Part 17: Sexy Fun Aggregate Mass: The Ass-End

Sexy Fun Aggregate Mass: The Ass-End


Sexy Fun Trivia 8: Live and Let Die: Baby's First Quest 64 Grimoire

What does Brian do when he isn't questing, eating, resting, reading, using the restroom, bathing, indulging in comfits, or curling up in a ball and weeping? Why, he's gazing into his phylactery and studying the memories of the dead and living and those yet to be born, that he may espy the secret dreams of the elements and, should he be strong enough, reach out his soul and claim another secret of remaking the world hidden deep within! Doooooork.

Here, then, is every spell Brian may aspire to learn in Quest 64, as arranged by element, starting at Fire and going clockwise to Wind, Water, and Earth. This also, coincidentally, starts with the suckiest element, goes into the properly-balanced element, then the uneven element, then the game-shattering element. What a coincidence.

A quick guide to what the ratings mean: * means the spell is just plain sucky, and should be avoided; ** means the spell has its uses, but they're obscure or specific; *** means the spell is generally useful; **** means the spell is goo at what it does, and you'll use it quite a lot; ***** means the spell is good to the point of being broken.

Fire

Fireball I/II/III: Lv. 1/4/16 (*) Fire's first and representational attack spell, and it sucks pretty badly. Okay, level 1 is about ** in rating, and in a better-balanced game, this would be the standard the other spells are rated by, as it's a straightforward bolt of fire. There's a problem, though. A straightforward bolt of fire is literally nothing compared to the power of Brian's other basic attack spells, as their range quirks are much easier to work with or downright advantageous. The first Fireball also has middling damage; Fireball II and III simply toss in another, slightly-more-damaging Fireball at each rank. The extra bolts tend to miss against smaller foes or peel off to target others, but the degree of deviation is pretty small; more often than not, targeting an average monster with Fireball II or III results in one hit and two clean misses, rendering the spell hugely inefficient. Fireball is about as damaging as Halo's plasma pistol, but without all the bits that make it worthwhile. Eschew. (Note that this is hard as a bitch to dodge when cast by your enemies. Life ain't fair.)
Balance Suggestion: Foes hit by Fireball are also lit on fire for prolonged damage. More Fire = more explosion. Also, I'll be offering balance advice for Fire.

Power Staff I/II: Lv. 7/22 (****) Now we're talking. You know that thing that Brian has that deals more damage than anything else in the game except for repeated hits from Avalanche? You know, his staff? These boost its obscene power up even higher, letting you crush foes into fine pastes with even greater efficiency. It's not essential, as the staff is just that strong, but it's a helpful boost.

Homing Arrow I/II: Lv. 10/28 (***) It's not bad, but Homing Arrow is essentially a poor Fire Man's Wind Cutter. It has some advantages, namely that it's even more flexible than Wind Cutter and can hit foes at truly absurd angles, and it deals extra damage (I believe) against water foes. It's a reasonable substitute for Wind Cutter if you have an irrational fear of wind magic.
Balance Suggestion: Let Homing Arrow a sniper's Wind Cutter, dealing pinpoint damage only and ignoring a good deal of an enemy's evasion.

Hot Steam I/II: Lv. 13/44 (**) Surrounded by enemies? Boil 'em like a lobster! If you're swamped by fiends, too many to sufficiently crunch, Hot Steam is fair in weakening them and leaving them open for a staff to the skull.
Balance Suggestion: The hot steam disorients foes, debuffing their attack accuracy.

Compression: Lv. 19 (**) Like that creepy "Compression of Haruhi Suzumiya" video, this'll put the crunch on your foes and reduce their attack power! But, for various reasons, this is a really stupid thing to do, mainly because, unless I'm hugely mistaken, enemies don't actually make use of that attack stat, except maybe when they use melee-ranged spells. I never cast this spell once, so that extra dot is just in case there are indeed foes it can affect.
Balance Suggestion: Have enemies use attacks that require the Attack stat.

Fire Pillar: Lv. 24 (**) Like Hot Steam, but much more visually impressive. Why not just call it Hot Steam II? Because only the primary attacks are intended to be in threes, I guess.
Balance Suggestion: IGNITE

Fire Bomb: Lv. 30 (***) A poor Fire Man's Rock spell, or a standard Dungeons and Dragons fireball. Ruin several foes' shit at once! I mean, unless you just wanna whip out that Rock II you've been carrying for a good long while now and save some MP.
Balance Suggestion: How about laying down a Fire Bomb that explodes if an enemy ambles over it?

Vampire Staff: Lv. 32 (*****) You know that nuclear bomb you've taped to the end of your staff? Now you can convert the ashes of your foes into delicious healing radioactive waste you can slurp down like Pixie Stix. Combine with Power Staff II if you want to magnify the lamentations of your fallen enemies' women.
Balance Suggestion: Does the staff have to be THAT powerful?

Magma Bomb: Lv. 36 (**) Do you have three foes roughly equidistant from each other at a range? Maybe you can hit them with three of these rushing waves of magma. This might be better if it didn't get associated with the easiest stupid spell to dodge monster in the entire game, the giant wolf spider whose name evades me now. Those beasties are the safest to farm in all the forest because of their laughably telegraphed bolts.
Balance Suggestion: Brian doesn't need another reminder of his constant and pitiful failure.

Extinction: Lv. 40 (***) Brian's only save-or-die spell. You cast this spell, and non-boss enemies must make their save or die instantly. The reason they took these out of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons was because they tended to slaughter the party instantly while either solving big enemies instantly or wasting a round. Same deal here. Cool name, though.
Balance Suggestion: Rain apocalyptic fire on everything in the vicinity. Igniting foes is a must. Save or Dies either suck or are really too damn good. Not much midd'l ground.


Wind

Wind Cutter I/II/II: Lv. 1/4/12 (****) Wind Cutter is a fine, fine spell. Yes, the first cutter is pretty pathetic, but its II and III cousins are some of the best in handling bosses. The swarm of damage adds up to about the same damage the Fireball spells do, except Wind Cutters tend to all connect and you can cast them as you retreat from a foe with a hideous melee ability. My boss-busting spell of choice.

Restriction I/II: Lv. 6/16 (***) Restriction I isn't usually worth the magic it takes to cast, but II, being the mass version, is quite useful, as it's likely at least one foe will flub its save. Restricting a foe has a double benefit: you deny them an action and gain yourself an extra action. This'll get the heat off your back long enough to do basically whatever you need to. Naturally, this doesn't affect bosses. It's best against roughly human-sized enemies, and is quite useful in locking down the Rose Knights.

Evade I/II: Lv. 8/24 (***) What's better than toughing out enemy spells? Ignoring them outright. Evade boosts the half of your agility that lets you evade foes even if they hit you, and trust me, while players can get better at physically dodging spells, short of save states there's no way to get better at rolling your saving throw.

Silence I/II: Lv. 10/42 (***) Silence is a little more effective than Restriction, at the expense that your foes can still move around and thus defy you. I is single-target, and II is mass, and, like Restriction, the more you can snare the more likely it is to work.

Large Cutter: Lv. 13 (****) If Wind Cutter is a bunch of angry wind bees, stinging and stinging and stinging, then Wind Cutter is a huge fuckin' wasp. It's a mass-attacker, like Wind Cutter, but it's medium range, and feels really satisfying when you whip it out, like a big ol' butcher knife made of compressed wind. Yeah, that's the stuff. Large Cutter is best for cleaving through smaller massed foes; unlike Wind Cutter, whose damage plummets dramatically with each separate target, Large Cutter deals flat damage to anything in the radius, which adds up quite a bit. It also really sucks when your enemies use it on you, as it's damn near impossible to dodge at the range most use it. Zelse would've been a killer if he just stuck with Large Cutter.

Wind Bomb: Lv. 20 (**) Like Hot Steam, sans the impressiveness.
Nothin' to see here.

Cyclone: Lv. 28 (**) Deals okay damage in a straight line. This is utterly pathetic in the shadow of Walking Water, although it looks cool. Yeah, Wind starts to bite a bit in the 20s, new-spell-wise.

Slow Enemy: Lv. 32 (**) Being hounded by an obsessive Wyvern? Lock that bastard up and outpace him! Most useful in retreats, or if you really want to beat something up but live in loathing of its close-ranged attack.

Wind Walker: Lv. 37 (**) Increases the size of Brian's Reynard's Revenge, letting him skip town with great ease. Problem is, Evasion puts the RNG on Brian's side, and as later foes sport magic that's much harder to physically dodge, Evasion tends to be much more useful late in the game.

Ultimate Wind: Lv. 47 (*) A spell that wangs everything on the field for okay damage. Problem is, Wind Cutter III deals more damage and uses less MP. Yeah. That's right. Poor "Ultimate" Wind. At least you hit everybody, no matter how obscurely they're placed.


Water

Water Pillar I/II/III Lv. 1/3/4(!) (**) Water Pillar is kind of weaksauce after you have a few elements under your belt, as it causes a burst of water to smack the foe right in front of you--you know, the one you could also be staffing. On the upshot, it deals way more damage than other close-ranged mass attack spells, so if several foes are cloistered in front of you, you can ping them for a fair deal of damage before making fatal strikes with the stave.

Healing I/II Lv. 6/25 (*****) You only have as many healing items as you find in chests and randomly at the end of combat. Don't count on the latter. Healing lets you nurse yourself back to health after combat, builds up your magic points' XP, lets you build Agility by running around to regain MP after a casting-session, and in general just lets you become self-sustaining. With patience and skill, you can adventure indefinitely with Healing.

Soul Searcher I/II Lv. 10/33 (**) Gives you a glimpse at your foes' fiddly mechanical bits--their elements, statistics, health, and so on. Useful, but nowhere near necessary or powerful. No. I gives you a glimpse at one foe, II is en masse.

Ice Wall Lv. 15 (***) Like Hot Steam or Wind Wall, except it has a chance to randomly freeze enemies! This is much, much better than the other two.

Ice Knife Lv. 17 (***) Stabs a foe with an Ice Knife, which also has a chance to freeze 'em solid. It's only okay damage, but it's an instant hit at range. Not a bad little spell.

Escape Lv. 19 (**) Lets you run away from a fight without reaching the outer Reynard's Revenge. Problem is, it's not the most reliable spell, and you most often cast it while running the hell away to the edge of Outer Reynard. Useful if you really, REALLY wanna escape and don't care if you blow a few MP on the way out.

Exit: Lv. 23 (****) Need to head out of the dungeon? Drop Exit and you're out at the entrance! Useful if you wanna grind or if you've overestimated your ability.

Return: Lv. 24 (****) Zaps you back to the last place you rested at, letting you heal up and save. Most useful when you've gone in over your head and need to hit town before the random encounters tear you apart.

Walking Water: Lv. 35 (***) The most powerful crunch-bastards-up-in-a-line spell, blasting your foes with columns of water. Not bad at all, although the columns might be disorienting whether they're headed at or away from you.

Drain Magic: Lv. 40 (**) Lets you suck the MP right out of your enemies without needing to use MP restoratives or, I dunno, whack 'em with your stick in place of anything else. Technically useful, because it lets you save your MP-restoring items. Not all that useful, because you get back MP by walking around and don't tend to cast that many spells in a row once they start getting real powerful.

Invalidity: Lv. 46 ( ) This will let you remove debuffs and ... and ... Good Christ. They wait until level forty-fucking-six to teach you how to remove harmful status effects? 46 Water levels of the very, very, very occasional debuff and status effect (I think I remember being frozen a few times and ... I think some monster tried to restrict me, except that it never worked.) By the time this spell is yours, nothing, not a damn thing, in the endgame will try to debuff you. ...Wow. Just... wow. The first FAQ I looked up didn't think Invalidity did anything. That's how useless and obscure this spell is. That is just how stupid this spell is. Good. Christ. Talk about ending on a shit note.


Earth

Rock I/II/III: Lv. 1/4/16 (****) For most, this'll be your standard-issue killin' spell. Dropping a rock on somebody may not be the most elegant way to kill a man, or a rabbity thing, or much of anything really, but it'll remind any and everything you see exactly where they sit on the food chain. Here's a hint: it's below you and the rock you're sitting on top of, sipping tea and enjoying the breeze. The rock loops over the heads of nearby foes, but if they're close enough to miss with Rock, they're near enough to hit with your staff, so it's a moot point.

Spirit Armor I/II: Lv. 7/21 (***) The second-best thing to not being hit is to take less damage from being hit. Pack on Spirit Armor to resist the injury hitting you over the head. Stacks well, as you might imagine, with Evade.

Rolling Rock I/II: Lv. 10/39 (**) This hits every foe within a set distance in front of you, in a line, with a rock a rollin' rollin'. It's pretty reasonable, although specialized as hell (as you might guess from the two-star rating).

Weakness I/II: Lv. 13/31 (***) Don't you love it when things break faster? Weakness drinks deep the nectar of your foes' defenses and leaves them with the bitter dregs of vulnerability. Well, maybe not that dramatically, but I'm in a sort of dramatic mood. I dunno... probably because it's afternoon and I'm listening to the White Album. "Martha My Dear." Mmmmm'...

Magnet Rock: Lv. 19 (**) This slams a foursome of rocks into your foe, presumably squishing those it kills like a toothpaste tube inexplicably filled with blood, bones, and guts (and is made of skin and fit snugly into the shape of whatever is being crushed between the rocks). In short, this will cause entities to explode like an exploding thing that is the-creature-like. But like Weakness, it's not as effective as it sounds. It's great for your enemies, like Fireball, because it's a bitch to dodge on the player's end. Lucky monsters.

Avalanche: Lv. 24 (*****) Oh my God. You like hitting things with rocks, right? This deals as much damage as a scaled Rock spell, except that there's a chance the target will get hit by more than one Rock. Each successful hit is a 100% increase on your investment of action and MP. It's like getting free extra turns with theoretical Rock IV spells. There's a risk with this--against smaller foes, there's a chance it'll miss entirely, wasting your effort. But against bigger foes, including all the last bosses, it'll tear them to shreds with a minimum of effort on your part. A brokeny-good spell.

Confusion: Lv. 27 (**) According to this FAQ I read, it seems this makes foes deal MP damage instead of HP. This just plain isn't true; it seems that it lets you regain MP when you take damage. How pleasant!

Magic Barrier: Lv. 36 ( ) Oh God. Oh my God. Oh my dear sweet God. This causes you to be invincible against magic attacks for a few turns. Every enemy attacks through spells. There are no enemy attacks that are not spells. You have the only melee attack in the game. Your melee attack is like running the over with a tungsten mag-lev train. You see where I'm going with this? The line between killing someone in a battle and just slaughtering them like an animal is Magic Barrier. On the other side you are no better than a monster.

Weak All: Did you just fucking see Magic Barrier? Good God!

Thanks to grah (that is his name, not a sound effect) I can confirm the above spells to be factual in presentation. This has been Quest 64! Thank you kindly!