ve gone anywhere.

I’m gaming a lot lately, but…

…but they’re all browser or mobile games which I don’t have much to say about. I did start Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth and play for about an hour. It was fun enough, though I skipped about 15 minutes of talking at the start so I can’t 100% say I know what’s going on. But once that hour-long session was over, I didn’t feel like going back for more. That said, it was starting to feel pretty good around the point I quit so I’d like to finish one or two dungeons and give it a proper review in a few days’/weeks’ time.

Other stuff I’m playing:

Atelier Online: Yeah, you know it. For all my complaints, I’m still going strong. Getting an emulator was a game-changer, I tell you. I’m currently level 73, on chapter 38 out of 39 of the main story. Naturally I’m being stonewalled by yet another unfair boss who OHKOs my troops and gets three turns to every one of mine. Thus my mission now is to grind up to level 80 and strengthen my party by feeding them lots of food. I might as well do a few sidequests while I’m at it too.

Candy Crush Soda Saga: Mentioning it here because I said I would write about it when I reached level 2000, but I forgot and I’m already at 2240-ish. The update is postponed to level 2500, then.

Rakuen Seikatsu Hitsuji Mura: I posted when I started it five years ago, now I’m a few EXP away from level 50 so I’ll do a proper review on it and how it deliberately breaks the hearts of F2P players one of these days. Why do I love games that don’t love me back?

Granblue Fantasy: IIRC I said I would do the usual “state of the grid” post when I reached level 180, and that was a while ago. No rush though, because I’m going to be 180 for a while longer. I’m on a login bonus-only routine until the next magfest when I can continue FLBing Niyon and Seofon… but why? Like, what for? Honestly I’m a bit over GBF, but maybe there’s an exciting update around the corner, so you never know.

Aight, that’s what’s going on with me. See you when I see you.

Yup, power of friendship strikes again!

I mentioned in the comments on my last post that I don’t bother with JRPG stories these days because they’re all “power of friendship will save the day” or “mankind needs no gods!” in the end. Barely a day after I made that comment, Atelier Online (the useless game I said I would drop but haven’t yet) proved me right again with the usual friendship song-and-dance.

First Sorrel said “We beat you because we’re not alone!” but I didn’t get a screenshot of that.

Then Anise-Hyssop put the screws in with the classic “We have friends and you don’t!” Nyaa nyaa~

This is pretty much the same way we taunted the last boss in Tales of the Tempest, so it was really nostalgic. Teasing someone about being a friendless loser is supposed to be the reserve of the jerk jock in American teenage movies, but it’s okay when we do it, because we’re the good guys. Nyaa nyaa~

And no JRPG would be complete without the gang letting pathetic mid-bosses escape so they can come bother us again and again. Gacha games are especially cowardly because they don’t want to be too dark or controversial, plus if they manage to successfully redeem the bad guy they’ll be able to release them as a gacha character. For all those reasons and more, I didn’t take the whole “Calendula is going to kill us all” saga seriously. Even the supposed massive horde of monsters he released (or so the story tells us but we never saw them) was dealt with without anyone being seriously injured. What a sissy game.

So anyway, after we taunted him, Calendula ran away. But if/when he comes back, we shall taunt him a second time! we’ll be ready to beat him again because we still have friends and he doesn’t. I didn’t say that, Angelica did:

I’ve actually fought plenty of mid-bosses who came as a team, or who were the head of an army, or of an evil gang, etc etc. Point is, good guys aren’t the only ones that can have friends, or comrades, or companions, There are bad guys out there who have friends, but hey, maybe they aren’t relying on their friends, or trusting each other, or their bonds are weak, or maybe they’re not doing it quite right. Either way it never helps them when push comes to shove, because we’re the good guys and they’re not. Nyaa nyaa~

Starting Persona Q in the next five minutes, let’s see how long it takes them to trot out the usual cliches. Look forward to it!

Nothing to update for now

There have been no updates because I am still struggling with that garbage Atelier Online game that I dropped but soon picked up again. I never knew I was such a glutton for punishment… But I have already determined not to write about it any more, so no further comments.

I will probably start Persona Q this weekend and then give my comments. I thought for sure that an SMT coating on the standard Etrian Odyssey shell would be enough to tempt me to play the series, but the more I think about it, the more reluctant I get. I don’t wanna navigate around any FOEs… <_< I’m already farming items in AO, I don’t want to forage any more…

Yah anyway, blog isn’t dead, gaming isn’t dead, I isn’t dead yet. I will post again when I have something to post again.

Last word on that garbage Atelier Online game

You’ve got to know when to hold em,
Know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away,
Know when to delete that useless Atelier Online game and run~🎵

My third and final post on the miserable experience known as Atelier Online: Alchemists of Braceir. I’ve mentioned before that the game likes to throw arbitrary roadblocks in your way so you don’t progress too fast. It’s somewhat understandable because the game doesn’t have a lot of content even after 18 whole months of operation. But a roadblock should still offer some sense of progress and some measure of enjoyment, right? Wrong, say Koei-Tecmo and Gust.

I got stuck after chapter 21. To progress to chapter 22, you have to defeat a certain level 45 golem. Yes, this uncute blighter right here.

His level is not the problem, because my party is over level 60. His defence is through the roof, but it’s not an issue as long as you slowly chip away at him with the wind attacks he’s weak against. The problem is that he has a massive heal spell that far out-heals any damage you can do. And he’s not afraid to use it either.

Now normally there are a few ways to deal with this kind of boss. In some games he will eventually run out of MP and stop healing, but not this one. Your other reasonable options are:

*Grind and upgrade till you can outdamage his heal. This will take FOREVER, because after level 60, leveling up slows to a crawl and it gets harder to strengthen your party members by feeding them. It’s evident that this challenge isn’t meant to be cleared that way anyway, because the golem’s level is already so low.

*Get carried by a stronger user. In a more sensible game, this would be plausible. But Atelier Online has no co-op lobby, guild system or quest recruitment board in the game, so finding help is a crapshoot. You either have to beg stronger players to be your friend and then beg them to help beat the golem, or you turn on multiplayer, hope someone strong shows up in the same vicinity, beg them to help and hope they will. What kind of game quest relies on “hoping and begging” as a strategy?

*Poison him to reduce his HP. This is what the game suggests in the golem’s flavor text. Okay, fair enough. It’s a check to make sure you’re taking advantage of item properties and ingredient quality and all that, I reasoned with myself. So I spent ages gathering enough ingredients to make Poison Unis. Wasted a ton of Fairy Powder and Fairy Gloves gathering only the best items to make the strongest Poison Unis possible.

In the end I had 27 top tier items. Used them all in the third battle against this blighted accursed golem. Do you know how many times I managed to poison him? ZERO. Zero times. 0. A big fat zero, oval like my head.

After that, I just quietly deleted the Nox emulator and said goodbye to Atelier Online. Sure it might be possible to beg, grind or farm my way to the next level, but what happens with the next nasty roadblock? And the one after that, and the one after that? Is this all I have to look forward to in this game?

I’m not sticking around to find out. In keeping with my gaming policy for 2019-2020, “it is enough to play a little bit of Atelier Online.” I’ve seen what it has to offer, and I don’t like what I saw. There are many other games in my backlog that demand attention and promise better rewards. Time to move on!

Minor update: Turns out I was overthinking things, and the battle is just a DPS check. Are you strong enough to do over 9300 damage every 5 turns or not? In practice it will have to be much more than 9300 because you will miss some turns due to the golem’s incurable charm attack. I discovered all this when I went to delete the smartphone app and decided I might as well waste all the EXP potions and Golden Spoons I had while I was at it. Then I went back to give the golem one last try and almost beat him. But eventually he healed himself almost back to full. Which made me hate the game even more. Anyway, in case anyone ever gets stuck there like me, the answer is “Git gud.”

Update 2: Managed to beat the little rotter last night (05/18). You need to be able to do a ton of damage AND you need to poison it. Git gud and git lucky. This time I set 19 Poison Unis to Auto-Item (less stressful than manual spamming) and ONE managed to proc when its HP was low, allowing me to deal the finishing blow. Hmph, I wasn’t even happy. I’m up to chapter 24 now, I think? Still dealing with more ridiculous roadblocks.

This is still the last word on Atelier Online for the forseeable future though. Unless something unusual or earth-shaking happens, I think I’ve said all that needs to be said for now. I just didn’t want to slink away in defeat at the hands of some smug, excrement-consuming ursine.

Four important tips for anyone ill-advisedly starting Atelier Online:

– Don’t do anything with the Fairy powders, gloves, fishing rods, etc. until you know what you’re doing. Later quests will require you to provide very high-quality items that you will rarely be able to get naturally. Actually “don’t use any items until you know what you’re doing” is a good maxim for any gacha game.

– Wait till you can beat the level 60 Hobgoblins before you start using Spoon, EXP potion and Item Strengthening tickets. You’ll get more bang for your buck that way. You can still do the free quests every day.

– Don’t waste Ether carelessly. You’ll start out with like 700,000 and think it will last forever, but it’s very easy to blow through it when trying to strengthen ingredients and imbue weapons with skills. Neither of which you should do until you know what you’re doing.

-Instead of trying to raise gacha characters equally, focus on getting one at a time to level 50. Once you have three of them at that level, they’ll be able to hunt for treasure (high-quality ingredients) while you’re out doing other stuff. I learned this the hard way, and now I have a bunch of characters stuck at level 20-30, picking up garbage every 10 minutes.

Escha GET!

Mimi GET!

Aight, enough. Next update will be on The Lost Child, or maybe Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. I’m feeling very dungeon-crawly right now.