Part 36: Apprentice Blacksmithing

Update 36: Apprentice Blacksmithing






Music: Flask Boy


I'm tired of Klein dying all the time, so I figured it's high time I take a look at what Mana Stones can do for me. After a bunch of off-camera trial and error, I think I've figured out more or less how I want to try and do things, so let's get started!





Since I have Paltia, we'll go ahead and start with what she does. By giving her a Glowing Mana...





...There's a chance we'll get this curious but excellent sounding trait. She can also make AVOID + Lvl 1 with a Glowing Mana, although I'm not really worried about that right now. Getting some +AVO might be pretty cool later, though. I went ahead and made two of these.





Now let's switch our Aroma Material over to Plua to get Fanatos.





Fanatos can take a Silver Mana to make Blessing Power or Attack Comp 1. I made two of these as well.







Now we can slap the two power traits together into one stone. Then apply it to a piece of equipment, and...





Ohhh baby.

Battle Lord Power gives +35 attack power and HP. Blessing Power gives +35 HP and MP. The other stat boosts all come from the Fairy Bracer itself.





Meanwhile, Deimia can turn Dark Mana (which are extremely common and cheap) into Def + Level 2.





And those can be combined with each other to increase the Def + Level, all the way up to 9.





So we combine that with the ultimate power thing from before, and...





Awesome. This looks like a good thing for Klein or Marietta to have. I'd kind of like to give it to Klein, but I'm not willing to remove the Ring of Love for it (great stat boosts all around, plus it's Veola's engagement ring) nor the Speedster (because Klein needs speed as or more desperately than he does durability), so to Marietta it goes.

(the stat gains look worse here because I'm replacing an equipped accessory on Marietta instead of equipping it on an empty slot. The Buffer Ring offers pretty substantial attack and def boosts, so the fact that this offers even more on top of huge HP/MP wins and a little magic is pretty fantastic).





Deimia can also create Speed + 1 from Yellow Mana.





I should mention that only a few pieces of equipment can actually take Mana Crystals. The Fairy Bracer stands out because it is one of the only things that everyone can equip that can be improved via Smithing. I decided I'd try to put my new speed/def/HP/MP booster on Klein's starting weapon to see what happened.





...Eh...The stone effects are definitely worthwhile, but I don't think Klein's Cane is going to cut it. Hold on, maybe I can rearrange things to make this work a bit better.





Oh yeah, I didn't realize this earlier, but Gurgu's Cane is an actual equippable weapon for Klein and Norn. It's not looking to be a particularly good one, but if you want to give your casters a def boost (highly understandable) then it's worth looking into I guess. It doesn't take Mana Crystals though, so no smithing bonuses for it.





What I wound up doing was putting Klein's Mana Crystal on the Fairy Bracer. As you can see, this not only boasts a minor speed lead on the Speedster, but also gives great parameter boosts in just about everything else.

Of course, this leads to the question of how to get Marietta's Mana Stone back on something she's wearing.





As it happens, Marietta's starter weapon is also, um, smithable. The Phantom Blade is as well, but as it turns out that was exclusive to Arlin, so no luck for her there.





Hmm, that seems reasonable enough. And I can always just switch her back to the Angel Blade if I need her magic power more than proper MP or dark resistance (and she has a skill that boosts her dark res anyway so I don't know if I care about that in the first place).





Lita and Norn also have weapons I can perform some smithing magic on, so I don't have to worry too much about them. We'll need to carefully consider Lita's role in the party before we go too crazy with-







never mind that's pretty much perfect.

(by the way, I've decided that Lita just straight up does not benefit form anything that offers a Max MP boost. Even when I used the Mana Bath to reset her MP to normal and equipped her with something that should boost max MP, that trait just didn't work. Interesting.)





And finally, I decided to go for an all out magical weapon for Norn, and...well, I don't think I handled this one as well, but it wouldn't be a blacksmithing update if I didn't screw something up, right?





Grupt can turn Green Mana into Magic Comp +1...





...and Deimia can turn Blue Mana into Mana + Level 1.





A whole bunch of fusing those together later plus a Blessing Power, and...





...That's okay, I guess. As it turns out, Mana + Level 8 (I didn't have enough resources to bump it all the way up to 9) isn't much more of a boost than Blessing Power, so I probably should have just done two of those to get the additional HP boost. Magic Comp, meanwhile...doesn't seem to do much of anything. After some internet research I've gathered that it seems to affect accuracy, proc rates, success rates, that sort of thing, and I guess that's nice but not really something I have to worry about with Norn's skills. Next time I'll probably just go for straight up magic power instead.





I hope you all enjoyed these [mis]adventures in the weapon upgrade system! Join me next time as we test out our new equipment in a new dungeon._{or synth more}.

















And now for a behind the scenes look at Sagey's note-taking habits! (disclaimer: notes may be outdated, inaccurate, or otherwise filled with so much bullshit.)




Noteworthy Combinations of Mana and Rocks


Paltia

Glowing = Battle Lord PWR or Avoid + level 1
Gold = Battle Lord PWR


Fanatos

Yellow = Speed level 1 or Life level 1
Green = Magic Comp or Life UP
Glowing = Battle Lord Power or some comp thing that isn't as cool
Silver = Blessing Power or Atk Comp 1


Grupt

Yellow Mana – Speed Level 1
Green = Magic Comp level 1
Glowing = Attack Comp level 1
Silver = Attack Comp level 1
Gold = Blessing Power


Zeilia

Glowing = Avoid Level 1
Gold = Blessing Power


Flay

A bunch of dumb status/element resistances.


Popo

Yellow = Life Level 1
Green = Mana Up
Glowing = Avoid + Level 1 or Mental Curse (?)


Deimia The Blacksmith King

Dark = Def + Level 2 (hope for Klein?!)
Red = Speed + Level 1
Yellow = Life + Level 1
Blue = Mana + Level 1
Green = Magic + Level 1
Gold = Battle Lord Power



[additional notes redacted due to irrevocable inconsistencies with reality]