Disgaea -Hour of Darkness

[SuperBrother]

Story mode completed, all promotion exams completed and I still can't open cave of ordeal through voting........ ft:

I've got Laharl up to Lv. 350ish now so I'll keep levelling until I can persuade by force.

[E. Randy Dupre]

You should be a high enough level to force it through now. Remember to use the AI to your advantage - in battles, enemies always attack certain character classes first, regardless of their levels. Magic users will always be targetted first, so if Laharl's getting a bit of a bashing from the senators, send a couple of mages out to lure them away from him while he heals.

Also, remember what I said earlier on in the thread about abusing the random generation of influence and senator numbers - keep on going in and out of the proposal screen until you get influence as close to the required amount as possible and as high a number of senators as you can. Get it right and you'll end up fighting lots of low level senators.

You're also making life much more difficult if you're using a character who's at rank 11 to propose the bill, beacuse the levels of the senators you fight partly depends on how high your rank is. Use a rank 0 character to propose the creation of a genius-level character or the "Raise military funds" bill and you'll see what I mean - the senators you fight will be no higher than about level 6. Get another of your characters up to whatever rank they need to be for CoO to appear on the proposals list (7? 8?) and have them put the bill forwards. That way, when you have to force it, the senators you fight won't be as difficult to beat as those if you'd used your rank 11 character to propose the bill.

[MartyG]

Get a different character promoted until they can just propose the motion - the senators will be lower level because the character will have lower influence - in fact, you can keep exiting and coming back until you see an influence level that's low. A lvl 350 Laharl should then be able to force the motion, you can use up to ten characters in the battle, not just the one who's proposing the motion.

Edit: And I should have really read the above post through, as that's pretty much what I've just posted

Regards
Marty

[SuperBrother]

Thanks guys! I'm still astounded by the amount of exploitation possible with this game.

[E. Randy Dupre]

I think I've just noticed another exploit, but I didn't realise it at the time and so haven't taken advantage of it yet. Hopefully, Marty or Saur might be able to confirm that it works. Or doesn't, as the case may be.

When you go through the story mode again, the story characters are set back to their default levels and given their default equipment when you fight them, but as soon as they're added to your team they suddenly revert to whatever level/equipment you got them to/gave them in the last run. Say in my first run through the story I get Flonne up to lvl30 (she starts the game at lvl5) and equip her with a Galactic Staff. I then finish the game and start a new cycle. When I meet Flonne in battle this time, she's back to lvl5 again, without the Galactic Staff, but as sson as I beat her and get her added to my team, she jumps straight back to lvl30 and gets the staff back.

I was thinking that you might be able to use this to get loads of legendary items from Marjoly. Beat her once, then when she's in your team take her items off her. Finish story mode quickly by losing to Mid-Boss. Start a new cycle, open BoE and fight Marjoly again. Because she gets her original equipment back when she's an enemy, you can send out a Space Pirate to half-inch it from here. Beat her and do it again. Repeat until your warehouse is full of legendary Cats' Ears or you get bored.

Do either of you know if this works? I know that you definitely don't get her items again if you just beat her, but I only thought about stealing them after I'd won the battle. It'll be a relatively easy way to get high level item residents if it does.

[Bassman]

I love the way you can use the base panel to get some extra movement. I was in the "crossroads" map in Gargantua (getting the upper hand) and my Bushi was too far away for bringing in for a conventional attack so I moved on the base panel, which was just in range. Reselected her and got her full movement from there, which was adjacent to the last bit of the battle.

I'd noticed the AI characters preference for going after the lesser characters and have used it to my advantage, especially against Lamington. I ended up with three characters on screen. The Bushi (Lvl 80 ish), Etna (Lvl 100) and the Star Mage (Lvl 200+). Lamington concentrated on those two lesser characters so the Bushi kept doing a special to whittle him down with Etna taking care of the healing. The Mage stood at a distacne taking out about 4000 HP a time with a Lvl 1 Fire spell (the only level fire she has).

I was very disapponted with Vulcanus when I came up against him. Not a challenge at all after the first relatively big attack.

I finished the first cycle at 160 hours. Must try that Rank thing in the Assembly to get the Cave of Ordeal open. Will my Lvl 215 Star Mage stand a chance I wonder (6000 HP). Then again I can use the lure tactics I suppose. Etna (Lvl 101) and the Bushi (Lvl 80 ish) to do some specials with Etna healing and the Blademaster (Lvl 101) with Laharl (Lvl 73 I think) doing specials with the Blademaster healing. Those two pairs ought to keep them occupied. How do you avoid attacking those in favour of your request as I got the impression that they all seemed to join in. How do you start the vote under those cicumstances?

[MartyG]

I don't know, I've never tried it, but it sounds like a long winded way of trying to getting a high level residents. Residents are normally in the first ten floors of an item, so you'd be better off going through items and combining, it'd certainly take less time.

[Bassman]

I was talking about levelling up my characters. Still, if I can get the Cave of Ordeal open...

I once made the mistake of killing all except the resident on an item floor. I think he was the least accessible of the lot. Even though the resident was still there I got the Stage Cleared message... argh!!!

[MartyG]

They'll reappear on later floors.

[E. Randy Dupre]

I don't know, I've never tried it, but it sounds like a long winded way of trying to getting a high level residents.

Yeah, you're probably right - I was blinded by the thought of having many gold shiny things. It's also a bit more satisfying getting a bunch of 300+ residents in one item run than having to slog through lots of lower rank items - I've been after combining a 19,998 Gladiator for ages now, but it can feel like a bit of a chore after a while. I'm up to 11,500 or so now.

Talking about a bit of a chore, I'm also trying to get my Space Pirate up to a level where he can nab Baal's Super Robo Suit and some Item Gods' rank 40 weapons. He's lvl1503 now, so I've got a lot of work to do. I knew that I should have been doing something else with all that time I spent transmigrating Laharl.

How do you avoid attacking those in favour of your request as I got the impression that they all seemed to join in.

Senators who vote in favour of a proposal don't fight you. They stay on the map, but they don't actually do anything. Keep the fight confined to the floor and away from the tiered area and you won't hit them.

[Moodmon]

Just got it, and it's great. Haven't laughed so hard at a character in ages (Dood!). But I'm a little stuck as to what exactly to do first. I'm only facing mid-boss for the first time, but have created the three default mages, and an average Cleric for bow-ness. Just wondering if that's a good way to go about things. I know I need to level like crazy, but my options are limited at this early stage. Item world a good bet?

(I have a nasty habit of naming my characters after other RPG characters. I have Marle, Aika and Fina so far. Arf.)

[MartyG]

Read through this thread - these questions have been answered in it at least twice.

[Moodmon]

Someone really needs to create an Idiot's Guide to Disgaea. The free pdf is good, but doesn't really help those of us who struggle in the brain department. I know I shouldn't be a lazy git, but hey. Looks like a nice long read tonight then

EDIT - Halfway through the thread, and I've decided I pretty much wasted most of my time trying to get a Cleric and some Mages up to spec. Especially when trying to do it via the practice map. D'oh.

[Bassman]

The first map in Vyer's Castle is good initially for getting levels. Actually I think there are more EXP points to be gained on the tutorial map initally as there are more monsters there. Having said that, when I got to an improved level (buy some decent items to further boost if you can afford it) and take a character or two through the second Vyers map a few times. If you have enough decent items to well equip two characters that ought to help with the levelling up process. I think that was probably my initial preference for levelling. A solo character on that map can pick up 118 EXP. If you can survuve the third Vyers map that is good for over 200 EXP.

I started again last night. A Rank 4 character did not have access to the cave. I had a Rank 6 that did and went ahead with that. The strongest enemy (those that voted against me) had over 6000 HP. It wasn't exactly plain sailing, but I defeated them and got the bill passed. I noticed the senators that were in favor remained seated. Great, I thought and came back to the Castle. There was a grave where the dimensional gatekeeper (the way to the maps) used to be. No access to maps... argh. One of my "staff" had voted against me... typical. I wasn't sure it she was likely to reappear so I quit. Went through the voting process again. Took on the dissenters. First I checked and there were no humanoids there so that was OK. I noticed this time around the strongest enemy had about 2500 HP... a result then, as the battle was short and easy.

More than can be said for CoO 3 at the moment, though I am working on it. With a Magic Boost the Star Mage can manage between 8000 and 9000 hits with a Tera Star. I will be boosting the level of that spell and see what I can do,

Up to the end of chapter 3 so far... praticing those spells.

[MartyG]

Yeah - freaked me out when that first happened to me - I thought I'd lost item world forever. All you have to do is save your game and reload and they magically reappear.

Regards
Marty