[February 12, 2005]
No-Talinia Speed Challenge!
Concieved by Yiffysquirrel, proven on February 11, 2005 by attaining 7th place on the NQ2 Race.
Preface
Alrighty, I have my speed trophy, so now it's time to reveal how I did it. On a side note, IDNQ gives very bad advide for skill choices. Due to the overall randomness of the game and how fast your receive responses from the NQ2 server, finishing times can be drastically different. Also, depending on your final weapons and armor, accomodate the skillset with your final skill points.
The Skillset
Note that when I say "any remaining skill points," I mean to make sure the skills at 12 are boosted to 15 through weapons and armor. If you fail to get weapons and armor that raise these to 15 from the Faerie Thief, Pant Devils, and Terask 1, raise them to 15 BEFORE raising the remaining skill.
Rohane
Crit: 12
DI: 12
Taunt: 12
Focus: 9
IMH: 11
Mipsy
DD: 12
Haste: (any remaining skill points)
Shields: 12
IMD: 11
IMH: 11
Velm
Direct Healing: 12
Mesmerize: 12
Shielding: (any remaining skill points)
IMD: 11
IMH: 11
Priorities
Follow this guide for raising your skills. Get everything in the order listed. For example, raise Crit up to 12 on Rohane, then get DI up to 6, and so on.
Rohane
Crit: 12
DI: 6
IMH: 6
Roughly raise Taunt, Focus, DI, and IMH evenly after that. It's your choice.
Mipsy
DD: 12
IMD: 12
IMH: 12
Shields: 12
Haste: (any remaining points)
Velm
Direct Healing: 10
Mesmerize: 10
IMH & IMD evenly: 10
Roughly raise DH, Mes, IMH and IMD evenly after that. It's your choice.
Shielding: (any remaining points)
Strategy
Rohane Only
Fight, gain gold ASAP, gain levels ASAP, get healing flasks and healing potions ASAP for battle with Zombom. If it takes you more than 90 minutes to do this, you should probably try again (or get a faster connection).
Rohane and Mipsy
DD an enemy with Mipsy, attack with Rohane if there's any cleanup to be done, heal when necessary. Around Mid-Chapter 2, Mipsy will become a tank, and you might have to worry about Rohane dying before Mipsy! Beware, you will be very vulnerable to the enemies on the map where Scuzzy is, so by all means, DO NOT HUNT THERE. Fleeing should only be used as a last resort because of its randomness.
Rohane, Mipsy, and Velm - Offensive mode
DD an enemy with Mipsy, attack with Rohane, Mesmerize a different enemy with Velm. Once all but one enemy is Mesmerized, Velm can start heal-spamming, and occasionally re-Mesmerize enemies if there's nobody to heal. If an enemy is mesmerized, you can mesmerize the enemy again, but remember, the time an enemy is mesmerized is roughly random, so only re-Mesmerize an enemy if its mesmerization is about to run out.
Rohane, Mipsy, and Velm - Defensive mode
If mesmerization fails twice in a row or the party is getting otherwise destroyed, Taunt and Focus with Rohane ASAP (Taunt wears off in time, so you may have to reactivate it), heal with Velm, and leave attacking to Mipsy's DD. Once HP is into safe levels, attempt to Mesmerize again. Aim for the biggest threat. Any enemy that casts Group Shielding, Group Haste, or Mesmerize is the most immediate threat, followed by any enemy that can cast Healing or Group Healing, followed by any enemy that can cast Direct Damage, Stun, or cause a Shockwave. The least dangerous is an enemy that can cast Group Damage, because the damage is always insignificant and the attack delays the caster a LOT. Mesmerization is cured by any change in HP, whether it's damage or healing, so if there's an enemy that can heal in the battle, NEVER use Mesmerize on an enemy that isn't at full HP. Likewise, if Rohane or Mipsy gets mesmerized and isn't at full HP, Velm can simply use Healing to un-mesmerize them.
"But wouldn't this also work with Talinia?"
No and yes. Let's first look at Talinia's skillset.
[OK!] Increased Bow Damage
[Bad] Shockwave
[OK!] Slowing Strike
[Bad] Multiple Targets
[OK!] Ranged Attacks
[OK!] Innate Melee Defense
[OK!] Innate Melee Haste
Shockwave and Multiple Targets are unusable, as they break mesmerization. Any weapons that give you Shockwave are also bad, because Shockwave is a passive skill and needs no activation. With the remaining skills she has left, she would be a formidable fighter, most likely surpassing Rohane and Mipsy in average damage per turn. Sounds great, huh? Why don't we just toss her in the party? Because even with that advantage, she has many more disadvantages.
"Why does Talinia make the party worse off?"
First and foremost: Experience. When there's more members in the party, they get less experience per battle, meaning they'll have to go through more battles. "That's not true," you might think, "After I got Talinia, I was getting about 300 experience per battle instead of 200!" That's because there's now a norm of three enemies per battle instead of two. How many people here have gained up to 580 experience from a three-enemy battle in CHAPTER 2? Anyone? No, I didn't think so. So what would you prefer? 300 or 500 experience for the same battle?
"But doesn't she make the battles go faster?"
She does, but only marginally. Two or three clicks less per battle -- but then you also have to heal her after battle in Chapter 2 and at the beginning of Chapter 3. This means MORE battles, LESS gold, and MORE clicks. After you have Velm, she just becomes a liability, because Velm now has to heal four characters instead of three.
"Well gee, I'll just use Group Healing, then!"
WRONG. Group Healing can take more than twice the delay of Direct Healing, thus leaving Velm vulerable for over 6 - 10 seconds, depending on his speed. All it takes is two or three strong hits to make Velm fall, and many enemies later on in the game use delay attacks very often. As any experienced NQ2 player knows: If Velm falls in a boss battle, 95% of the time the rest of the party isn't far behind. Also, that's 6 - 10 seconds that Velm can't be Mesmerizing enemies, which is pivotal for the No-Talinia Speed Challenge.
"Well then I won't get Mesmerization and I'll ignore your advice!"
Remember, this is for the speed challenge. Talinia significantly slows your party down by hours (thousands of clicks). If you're not trying to get the NQ2 Race trophy... well, then maybe you should try for it anyway! If you particularly ENJOY THE GAME TAKING LONGER, then by all means, grab Talinia and make up your own skillset.
"I would like to try my hand at the No-Talinia Speed Challenge! What should I know before I dedicate one day of my life to getting this trophy?"
The speed trophy is dependent on three factors: The speed of your connection, the traffic of the NQ2 server, and how many times you need to click. This strategy optimizes the times you need to click (and the time you need to think about where to click, hehe). Probably the best time to play your game is during low traffic times, so if you start anywhere from 5 AM to 9 AM on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, you should only hit a little bit of load come 5 - 7 PM EST. You can also block the non-flash ads to speed up your game! In Firefox, simply right-click the image and choose 'block images from...' to block the ad! Finally, the biggest determinate is the speed of your connection. On average, it took me about two seconds in between clicks (Which means it took me about 30,000 clicks!). If the connection was twice as fast and I was able to click once every second, that means my time would be only 8 hours and 22 minutes! Likewise, if a dialup modem takes about 5 seconds per click, that means it would take roughly 42 hours to beat the game!
"Thanks for writing this! Anything else you'd like to say?"
Thank you for supporting me! In conclusion, if you can find any way to reduce the number of clicks significantly further, I'd like to hear it. Happy Trophy Racing!
~YiffySquirrel
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