The Tempering FAQ Version 1.6 by David Myers and Craig Richardson A short summary of state-of-the-art technique in the game the Legend of Mana. This FAQ is (C) Copyrighted 2000 by David Myers (dwmyers@mindspring.com). Part 3 of this FAQ is Copyrighted 2000 by Craig Richardson (mechusa@hotmail.com). Personal, non-commercial use of this document is permitted, as long as this document is not sold for profit. Feel free to quote information from this FAQ, so long as the original contributor of the idea or technique is properly credited for his discovery. If it's stuff that I or Craig have written, then please credit the author appropriately. Notes about names and posts: If this FAQ gives a name, the name is, unless you are told otherwise, a gameFAQS handle. If this FAQ mention a post, then the information is being quoted from a post on the pertinent gameFAQS board. Quoting is verbatim; if however there is a parenthetical insert beginning with (dwm - ...), those are comments by David Myers and not those of the author. The purpose of this FAQ: What we are trying to create is a state-of-the-art guide for tempering technique. This document attempts to be a summary of the best technique. As such we will quote people who post messages. To contact us: Email: dwmyers@mindspring.com The home of this FAQ is: http://www.mindspring.com/~dwmyers/legend_of_mana_tempering.txt version: version 1.60 dated 8/14/2000 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Table of Contents ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Part 0. Updates. Part 1. Questions For the Beginner. Part 2. Weapons and Armor. 2.1 Tempering Weapons 2.1.1 - Weapon Tempering Fundamentals 2.1.2 - Quick tempering tips and experiments 2.1.3 - Ultimate Bow Formula 2.1.4 - Super Dior Wood Weapons 2.1.5 - Making the Ultimate Sword 2.1.6 - The Kelson Tempered Hammer 2.1.7 - Making a Flail 2.1.8 - Other Weapons 2.1.9 - Normal Mode Weapons 2.1.10 - Modified Kelson Tempering Methods 2.1.11 - Synth's Method 2.1.12 - Modified Synth methods 2.1.13 - Tempering over Level 6 2.1.14 - Tempering Weapons for Cash 2.1.15 - Fixing a 'Misfire' 2.1.16 - Theories and Speculation 2.2 Tempering Armor 2.2.1 - Raw Armor Statistics 2.2.2 - Tempering Armor For Combat 2.2.3 - Statistics for various Needle tempered armor 2.2.4 - Armor Combinations that yield 99/99/99/99 armor classes 2.2.5 - Ultimate Armor Formulas 2.2.6 - The Ultimate Pendant 2.2.7 - Luck and armor 2.2.8 - Making a Forbidden Ring 2.2.9 - Making a Revive Ring 2.2.10 - Theories and Speculation Part 3. Mystic Cards and Plunge Attacks. 3.1 Secondary Materials 3.2 Mystic Cards 3.3 Plunge Attacks 3.4 Theories Part 4. Contributors and Bibliography. 4.1 Contributors 4.2 Bibliography ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Part 0. Updates ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ New to version 1.60 -> Added Craig's new section 3, with a new secondary materials section. Added Chrono's comment about flaming quill and Forbidden rings. Added someguy's method to increase essences to a level of 8. Added SSJCloud's comment about needing less Mercury and Sulphur than before. Adding bdc19's contest entry. Added a theories and speculation section to the armor portion of the FAQ. New to version 1.50 -> Described a dragonscales knife. Added the hybrid Synth formula of tempering. Added details to SSJCloud's level 7 techniques. Added a LorimarIron 1H axe. Corrected typos in the hybrid Synth. New to version 1.40 -> Corrected my co-author's first name (ouch). Added the Synth method of tempering (Synth is my co-author, btw). Added the note about Philo and SSJCloud's tempering experiments. Added more contributor comments. Added a quick tempering section, for fast tempering items for beginners and a place to stick my tempering experiments. New to version 1.30 -> Revised Kelson methods posted. A IshePlatinum 2H sword power up posted. 2 readers correct info on gold clover, and we finally figure out that glow crystals can temper conflicting elements *SOMETIMES*. More data on armor given by Chrono and Unholy Devil has provided info on Altena Alloy. Paradigms are shifting, so we've added a theory section to the armor area. New to version 1.20 -> We're going to round out the weapons inventory, and we're actively looking for statistics for weapons and materials that can be found in normal mode. If you've made a terrific VizelGold or IshePlatinum or LorimarIron sword, please email me the construction method and the stats, please. Fixing misfires added. Reports of gold clover boosting luck > 3 added. Lots of reader feedback added, and we just added info on the ultimate glove. One reader noted bad sides to the bed of thorns, so we posted that as well. New to version 1.10 -> Added someguys' 1H axe data. Added flyojumper et al.'s data on the ultimate armor. Added G Master's pendant. New to version 1.00 -> Typographical enhancements, more extensive beginner's section, but mostly a jump in version number to state that we're 'in business', so to speak. New to version 0.40 -> Chrono_LV99 contributed extensive armor charts. final pointed out that dior wood made an awesome bow. Broke sections 2 and 3 into subsections. Added subsections to Table of Contents. New to version 0.31 -> Typos corrected, fixed Table of Contents. New to version 0.30 -> A Table of Contents, a Bibliography, Contributors, and a more consistent set of headers for the sections. We added Strite's accounting of the Ultimate sword, and we're rearranged things as other users have suggested. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 1. Questions For the Beginner. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Q1: What is tempering, anyway? Tempering is the second stage in the making of a weapon in Legend of Mana. First you create the weapon from some material, be it wood or metal or aerolite or other material. Then you temper the weapon by combining the weapon with a second material. It's in the tempering of a weapon that the real power of a weapon emerges. Q2: What kinds of things can I temper into weapons in the first place? Nearly anything can be tempered into a weapon: dirt, fruits, the items you get in chests are almost always tempering agents. However, because tempering in elemental essences can unlock the power of other agents you can add to a weapon, elemental coins are usually tempered in first. The process of making a weapon or armor usually involves two steps: Step 1 - adding elemental coins (and/or glow/chaos crystals) to raise the essence of the appropriate element to a level high enough to active something else. Further, in a weapon, adding elemental coins alone will increase the attack power of the weapon substantially. Step 2 - adding that something else to get additional powers (more attack, more defense, more luck, etc) needed for the weapon or armor. Q3: What are these elemental coins and where do I get them? Elemental coins are obtained by playing songs for elemental spirits, who drop them if they like your song enough. The pursuit and capture of spirits is outside the scope of this FAQ. You should consult a broader FAQ for details on getting elemental coins (see part 4.2 for a list of good FAQs). Most modern methods of tempering in elemental essences require the use of secondary crystals to achieve the greatest effects. The two kinds of secondary crystals that work best with elemental coins are called glow crystals and chaos crystals. Q4: What do these crystals do? Glow crystals allow elemental essences to exceed 3 for silver coins and 4 for gold coins. With glow crystals, essence levels of 6 can be obtained. Chaos crystals allow you to add elemental essences that otherwise would cancel each other out, so-called conflicting elements. More recently, it's becoming apparent that glow crystals can sometimes temper conflicting elements (see 2.1.2). This observation is used in a tempering method called the 'tweaked' Kelson method (see 2.1.10), and factors into the newest and most frugal methods, Synth's method (2.1.11) and the modified Synth methods (2.1.12). Q5: So which of these elements conflict? Wisp cancels Shade Shade cancels Wisp Dryad cancels Aura Aura cancels Dryad Salamander cancels Gnome Gnome cancels Jinn Jinn cancels Undine Undine cancels Salamander Q6: What are these slots that people always talk about? It's been explained well in other FAQS, but in short, when you temper something into a weapon or armor that has a mystic card associated with it, that card will occupy a slot. Weapons and armor have 3 visible slots, and one invisible slot, 4 slots in total. When a compound is tempered into a weapon that has a mystic card, the first slot to be occupied is the invisible slot. The card pushes down any other cards that might be in the weapon, down into the remaining visible slots. Cards pushed completely out of the remaining slots are lost, and their effects may or may not be lost along with the card. (invisible slot) -> (visible slot) -> (visible slot) -> (visible slot) -> } card is lost { Q7: I can't get adamantite/dior wood/dragon scales in Normal mode. What's my best choice then? In Normal mode, if Geo is placed late in the game, after 30 or so quests, and far enough away from the home, then you can buy IshePlatinum or LorimarIron there. Otherwise, during the course of playing certain quests, you'll be given metals (anything from Vizel Gold to Altena Alloy). Often you'll be given IshePlatinum or LorimarIron. VizelGold can be purchased, no matter what (unless your land placement is absolutely pathological). A well tempered LorimarIron or IshePlatinum weapon will last you well into Nightmare mode, and will have an attack power in the 200s, easily. A VizelGold weapon can be tempered until it is better than anything you might find in Normal mode. The rarest materials are good, but probably _necessary_ only when you reach No Future mode. Q8: What materials do I need to make a high quality weapon, and how much of these materials do I need? To fully temper a modern weapon via the classic Kelson you will need minimally: metal or wood for the construction of the weapon. 34 glow crystals 8 chaos crystals 2 silver coins for each of the 4 non-conflicting elements 3 silver coins for the 4 conflicting elements 3 power up tempering elements (3 holy water, 3 bumpkin, or 3 ash) 1 each of the final 'additives' associated with the power up elements Synth's new method cuts the requirements substantially, to: 20 glow crystals 5 chaos crystals 2 silver coins for each element 3 power up tempering elements (3 holy water, 3 bumpkin, or 3 ash) 1 each of the final 'additives' associated with the power up though it seems to be a little unstable. The hybrid Synth has requirements of: 28 glow crystals 4 chaos crystals 2 silver coins for each element 3 power up tempering elements (3 holy water, 3 bumpkin, or 3 ash) 1 each of the final 'additives' associated with the power up Q9: Ouch. Even using Synth's technique, that's still a lot of stuff. Where do I get it all? The elemental coins you get from elemental spirits. Chaos and glow crystals can be purchased, but that's roughly a 65,000-108,000 lucre investment to make a weapon. Chaos crystals cost 5000 lucre and glow crystals cost 2000 lucre. Spiny seeds can be gotten from lullabuds and shrieknips. The chaos and glow crystals can be gotten from the 2 poulter boxes in the hold of the SS Buccaneer. As well, the sun and moon crystals found there can be sold, and the money used to purchase the coins you can't find. Holy water can be purchased. Bumpkin can be raised from orange (small) seed. Ash is very rare and is only found in chests. Roughly 3 ash can be found every time you play and win the game. The classic location for hunting adamantite is the fourth floor of the tower of Leires, where two Chess Knights can be found. Orihalcon can be gotten from the Punksters in the junkyard. The various aerolites are obtained from Shadow Zeros (many in Gato). Dragon Scales can be obtained from land and sky dragons. There is a dragon in the Feig Snowfields, but two land dragons can be found on the second floor of the Flames, and a land and sky dragon are in the Tree of Mana. Dior wood hunting can be done in Gato, but if it's been placed early it won't yield any rare wood. The wooding in the White Forest is a better bet, as the White Forest is placed much later in the game. A poulter box is essential for getting the rarest items. Make sure you boost the poulter box's luck. The best foods for boosting luck with a poulter box are pine-o-clocks, dialaurel, and gold clover. Mush-in-the-box seems to fail when fed to poulter boxes. Contrary to reports, you can boost the luck of a poulter box well above 33. Mine has a luck of 66 and I've heard of people talking of poulter boxes with a luck of 99. There are reports that the best hunting happens on Aura day. I can say that it does seem that way. It's not a constant thing, but occasionally you get wild luck on Aura day and people report getting 3-4 extremely rare metals or wood in half an hour if you hunt on the day associated with luck. Otherwise you'll tend to get one rare item an hour (people have fought for two hours and gotten nothing). The level of the monsters being fought also affects the percentage of rare items. One rule of thumb (determined for dior wood) seems to be: level 40 or below represents no chance of getting rare wood, level 40-62 or so is a modest chance of getting the rarest woods, and that levels above 60 give you better chances of getting the rare woods. Obviously lands placed later in the game and after many quests will yield better hunting. Q10: Tell me more about feeding poulter boxes. What's this about gold clover being good to feed to them, and getting more than 3 luck per feeding? I'm going to quote Virtue@gamefaqs, as his comment to me seems pretty interesting: "In every four level increments it seems to work like this: on the 1st of four levels the pet will get 3 luck (one per clover), then on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th levels in a series, the pet gets 4 points of luck for every 3 gold clovers you put in his box. I have no idea why or how this works, but for the past 20ish levels this pattern has appeared.... in your FAQ you talked about raising the polter boxes luck and how you once got the raise of 4 and it was aura day. I'd raised levels on many different days, so i don't think the day you level him has to do with how much luck he gets. Hope this was useful." and to which maddog then replied: "Virtue. I feed my polter box two gold clovers and something to try and make it lonely. it gained just the same as yours. three luck one level and four the next. and two gold clovers a level is more economic. just thought i'd add this." Q11: Mercury and Sulphur are used in SSJCloud's techniques. Where do I get that? They can be purchased if you place your cities right. Otherwise you have to find these elements. Given the quantities of Mercury and Sulphur required, you'll probably have to place your lands just right. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 2. Weapons and Armor. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _____________________________ PART 2.1 - Tempering Weapons. 2.1.1. - Weapon Tempering Fundamentals -------------------------------------- In short, without glow crystals, you cannot temper a weapon or armor above essense level 3 unless you use gold. The old methods of tempering essences to 4 always involved gold coins; gold is hard to come by and time consuming to collect. So when I started this game, kiah's method was probably the most advanced and you had to take a lot of time collecting coins. Coins were the biggest problem getting the resources to have a nice weapon. Pretty soon after people (ShiroKage, Masterwai) found that glow crystals allowed you to beat that essence 3 barrier with silver elemental coins. A tempering method I developed (and never published, because it never entirely worked) went something like this: 3 silver coins 1 glow stone 2 silver coins repeat for all non-conflicting essences. the above would raise non-conflicting essences to 5. But I never mastered the art of getting it to work well with conflicting essences. Sean Kelson was working on a FAQ about this time and discovered the following pattern of tempering (originally for weapons, but it worked equally well on armor) 3 glow crystals 2 silver coins (2 glow crystals to lock in essences once you quit adding stuff) For conflicting essences: 3 glow crystals 1 chaos crystal 2 silver coins 2 glow crystals 1 chaos crystal 1 silver coin (2 glow crystals to lock in the last elemental essence once you quit). This method has 3 distinct advantages: 1) It raises essence levels to 6. The higher the essence the more powerful the resulting weapon. 2) It is frugal in the use of elemental coins. 3 silver coins are much easier to come by than the 4-5 gold coins people were advocating in earler, less effective tempering schemes. 3) The items that it placed the highest emphasis on, glow crystals, can be purchased. So almost any economic cycle (selling pets, tempering grave dirt into cheap weapons, selling dragon steaks, selling wood from woodings, clobbering poulter boxes and selling the goddessmail and sun and moon stones you would get) can be used to get the resources to do 'Kelson' tempering. A weapon of adamantite/dragonscale/dior wood that has been Kelson tempered usually has an attack power in the middle 100s to low 200s. One of the post tempering power up methods can drive this value into the 300-800 range depending on the choice of materials. Post power ups usually come in three main flavors, with tricks to boost status. Status boosting tricks: 1. dragon blood/dragon breath - cycles of this raise status mods to +5 across the board, with power at +10. TheBlackRabite@gamefaqs was the first to note this, iirc. 2. sun/moon crystals, or aroma oil - can raise selected stats to +10, they also can add plunge attacks. 3. spiny seeds - a reliable way to boost status levels to +10 across the board. This is noted as early as 7/8/2000 by vttintl. Once the Yggrasil card appears, and if you are tempering metal, you can stop adding spiny seeds and use Citrisquid instead, to boost status to +10. The Citrisquid trick fails on wooden weapons and armor. 4. sharp claw - used right, seems to boost power to +15. Tricky though. Attack Power boosting patterns: 1. Holy Water (The clerics): Works on anything other than bow, spear, and knife. 3 holy water followed by dragon's breath, a giant's horn, and if the weapon is metal, you add a gold clover. Gold clover fails with dior wood as it gives you a dryad and messes up the three clerics. You can use spiny seeds in advance to +4 and the clerics will retain a +3 status boost all-round. 2. Bumpkin (The clowns): a power up for a Kelson tempered spear, bow or knife. Use spiny seeds first to +10 status, as the clown cards will keep +9 of it. Then 3 clown cards, and then a sharp claw. Works nicely on adamantite or dragon scales. May work with dior wood weapons too. 3. Ash: Not sure how broad this power up is. Don't know how much status you can squeeze onto ash either. But it's the ultimate power up for a Kelson tempered dior wood hammer. I've tried it on a dior wood staff and it didn't work very well. YMMV. 2.1.2 - Quick tempering tips and experiments: --------------------------------------------- A fast and easy silver knife: From SSJCloud: "Anyway, here is one, wendel silver knife, 4 bumpkins or three clown cards, followed by a clear feather. That will put you at 54 attack power, thats pretty damn good right out of the gate..." I held a tempering contest, to see what was the most powerful weapon a person could make with normal mode materials and by tempering no more than 12 items into the weapon. I had one person take me up on it, and this was his entry: from bdc19: "I made a 173 power IsheHammer, with the plunge attacks: Thrust, Uppercut, and Magma Hammer, +1 on every thing, shade at 2 Dryad at 3 Undine at 1, and all the rest 0. Here's what i used: spiny seed, spiny carrot, spiny seed, spiny carrot, spiny seed, ToadStoolShed, ToadStoolShed, Ash x4, scissors." Proof that glow crystals temper Dryad-Aura and Shade-Wisp conflicting pairs: (a post of mine) "Starting point: Vizel Gold 1H sword, 35 power Tempering sequence: dryad gold aura gold shade gold wisp gold glow crystal results: wisp 2, shade 0, dryad 2, aura 3 attack 50, +1 on HP, spirit, charm, and luck. Tempering sequence: glow crystal dryad gold glow crystal aura gold glow crystal shade gold glow crystal wisp gold glow crystal results: wisp 2, shade 2, dryad 2, aura 4 attack 56, +1 on HP, spirit, charm, and luck Tempering sequence: 2 glow crystal dryad gold 2 glow crystal aura gold 2 glow crystal shade gold 2 glow crystal wisp gold 2 glow crystal results: wisp 3, shade 3, dryad 3, aura 4 attack 63, +1 on HP, spirit, charm, and luck. conclusion: the glow crystals not only allow 'top' row elements to co-exist without chaos crystals, they also enhance the power of the elemental coins themselves." 2.1.3 - Ultimate Bow Formula: ----------------------------- (Clown conditioning; from a post by someguy@gamefaqs) "Ah, ha ha ha. Who says there isn't a Cleric Card type thing for the bow. Here's how to make your own ultimate bow. 1.) Make a Dragon Scale bow. You could try Adamantite, but I don't know what will happen. 2.) Max out the essence levels to six. The power should be around 204. 3.) Now jam a bunch of spiny seeds into your bow until the Yggdrasil Card appears. Then jam a bunch more and check your stat boosts until they are all at +10. 4.) After you're done with the seeds, add Bumpkins until three clown cards appear. This should boost your power to about 392. 5.) Finally, finish it off with a Sharp Claw, boosting the power immensely to about 465. NOTE: If you want to add new plunge attacks, do it after step 2 or it may have negative effects. The key in this weapon is the Clown Cards, which for some reason act like the Cleric Cards, but with one advantage. It won't cap the bonuses at +3. The Sharp Claw acts as the Dragons Breath. I don't have anything that replaces the Giant's Horn, though. I haven't tested this on Adamantite, so the result may be better or worse." (dwm - I tested this on adamantite. The resulting bow has attack power 425. Made with dior wood, the power of this bow is 547) 2.1.4 - Super Dior Wood Weapons: -------------------------------- These are more advanced techniques developed by someguy@gameFAQS. In all cases the dior wood is tempered to an elemental essence level of 6. Then there is further processing of the weapon. Note that dior wood weapons only temper to elemental essence levels of 5 on Salamander. If you make a dior wood spear and temper it to a elemental essence level of 6, then add 3 Bumpkin fruits, and finish with a sharp claw, the spear that results has an attack power of 701. final points out a bow made exactly the same way has attack strength 547. You can also make a hammer or a 2 handed axe from dior wood. Again you temper the weapon to a elemental essence level of 6. Then you add ash to the weapon. 3 ash should be added, but if you don't have enough of the material (it's pretty rare) 2 ash can be added instead. Substitute a holy water if you're making a hammer and substitute a bumpkin if you're making a 2 handed axe. Finish the tempering with a scissors. 2 Ash * 3 Ash Hammer power : 824 841 2H Axe power : 831 869 1H Axe power : *** 656 2.1.5 - Making the Ultimate Sword: ---------------------------------- comments taken from the original Sean Kelson tempering thread: From: SeanKelson "Here's the fixed method. If you want, you can substitute the gold coins for silver coins, but it won't be as powerful. (dwm - I have my doubts that the difference between gold and silver is at all significant, but hey, this was a while back, too) Here's what I have: 3 Glow Crystal 2 Dryad Gold 3 Glow Crystal 2 Wisp Gold 3 Glow Crystal 2 Undine Gold 3 Glow Crystal 2 Gnome Gold 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Sala Gold 2 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Sala Gold 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Aura Gold 2 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Aura Gold 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Shade Gold 2 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Shade Gold 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Jinn Gold 2 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Jinn Gold 2 Glow Crystal 5 Holy Water 1 Dragon Breath 1 Giant's Horn Note that if you intend to modify it, make sure a cleric doesn't leave the weapon. If it does, the power will drop a ton." (dwm - power of this adamantite 2H sword was 445) From: vttintl "I tried using gold instead of silver for my 1H adamantite sword but the power still came out to be be 365, so it doesn't seem to make a difference. However I then used dragon scale to make my sword, using gold coins, and it came out to be stronger then my adamantite sword?! Im still experimenting, but I find that a little odd." From: Phildo "Using the revised method, I successfully crafted a Dragonscale 2H sword with 506 attack Power, but I had to do some tweaking on the fly in order to fix a random misfire, (I assume...) as my blade ended up with 490 attack and only level 4 on Shade, (6 on everything else,). After the process, I had to do the following; (dwm - note that he ended up with 4 on Shade. Shade is poor at 'sticking' onto weapons and one thing Phildo does here is show how to correct elemental essence failures ) 3 Glow Crystals 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Shade Gold 2 Glow Crystals And once again... 5 Holy Water 1 Dragon Breath 1 Giant's Horn 506 power and level 6 on all elemental essences. Now I'll try it with the Dragon Bloods." Chrono_LV99 has noted that the addition of a gold clover at the end of the tempering increases the power of this sword from 506 to 512. Economics of the Ultimate Sword (from Strite [jae2468@aol.com], with corrections by Halbarad) Items Needed: 34 glow crystals - cost 68,000 8 chaos crystals - cost 40,000 2 wisp gold 2 dryad gold 2 undine gold 2 gnome gold 3 sala gold 3 aura gold 3 jinn gold 3 shade gold 5 Holy Water 1 Dragon Breath 1 Giant's Horn ( 1 gold clover if you use the clover power-up) Total cost, assuming you buy crystals: 108,000 lucre. 2.1.6 - The Kelson tempered Hammer (a post by Samulax) ------------------------------------------------------ "Hello! *yawn* My 786 attack power hammer sounds better to me really, and it's a sure thing! Just do a generic Dragon Scales Hammer power up. (Pump up essences to 6, 3 Cleric, Dragons Breath, Giant's Horn, Gold Clover)" 2.1.7 - Making a Flail: ----------------------- (several posters, including flyojumper, Ultimate, blazin09, TheBlackRabite, etc) The flail is a weapon that is best made by tempering essences to 6, with holy water as the power up. Discussions of different materials suggest that Dragon scales is the best flail material, with a power of 487. Dior wood netted a strength of 396, and measurements of adamantite power are marred by essence levels around 4, but were reported at being about 329. 2.1.8 - Other weapons: ---------------------- Knife - Generally assumed that tempering to 6 with addition of bumpkin would be the best power up, as holy water is known to fail on knives. Recently, I made a DragonScales knife, using the hybrid Synth method of tempering, and then added spiny seeds and citrisquid to boost stats to +10. 4 Bumpkin were added after and then a sharp claw. The power of the knife is 502. A value in the middle 400s for an adamantite Kelson conditioned blade has been reported, though nothing was said of essence levels or power ups. Staff - I have a Kelson conditioned dior wood staff. Ash did little to power up the staff, bumpkin lowered power and holy water/dragon breath/giant's horn returned the best results. I have a suspicion that dragon scales would be stronger but my staff has a power of 366. Glove - The best method posted so far follows: (taken from a post by Halbarad) "Well, if anyone's interested, here's the results of the glove trials: Dragon Scale Gloves Attack Power: 431 Method: 1. Kelson-temper weapon 2. Add 6 Spiny seeds (actually, as many as you want; the more you add, it seems, the higher the permanent stat bonuses will be) 3. Add a Garlicrown (adds Plunge attack) 4. Finish with 3 Holy Water followed by a Dragon's Breath." He notes as well that Giant's Horn and Gold Clover don't seem to work their magic on the glove. Halbarad previously reported that adamantite resulted in gloves of strength 391, and that dior wood gloves could barely break 300. 2.1.9 - Normal Mode Weapons: ---------------------------- Reports on normal mode weapons are rare. ShiroKai reported a friend who used a post-kiah and pre-Kelson conditioning method and made a IshePlatinum sword of strength 250 or so, and I made a LorimarIron sword (with essences ranging from 3 to 5) whose final strength was 253. Phildo recently commented that Kelson tempered Menos Bronze 2H swords have power levels in the 70s to 80s. I recall using a partially tempered Vizel Gold flail for most of the last half of normal mode; its attack was 61. Phildo recently provided this annotated tempering description of a IshePlatinum 2H sword: (from a post by Phildo) "IshePlatinum2HSword Start Power 50 3 Glow 2 Dryad 3 Glow 2 Aura 3 Glow 2 Shade, (Power 100+) 3 Glow 2 Wisp 3 Glow 2 Undine 3 Glow 2 Gnome, (Power 150+) 3 Glow 1 Chaos 2 Sala 2 Glow 1 Chaos 1 Sala 3 Glow 1 Chaos 2 Jinn 2 Glow 1 Chaos 1 Jinn 2 Glow, (All essences level 6, power 200) 1 Pine O' Clock 1 Little Eye, (This and the Clock are 2HSword specific) 2 Dragon Blood 1 Dragon Breath 1 Dragon Blood 3-5 Holy Water, (Power 275) 1 Dragon's Breath, (Power 300!) 1 Giant's Horn, (Power 355!!) 1 Gold Clover, (Power 315? Dammit! Don't do that one...) Back to the Holy Waters. Final weapon; Power 355 And there you go! A two-handed sword that's not only perfectly attainable in normal mode, but also equally powerful to Adamantite offerings using the now archaic Moonlore method, (I am an oldshooler)." From: Acceptable Risk "Hey, I love your tempering FAQ, we've been needing one. I've got another weapon to put in your normal mode sction if you want it. My LorimarIron 1HAxe was tempered with the following formula. I beat the game the first time with it (sucks all the challenge out of it when you smash the Mana Goddess with one Karma, though) and I'm still using it in Nightmare. 3 Glow Crystal 2 Dryad Silver 3 Glow Crystal 2 Wisp Silver 3 Glow Crystal 2 Undine Silver 3 Glow Crystal 2 Gnome Silver 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Sala Silver 2 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Sala Silver 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Aura Silver 2 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Aura Silver 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Shade Silver 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Shade Silver 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Jinn Silver 2 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Jinn Silver 2 Glow Crystal 1 Dragon Breath 1 Dragon Blood 1 Dragon Breath 1 Dragon Blood 1 Dragon Breath 1 Dragon Blood 1 Dragon Breath 1 Dragon Blood 5 Holy Water 1 Dragon Breath 1 Giant's Horn That should come out to 344 power. Hope this is of some help. Clayton" 2.1.10 - Modified Kelson Tempering Methods: ------------------------------------------- We will present two modified Kelson methods here. Both of these are methods to avoid the Shade misfires that often accompany the classical Kelson. They both are economizing techniques, the first using fewer coins than any method so far, the second being most economical with glow and chaos coins. The first method comes from Vulpes Mundi and uses the following sequence: From: Vulpes Mundi "3 Glow Crystals 2 Wisp Coins 3 Glow Crystals 2 Dryad Coins 3 Glow Crystals 2 Gnome Coins 3 Glow Crystals 2 Undine Coins 3 Glow Crystals 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Shade Coin 3 Glow Crystals 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Shade Coin 3 Glow Crystals 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Aura Coin 3 Glow Crystals 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Aura Coin 3 Glow Crystals 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Salamander Coin 3 Glow Crystals 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Salamander Coin 3 Glow Crystals 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Jinn Coin 3 Glow Crystals 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Jinn Coin 3 Glow Crystals 5 Holy Waters 1 Dragon Breath 1 Giant's Horn ~~~~~~~~~~ Total required goods: 2 Wisp Coins 2 Shade Coins 2 Aura Coins 2 Dryad Coins 2 Salamander Coins 2 Gnome Coins 2 Jinn Coins 2 Undine Coins 39 Glow Crystals 8 Chaos Crystals 5 Holy Waters 1 Dragon Breath 1 Giant's Horn Total cost, if buying crystals: 118,000 Lucre" As Vulpes says, it's more expensive but it avoids the Shade misfire so often seen in the classic Kelson. Note that the pattern while using conflicting elements becomes: 3 glow crystals 1 chaos crystal 1 silver coin 3 glow crystals 1 chaos crystal 1 silver coin ( 2 glow crystals to lock in the essence ) Also note his techniques uses only 2 silver coins per element throughout. It's the cheapest method in terms of silver usage. The second modified Kelson relies on the observation that glow crystals, if you choose the correct order of coins, can temper the conflicting elements Dryad-Aura and Shade-Wisp. It's very order specific however. If you temper a LorimarIron sword with the following sequence: 3 glow crystals 2 wisp silver 3 glow crystals 2 shade silver 3 glow crystals 3 dryad silvers 3 glow crystals 2 aura silvers 2 glow crystals Then you get a sword of attack 78, a level of 6 on wisp and dryad, +1 on hp, spirit, charm, and luck. If you temper a LorimarIron sword with the following sequence: 3 glow crystals 2 dryad silver 3 glow crystals 2 aura silver 3 glow crystals 2 shade silver 3 glow crystals 3 wisp silver 2 glow crystals Then you get a sword of attack 112, a level of 6 on all four essences, +1 on hp, spirit, charm, and luck. Hence we will present Phildo's 'tweaked' Kelson tempering method, which takes explicit advantage of this feature of glow crystals. As a consequence, this method saves 4 glow crystals, 4 chaos crystals, and 2 silver coins. From: Phildo: "I use gold, but you can use silver if you want to. 3 Glow 2 Dryad 3 Glow 2 Aura 3 Glow 2 Shade 3 Glow 2 Wisp 3 Glow 2 Undine 3 Glow 2 Gnome 3 Glow 1 Chaos 2 Sala 2 Glow 1 Chaos 1 Sala 3 Glow 1 Chaos 2 Jinn 2 Glow 1 Chaos 1 Jinn 2 Glow X Spiny Seeds 3-5 Holy Water/Bumpkin/Ash 1 Sharp Claw/Scissors/Dragon's Breath/Giant's Horn/etc... 1 Gold Clover, (Non-wood only) Insert all plunge attacks after the last 2 Glows. ''X Spiny Seeds'' means, ''Up to ten''." The superKelson is a hybrid of the above two techniques. Use Phildo's tweaked coin order with Vulpes Mundi's conflicting elements formula. 2.1.11 - Synth's method: ------------------------ Synth's method comes from the observation that: 1 glow crystal elemental coin 1 glow crystal elemental coin 1 glow crystal (+ locks) is sufficient to temper a weapon to an elemental essence level of 6. For conflicting essences, you would use the pattern: 1 glow crystal 1 chaos crystal 1 elemental coin 1 glow crystal 1 chaos crystal 1 elemental coin (and Synth uses a chaos crystal to lock in the essences) (from a post by Synth) "The end of the process still has some small quirks with getting the jump from level 5 to 6 with Jinn, Gnome, and Undine. I'm working on it but I just started experimenting with essences yesterday. 20 Glow Crystals 5 Chaos Crystals 2 Coins from each element (have been using gold coins, but presumably silver would work) The technique is basically just use a Glow Crystal between each item. Glow, Shade, Glow, Shade, Glow, Aura, Glow, Aura, Glow, Wisp, Glow, Wisp, Glow, Dryad, Glow, Dryad, Glow, Sala, Glow, Sala, Glow, Jinn, Glow, Jinn, Glow, Ancient Moon, Glow, Gnome, Glow, Ancient Moon, Glow, Gnome, Glow, Ancient Moon, Glow, Undine, Glow, Ancient Moon, Glow, Undine, Ancient Moon Also, I'm working on trying to figure out if the ''round robin essences'' can be tempered in a way as to avoid some (or maybe even all) the Ancient Moon cards from the process. I have been able to temper Shade, Aura, Wisp, Dryad, in that order using my method with no Chaos Crystals and level 6 essences on all four even though they are ''conflicting''." 2.1.12 - Modified Synth Methods: -------------------------------- There have been problems with consistency in Synth's method, so we present a hybrid method developed for a DragonScales knife. (from a post of dwmyers, corrected for typos and some notes added) "I agree with Phildo, I get consistency problems with the method, so I'll present the one I _can_ get to work and why I did the things I did... I get collapses using Synth's coin order by the 4th coin, major ones. If I use Phildo's order once I start adding shade I see decreases in _dryad_ (shade conflicting with dryad?). So, I adopted this sequence. Coin order is essential to this conditioning method: 1 glow 1 dryad 1 glow 1 dryad 1 glow (dryad 5) 1 aura 1 glow 1 aura 3 glow (dryad 6, aura 6) 2 shade 3 glow 2 wisp 1 glow (no need to push 3 as sala conflicts with nothing along the top row) 1 salamander 1 glow 1 salamander 1 glow 1 jinn (all essences but jinn at 6) 1 glow 1 jinn 3 glow (unless you add three, jinn will be < 6) 1 chaos 1 gnome 3 glow (other patterns don't work well, the chaos coins have to be kept apart) 1 chaos 1 gnome 3 glow 1 chaos 1 undine 3 glow 1 chaos 1 undine 2 glow to lock For a dragonscales knife, this brought the weapon from 54 to 239, with essences level 6 everwhere. Note the technique is a hybrid of the Vulpes Mundi, the Synth, and Phildo's tweaked Kelson. I'm calling this the hybrid Synth for now. 3 glow coins appear to be necessary while using conflicting essences as if you don't push out the old chaos coin, you don't get a card for the new one and if you only put 1 glow coin, the essence remains at 4 as opposed to 6. So, so far as I can tell, Vulpes Mundi conflicting cycles are the soundest to date. cost: ...... --- power up compounds ...... --- 2 silver coins of each element 56,000 --- 28 glow crystals 20,000 --- 4 chaos crystals -------------------------------------------------- 76,000 It's not as frugal as the pure Synth, but it's stable." 2.1.13 - Tempering over Level 6: -------------------------------- Experiments by SSJCloud and Phildo indicate that tempering to level 7 is possible. The key to getting essences greater than 6 are the tempering agents Mercury and Sulphur, which affect essences levels for the following respective elements: Mercury Sulphur ----------------------------------------- Aura Dryad Jinn Gnome Undine Salamander In any event, let's let SSJCloud speak for himself: "Anyway somehow using this formula I was able to get all the essences except Wisp and Shade to level 7! What you do is forge your axe and then go with 3 of the mercury and then 2 Aura coins, then 3 mercury then 1 silver and then 1 gold Aura coin and that will land you at level 7. Now something to note is that mercury only works with Aura, Jinn, and Undine and Sulpher works with Dryad, Gnome and Salamander. Also for the Sulpher ones the formula is the same. Do you notice the way I wrote the coins out, I think that is important because if you will look you can see that while Aura, Jinn, and Undine are on one side their opposites work with the other Mystic card, the sorcerer, I'm almost positive that is no coincidence and I know with the right knowledge we could get it past level 7. Also of note, the formula is different for Wisp and Shade, which by the way are also opposites, see what I mean. Anyway, I cant seem to figure out how they get to 7, oh and if you use wood you should get Dryad at level 8!" New improvements by SSJCloud include the comment that the first 3 Mercury/ Sulphur are now unnecessary. And we have this bit from someguy: "By the way, I think I know how to get essences up to 8 because I've done it with Jinn, Salamander and Gnome, each in a different weapon, but then I can't get the others up. First I get an element up to 7, let's just say salamander, in a dragon scales weapon(more stable than wood). Then I build up the element that it eats up to 5, in this case Gnome. Then I add Chaos Crystals til Ancient Moon appears and then add two Salas, 3 Sulphers, a Chaos, then a Sala Gold. This takes Sala up to eight in exchange for a Gnome." 2.1.14 - Tempering Weapons For Cash: ------------------------------------ This technique comes from the observation that grave dirt doesn't do much for weapons power, but it does a lot to make a weapon valuable. If you add grave dirt to a weapon you probably won't keep or use, and you push the card into a visible slot (with, say, a seed or another grave dirt), then the value of the weapon goes up by about 2700 lucre. Do this to all the menos swords and menos spears you collect, and you can sell the weapons, and then earn a fair amount of lucre. 2.1.15 - Fixing a 'Misfire': ---------------------------- We've alluded to the method and actually quoted one of the early references to fixing a problem in conditioning. We're going to state the method here. Say you've created a sword and the Shade level is 3 as opposed to six. This is commonly called a 'misfire' and either (a) you've put a coin out of order (it's easy to confuse glow and chaos crystals in tempering) or (b) your chaos crystal has 'misfired'. To fix either of these situations, you treat the element as if it had never been added and use Vulpes Mundi's conflicting addition formula to remake the element: 3 glow crystals 1 chaos crystal 1 silver coin 3 glow crystals 1 chaos crystal 1 silver coin 2 glow crystals to lock it in. If you've having a lot of misfires, I recommend the following: Save often. Save after completing non-conflicting elements. Save your game again once you complete elemental tempering of the sword, even if you misfired once or twice. Save after completing the misfire fixes. This way you can try different post power ups and not be left with a useless weapon. 2.1.16 - Theories and Speculation: ---------------------------------- Vulpes Mundi wonders openly if the days of the week may not affect tempering, and Craig, my co-author, has proposed that the collective Nymphs could be good tempering agents. People are slowly translating the Legend of Mana Ultimania guide (it's in Japanese) and the current working hypothesis of the translators is that essences have a maximum of 9 they can reach. There is also speculation that the card Mirrored World could potentially reverse the effects of Yggrasil and Dying Earth. __________________________ PART 2.2 - Tempering Armor 2.2.1 - Raw Armor Statistics: ----------------------------- Chrono_LV99 provided the following charts, of unmodified armor. Tables and comments are his: "Here's a list of all the defensive items you can create using the forge. The primary is listed to the left, the type of item at the top, and the defensive stats are listed. These stats are prior to altering, so these reflect their "hot off the forge" initial defensive properties. Notes: All Rocks (Jacobini through Tuttle) have a Salamander essence of 4. Notes: Known Missing Primaries: Fossil, FullMetal, Orihalcon, AltenaAlloy (to be updated)" Primary Shield Hat Robe Shoes MenosBronze 1-1-1-0 0-0-0-0 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-0 ForsenaIron 1-1-1-0 0-0-0-0 1-1-1-1 0-0-0-0 GranzSteel 2-2-2-1 1-0-0-1 1-1-1-2 0-1-0-1 WendelSilver 3-3-3-1 1-0-0-1 2-2-2-3 0-1-0-1 VizelGold 4-4-4-2 2-1-1-2 3-3-3-4 1-2-1-2 IshePlatinum 5-5-5-2 2-1-1-2 3-3-3-5 1-2-1-2 LorimarIron 5-5-5-2 2-1-1-2 4-4-4-5 1-2-1-2 AltenaAlloy 6-6-6-3 3-1-1-3 4-4-4-6 1-3-1-3 OakWood 2-0-0-0 1-0-0-0 1-0-0-1 0-0-0-0 HollyWood 3-0-1-0 1-0-0-0 2-0-0-1 0-0-0-0 BaobabWood 4-1-1-1 2-0-0-1 3-0-1-2 1-0-0-1 EbonyWood 5-1-2-1 2-0-0-1 3-1-1-2 1-0-0-1 MapleWood 7-2-3-1 3-0-0-1 5-1-2-3 1-1-0-1 DiorWood 10-3-4-2 5-0-1-2 7-2-3-5 2-1-1-2 AshWood 6-1-2-1 3-0-0-1 4-1-1-3 1-0-0-1 Marble 0-1-1-0 0-0-0-0 0-0-1-1 0-0-0-0 Obsidian 1-2-3-1 0-0-0-1 1-1-2-3 0-1-0-1 PedanStone 2-3-4-2 1-0-1-2 1-2-3-5 0-1-1-2 Gaius'sTear 3-4-6-3 1-1-1-3 2-3-4-7 0-2-1-3 AnimalHide 2-1-1-0 1-0-0-0 1-0-1-1 0-0-0-0 GatorSkin 4-1-2-1 2-0-0-1 3-1-1-2 1-0-0-1 DragonSkin 8-3-5-2 4-0-1-2 6-2-3-4 2-1-1-2 FishScales 1-1-1-0 0-0-0-0 0-0-0-0 0-0-0-0 LizardScales 2-2-2-0 1-0-0-0 1-1-1-1 0-1-0-0 SnakeScales 3-3-3-0 1-0-0-0 2-2-2-1 0-1-0-0 DragonScales 9-9-7-1 4-2-1-1 6-6-5-3 2-4-1-1 AnimalBone 1-1-0-0 0-0-0-0 0-1-0-1 0-0-0-0 Ivory 2-3-1-1 1-0-0-1 1-2-1-2 0-1-0-1 ToppleCotton 1-1-1-0 0-0-0-0 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-0 SultanSilk 1-1-1-0 0-0-0-0 1-1-1-1 0-0-0-0 JuddHemp 2-2-2-1 1-0-0-1 1-1-1-2 0-1-0-1 AltenaFelt 3-3-3-1 1-0-0-1 2-2-2-3 0-1-0-1 JacobiniRock 1-1-2-1 0-0-0-1 1-1-1-3 0-0-0-1 HalleyRock 2-2-3-2 1-0-0-2 1-1-2-4 0-1-0-2 AnkhRock 3-2-3-2 1-0-0-2 2-2-2-5 0-1-0-2 VinekRock 3-3-4-3 1-0-1-3 2-2-3-6 0-1-1-3 TuttleRock 4-3-5-3 2-0-1-3 3-2-3-7 1-1-1-3 Primary Pendant Ring Mantle Armor MenosBronze 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 0-0-0-1 4-4-4-0 ForsenaIron 0-0-0-5 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 6-6-6-0 GranzSteel 0-0-0-7 0-0-0-5 1-1-1-3 8-8-8-1 WendelSilver 0-0-0-11 0-0-0-7 1-1-1-5 12-12-12-1 VizelGold 0-0-0-13 0-0-0-8 2-2-2-6 14-14-14-2 IshePlatinum 0-0-0-15 0-0-0-10 2-2-2-7 16-16-16-2 LorimarIron 0-0-0-16 0-0-0-11 2-2-2-8 18-18-18-2 AltenaAlloy 0-0-0-18 0-0-0-12 3-3-3-9 20-20-20-3 OakWood 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 1-0-0-1 6-2-2-0 HollyWood 0-0-0-4 0-0-0-3 1-0-0-2 9-2-4-0 BaobabWood 0-0-0-6 0-0-0-4 2-0-0-3 13-4-5-1 EbonyWood 0-0-0-8 0-0-0-5 2-0-1-4 16-4-6-1 MapleWood 0-0-0-11 0-0-0-7 3-1-1-5 22-6-9-1 DiorWood 0-0-0-16 1-0-0-11 5-1-2-8 32-10-14-2 AshWood 0-0-0-10 0-0-0-6 3-0-1-5 19-6-8-1 Marble 0-0-0-5 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 2-3-4-0 Obsidian 0-0-0-11 0-0-0-7 0-1-1-5 5-7-9-1 PedanStone 0-0-0-16 0-0-0-11 1-1-2-8 8-10-14-2 Gaeus'sTears 0-0-0-22 0-0-0-15 1-2-3-11 11-14-19-3 AnimalHide 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 1-0-0-1 8-3-4-0 GatorSkin 0-0-0-6 0-0-0-4 2-0-1-3 14-5-8-1 DragonSkin 0-0-0-13 1-0-0-8 4-1-2-6 28-11-17-2 FishScales 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-0 3-3-3-0 LizardScales 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 1-1-1-1 7-7-6-0 SnakeScales 0-0-0-4 0-0-0-3 1-1-1-2 11-11-9-0 DragonScales 0-0-0-11 1-1-0-7 4-4-3-5 29-29-24-1 AnimalBone 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 0-0-0-1 3-6-2-0 Ivory 0-0-0-6 0-0-0-4 1-1-0-3 7-12-4-1 ToppleCotton 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 0-0-0-1 3-3-3-0 SultanSilk 0-0-0-5 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 5-5-5-0 JuddHemp 0-0-0-7 0-0-0-4 1-1-1-3 7-7-7-1 AltenaFelt 0-0-0-9 0-0-0-6 1-1-1-4 9-9-9-1 JacobiniRock 0-0-0-9 0-0-0-6 0-0-1-4 6-5-7-1 HalleyRock 0-0-0-11 0-0-0-8 1-1-1-6 8-7-9-2 AnkhRock 0-0-0-15 0-0-0-10 1-1-1-7 10-8-12-2 VinekRock 0-0-0-18 0-0-0-12 1-1-2-9 12-10-14-3 TuttleRock 0-0-0-21 0-0-0-14 2-1-2-10 14-12-17-3 Adamantite 0-0-0-23 0-0-1-15 3-1-5-11 25-12-37-3 Coral 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 1-0-2-1 9-3-13-0 TortoiseShell 0-0-0-4 0-0-0-3 2-0-2-2 13-5-18-0 Shell 0-0-0-3 0-0-0-2 1-0-2-1 10-4-14-0 Emerald 0-0-0-18 0-0-0-12 0-0-0-9 0-0-0-3 Pearl 0-0-0-18 0-0-0-12 0-0-0-9 0-0-0-3 LapisLazuli 0-0-0-18 0-0-0-12 0-0-0-9 0-0-0-3 Primary Helmet Hauberk Gauntlet Boots MenosBronze 1-1-0-0 1-2-2-0 1-0-1-0 0-1-1-0 ForsenaIron 1-1-1-0 2-3-3-0 1-1-1-0 1-1-1-0 GranzSteel 2-2-1-0 3-5-5-0 2-1-2-0 1-2-2-0 WendelSilver 3-3-2-0 5-7-7-0 3-2-3-0 2-3-3-0 VizelGold 4-3-3-1 6-8-8-1 3-3-4-1 3-4-3-1 IshePlatinum 5-4-3-1 7-10-10-1 4-3-5-1 3-5-4-1 LorimarIron 5-4-4-1 8-11-11-1 4-4-5-1 4-5-4-1 AltenaAlloy 6-5-4-1 9-12-12-1 5-4-6-1 4-6-5-1 OakWood 2-0-0-0 3-1-1-0 1-0-0-0 1-0-0-0 HollyWood 3-0-0-0 4-1-2-0 2-0-1-0 3-1-1-0 BaobabWood 4-1-1-0 6-2-3-0 3-0-1-0 3-1-1-0 EbonyWood 5-1-1-0 7-3-4-0 4-1-2-0 3-1-1-0 MapleWood 7-1-2-0 10-4-6-0 6-1-3-0 5-2-2-0 DiorWood 10-2-3-1 15-6-8-1 8-2-4-1 7-3-3-1 AshWood 6-1-1-0 9-3-5-0 5-1-2-0 4-1-2-0 Marble 0-0-1-0 1-2-3-0 0-0-1-0 0-1-1-0 Obsidian 1-1-2-0 2-4-6-0 1-1-3-0 1-2-2-0 PedanStone 2-2-3-1 3-6-9-1 2-2-4-1 1-3-3-1 Gaeus'sTears 3-3-4-1 5-9-12-1 3-3-6-1 2-4-5-1 AnimalHide 2-0-1-0 3-2-3-0 2-0-1-0 1-1-1-0 GatorSkin 4-1-1-0 6-3-5-0 3-1-2-0 3-1-2-0 DragonSkin 8-3-3-1 13-7-10-1 7-2-5-1 6-3-4-1 FishScales 1-0-0-0 1-2-2-0 0-0-1-0 0-1-0-0 LizardScales 2-2-1-0 3-4-4-0 2-1-2-0 1-2-1-0 SnakeScales 3-3-2-0 5-7-6-0 3-2-3-0 2-3-2-0 DragonScales 9-7-5-0 13-18-15-0 7-6-7-0 6-9-6-0 AnimalBone 1-1-0-0 1-3-1-0 0-1-0-0 0-1-0-0 Ivory 2-3-1-0 3-7-3-0 1-2-1-0 1-3-1-0 ToppleCotton 1-0-0-0 1-2-2-0 0-1-0-0 0-1-0-0 SultanSilk 1-1-1-0 2-3-3-0 1-1-1-0 1-1-1-0 JuddHemp 2-2-1-0 3-4-4-0 2-1-2-0 1-2-2-0 AltenaFelt 3-2-2-0 4-6-6-0 2-2-3-0 2-3-2-0 JacobiniRock 1-1-1-0 2-3-4-0 1-1-2-0 1-1-1-0 HalleyRock 2-1-2-1 3-4-6-1 2-1-3-1 1-2-2-1 AnkhRock 3-2-2-1 4-5-7-1 2-2-3-1 2-2-3-1 VinekRock 3-2-3-1 5-6-9-1 3-2-4-1 2-3-3-1 TuttleRock 4-3-3-1 6-7-10-1 3-2-5-1 3-3-4-1 Adamantite 7-3-8-1 11-7-23-1 6-2-11-1 5-3-10-1 Coral 2-0-3-0 4-2-8-0 2-0-4-0 2-1-3-0 TortoiseShell 4-1-4-0 6-3-11-0 3-1-5-0 3-1-5-0 Shell 3-1-3-0 4-2-9-0 2-0-4-0 2-1-3-0 Emerald 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 Pearl 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 LapisLazuli 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 0-0-0-1 2.2.2 - Tempering Armor for Combat: ----------------------------------- Largely this revolves around the "Bed of Thorns" technique, which requires a dryad level of at least 3 on the armor plate, coupled with tempering in at least 3 Needlelettuce/Needles after. On rings and pendants, it's been said that a dryad level of 1 is enough to bring about the "bed of thorns" effects. Bed of thorns is cancelled if any Salamander essence is on the armor, so armor in which bed of thorns will be used is not tempered with salamander coins, or the salamander essence is tempered out with undine before needles or needlelettuce is applied. A recent twist, suggested by someguy, is to add a little eye to the armor after adding 3 Needles/Needlelettuce. This is not a technique to try with moth wing enhanced pendants. It should have been noted earlier, but to quote one of our readers, Kenru Omega, the bed of thorns "nullifies (healing) synchro effects and crouch which means you can't heal without a candy...". Because of this, people have suggested the Lizardon as a healing pet when using "bed of thorns" armor. 2.2.3 - Statistics for various Needle tempered armor ---------------------------------------------------- (contributors: Phildo, flyojumper @ gamefaqs, and some of my own work) Shield IshePlatinum: 16, 16, 16, 8 LorimarIron: 18, 18, 18, 9 Adamantite: 26, 12, 31, 13 DragonScales: 30, 30, 25, 6 Armor Dior Wood: 99, 33, 47, 9 IshePlatinum: 54, 54, 54, 8 LorimarIron: 60, 60, 60, 9 Adamantite: 84, 41, 99, 13 DragonScales: 98, 98, 82, 6 Mantle LorimarIron: 9, 9, 9, 28 Adamantite: 13, 6, 15, 39 DragonScales: 15, 15, 12, 18 Pendant IshePlatinum: 0, 0, 0, 75 LorimarIron: 0, 0, 0, 84 Adamantite: 0, 0, 0, 95 Ring Adamantite: 2, 1, 3, 63 Shields, Armor, and Mantle are after forging with the following: 1 Dryad Gold 4 Needle Pendants and Rings were forged with the following: 1 Dryad Gold 4 Needle 1 Moth's Wing 2.2.4 - Armor Combinations that yield 99/99/99/99 armor classes: ---------------------------------------------------------------- (contributions by flyojumper and Phildo) It should be noted that armor whose total defense totals more than 99 will be reported as 99 by the game. Having said that, we present two combinations that will leave you will a 99 or greater defense in all categories. For a weapon that allows the use of a shield, a good combination is: 98, 98, 82, 6 (DragonScales Armor) 30, 30, 25, 6 (DragonScales Shield) 0, 0, 0, 95 (Adamantite Pendant) ================== 128, 128, 107, 107 (Total Armor protection) For a 2 handed weapon, such as a 2 handed sword or axe, or a bow, or a flail, then a good combination of armor is: 98, 98, 82, 6 (DragonScales Armor) 13, 6, 15, 39 (Adamantite Mantle) 2, 1, 3, 63 (Adamantite Ring) ================== 113, 105, 100, 108 (Total Armor Protection) 2.2.5 - Ultimate Armor Formulas: -------------------------------- (Data taken from a thread started by flyojumper, with BlackRabite's enhancement for saving spiny seeds) -Ultimate DragonScales Armor: 98/98/82/6 1) Temper all essences to 6 except Salamander 2) Add in this order: 1 Stinky Breath 1 Squalphin 1 Ear of Wheat (Gives status protection against poison, confusion, fireburn, petrification) 3) 'wash' with 4 Holy Water 4) For luck, add 4 spiny seeds 5) Add 'Bed of Thorns' with 4 needle 6) 2 Vampire Fang to get +5 in spirit and charm. -Ultimate DragonScales Shield: 30/30/25/6 1) Temper all essences to 6 except Salamander 2) Add in this order: 1 Stinky Breath 1 Squalphin 1 Ear of Wheat (Gives status protection against poison, confusion, fireburn, petrification) 3) 'wash' with 4 Holy Water 4) For luck, add 4 spiny seeds 5) 'wash' with 4 Holy water 6) Add in order: 1 chao crystal 3 needle 1 salamander gold or silver 2 vampire fang - Ultimate DragonScales (Or Adamantite) Mantle 1) Temper all essences to 6 except Salamander 2) Add in this order: 1 Stinky Breath 1 Squalphin 1 Ear of Wheat (Gives status protection against poison, confusion, fireburn, petrification) 3) 'wash' with 4 Holy Water 4) For luck, add 4 spiny seeds 5) Add 'Bed of Thorns' with 4 needle 6) 2 Vampire Fang to get +5 in spirit and charm. 2.2.6 - The Ultimate Pendant: ----------------------------- This pendant combines a large number of status protection items with bed of thorns and elemental protection for Salamander. It uses a trick invented by Samulax to get sharp claw based freeze protection on the armor, by first tempering with salamander and then using Undine to bring the essence down to 0. - Ultimate Adamantite Pendant From a post by G Master "Pine O'Clock,Blackened Bat,Zombie Claw ( or something Else that you want it cause status protect on your armor ) 3 Glow Crystal 1 Sala Silver 1 Sharp Claw 3 Glow Crystal 2 Dryad Silver 3 Glow Crystal 2 Aura Silver 3 Glow Crystal 2 Shade Silver 3 Glow Crystal 2 Wisp Silver 3 Glow Crystal 2 Undine Silver (by now, Sala should be at 0) 3 Glow Crystal 2 Gnome Silver 3 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 2 Jinn Silver 2 Glow Crystal 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Jinn Silver 2 Glow Crystal 3 Spiny Seeds (Yggdrasil should appear after 3rd) 4 Needle/Needlettuce 1 Chaos Crystal 1 Sala Silver 3 Needlelettuce (or until Ancient Moon leaves weapon) 1 Moth Wing (will cause Sala card to leave)" 2.2.7 - Luck and armor: ----------------------- TheBlackRabite has noted that pushing enough spiny seeds into the armor to raise all luck levels to +4 will cause the armor to retain a status of +3 after adding the bed of thorns. Recently, TheBlackRabite has noted exceptionally high HP recovery when wearing 3 pendants with Yggrasil cards, and luck raised to +10 (no bed of thorns). He's operating on a theory that it takes a HP level of 90 to trigger this effect. 2.2.8 - Making a Forbidden Ring ------------------------------- 1. Make a ring from a good material (maple wood, platinum, iron, adamantium, emerald, etc). 2. Add chaos crystals and elemental coins to the ring until Dryad, Undine, and Wisp are at 6. 3. Add Ear of Wheat to get the Fertility Goddess card. 4. To push the luck up higher, add spiny seeds until the status effects are +10. Someone (perhaps Dracorum) pointed out long ago that the Fertility Goddess card only shares experience when it manifests on a ring. We also have this comment from Chrono_LV99: "Try tempering in a flaming quill into a forbidden ring. You'll lose 1 magic defense point but gain 5 essences' defenses and some wicked stats. And no, God of war doesn't appear (or whichever card is associated with f. quill). And the ring still shares exp. " 2.2.9 - Making a Revive Ring ---------------------------- 1. Make a ring from a good material (maple wood, platinum, iron, adamantium, emerald, etc). 2. Add chaos crystals and elemental coins to the ring until Salamander and Jinn are at 6. 3. Add Flaming Quill to get the Phoenix card. 4. To push the luck up higher, add spiny seeds until the status effects are +10. 2.2.10 - Theories and Speculation --------------------------------- Kenru Omega has stated his belief that the Wanderer card, placed on armor, upgrades the armor in such a way that it raises your chances of getting rare items, much as if you had a wearable poulter box. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 3. Items, Mystic Cards and Plunge Attacks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (dwm - Craig is sole author of section 3. any use of the word 'I' in the third section is Craig writing as himself) _______________________ 3.1 Secondary Materials Mystic Cards are acquired through tempering certain items into a weapon or armor. Many of the mystic cards require certain essence levels to activate. Others require that certain essence levels not exceed 1. Mystic cards can be used for a variety of uses, from sharing EXP to raising essence levels. The way mystic cards appear is a little tricky. There is a fourth invisible slot accompanying the three visible slots in the weapon/armor. The way the system works is that when an item is tempered in, it will stay in the invisible slot until another item containing a mystic card is tempered in. For example, if you temper a Shade Gold and then a Aura Gold into a weapon. The Shade mystic card will stay in the invisible fourth slot. (Shade) invisible ---------- ---------- ---------- After tempering in the Aura Gold, the Aura mystic card is in the invisible slot and the Shade mystic card appears on the weapon. (Aura) invisible Shade ---------- ---------- If a mystic card is not in one of the three visible slots it is not considered on the weapon yet, and any special effects given by the card will not be present. These are the secondary materials that can be tempered into a weapon or armor. Legend: N/A = No mystic card available None = No essence level requirements COINS: Wisp Gold - Wisp - None Shade Gold - Shade - None Dryad Gold - Dryad - None Aura Gold - Aura - None Sala Gold - Sala - None Gnome Gold - Gnome - None Jinn Gold - Jinn - None Undine Gold - Undine - None Wisp Silver - Wisp - None Shade Silver - Shade - None Dryad Silver - Dryad - None Aura Silver - Aura - None Sala Silver - Sala - None Gnome Silver - Gnome - None Jinn Silver - Jinn - None Undine Silver - Undine - None MANA STONE: Firestone - Sala - None Earthstone - Gnome - None Windstone - Jinn - None Waterstone - Undine - None MANA CRYSTAL: Sun Crystal - Sun God - ?? Moon Crystal - Moon Goddess - ?? Glow Crystal - Nymph of Dawn - None Chaos Crystal - Ancient Moon - None SEEDS: Round Seed - Dryad - ?? Oblong Seed - Dryad - ?? Crooked Seed - Dryad - ?? Big Seed - Dryad - ?? Small Seed - Dryad - ?? Long Seed - Dryad - ?? Flat Seed - Dryad - ?? Spiny Seed - Yggdrasil - Dryad: 3+ PRODUCE: Bellgrapes - ?? - ?? Diceberry - Wind God - Jinn: 3+ Mangolephant - ?? - ?? Loquat-Shoes - Spirit ** - None Pear o'Heels - Spirit ** - None Squalphin - Ocean God - Undine: ?? Citrisquid - ?? - ?? Springanana - Heaven's Scale - ?? Peach Puppy - Wolf - ?? Apricat - ?? - ?? Applesocks - Nymph of Orchards - Drayd: ?? Whalamato - Unicorn - ?? Pine o'Clock - Ragnarok * - ?? Fishy Fruit - Spring - ?? Boarmelon - ?? - ?? Rhinoloupe - ?? - ?? Orcaplant - Ocean God - Undine: ?? Garlicrown - King - ?? Honey Onion - Princess - ?? Sweet Moai - ?? - ?? Spiny Carrot - ?? - ?? Conchurnip - Spirit ** - None Cornflower - ?? - ?? Cabbadillo - ?? - ?? Needlettuce - Bed of Thorn - Dryad: 3+ Sala: 0 Cherry Bombs - ?? - ?? Masked Potato - ?? - ?? Lilipods - Enticed Nymph - None Rocket Papaya - Tower - Wisp: 1+ Jinn: 0 Orange'opus - Leviathan - Gnome: 5+ Sala: 0 Bumpkin - Clown - ?? Heart Mint - Mother of Gods - ?? Spade Basil - Ruler of Sky - ?? Dialaurel - Metropolis - Shade: 3+ Wisp: 0 Gold Clover - ?? - ?? Mush-in-a-Box - ?? - ?? Toadstoolshed - ?? - ?? MEAT: Animal Meat - ?? - ?? Bug Meat - ?? - ?? Lizard Meat - ?? - ?? Fish Meat - ?? - ?? Bird Meat - ?? - ?? Morph Meat - ?? - ?? Demon Meat - ?? - ?? Dragon Steak - ?? - ?? Odd Meat - ?? - ?? Magical Meat - ?? - ?? Rotten Meat - ?? - ?? FANGS & CLAWS: Sharp Claw - ?? - ?? Poison Fang - ?? - ?? Giant's Horn - ?? - ?? Scissors - ?? - ?? Healing Claw - Tower - Wisp: 3+ Sala: 0 Zombie Claw - ?? - ?? Vampire Fang - ?? - ?? EYES: Little Eye - Fallen Angel * - None Sleepy Eye - Witch of Moon * - None Silly Eye - Leviathan * - None Dangerous Eye - Beast-headed God * - None Angry Eye - God of Destruction * - None Blank Eye - Lord of Flies * - None Creepy Eye - Wings of Darkness * - None Wicked Eye - ?? - ?? FEATHERS: Angel Feather - Fallen Angel - Wisp: 3+ ?? Shade: 0 Raven Feather - Raven - ?? Clear Feather - ?? possibly Dryad - ?? Moth Wing - Spirit ** - None Flaming Quill - Phoenix - Sala: ?? White Feather - Nymph of the Sky - ?? BOTTLES: Aroma Oil - Wisdom Goddess - ?? Dragon Blood - God of War - ?? Acid - ?? - ?? Holy Water - Cleric - None Ether - Blacksmith God *** - <<<<---------------<<<< VIALS: Mercury - Witch - ?? Aura, Gnome, Undine Stinky Breath - Wings of Darkness * - None Ghost's Howl - Sacrificed Nymph - None Dragon Breath - Man of Valour - ?? Virgin's Sigh - Goddess of Love *** - <<<<---------------<<<< URNS: Electricity - Thunder God - ?? Moss - ?? - ?? Ear of Wheat - Fertility Goddess - Dryad: ?? PELLETS: Baked Roach - ?? - ?? Blackened Bat - Wings of Darkness - ?? POWDERS: Sulpher - Sorcerer - ?? Dryad, Sala, Jinn Poison Powder - God of Destruction * - None Sleepy Powder - Lord of Flies * - None Knockout Dust - Leviathan * - None Rust - Witch of Moon * - ?? Grave Dirt - Dying Earth - None Ash - Volcano - ?? POUCHES: Hairball - Spirit ** - None Needle - Bed of Thorn - Dryad: 3+ Sala: 0 Mirror Piece - Mirrored World - ?? Wad of Wool - Wanderer - ?? Messy Scroll - Sage - ?? (nameless): Greenball Bun - - Tako Bug - - * Pixie cards can be transformed into better cards by tempering in a Ragnarok card(Pine'O'Clock). As long as the Ragnarok card is on the weapon, any Pixie cards added will become the card listed in parentheses, also any Pixie cards currently on the weapon upon getting the Ragnarok card will be transformed. If the Ragnarok card leaves the weapon, any cards gotten from Pixies will remain transformed, however, any further Pixie cards added require a new Ragnarok card. The essence level requirements for transformed Pixies are only the requirements of obtaining the Ragnarok card. ** Although some of the Spirit cards look the same, they are each different cards and may give different results when tempering. *** Ether - Spirit until ?? essenses then becomes Blacksmith God. Virgin's Sigh - Sacrificed Nymph until ?? Wisp essence then becomes Goddess of Love. ________________ 3.2 Mystic Cards Mystic Card Stat Modifier Abilities ------------- --------------- ----------- Ancient Moon +10 Chm Allow conflicting elements to co-exist on the same weapon. Aura +1 Luck Increases Aura essence. Beast-headed God ?? ?? Bed of Thorn ?? Increase defense on armor but lose ability to regenerate HP. Blacksmith God +10 Defense ?? Cleric +1/+3 Spirit Placing 3 on a weapon increases attack power, any less lowers it. Clown +3 Luck Increases attack power for each card up to max of 3. Dryad +1 HP Increases Dryad Essence. Dying Earth -1/-3/-5 all stats Halves damage dealt. Enticed Nymph +2/+3 Spirit ?? Fallen Angel ?? ?? Fertility Goddess +10 HP Shares EXP with NPC/Pet/Golem. Gnome +1 Defense Increases Gnome essence. God of Destruction ?? ?? God of War +10 Power, +1 all stats ?? Goddess of Love +7 Spirit/Charm ?? Heaven's Scale No stat modifier. Limit 1. Jinn +1 Skills Increases Jinn essence. King +1/+3/+5 Power ?? Leviathan ?? ?? Lord of Flies ?? ?? Man of Valour +1/+3/+5 Power/HP ?? Metropolis ?? ?? Mirrored World No stat modifier. Limit 1. Moon Goddess +10 Spirit ?? Mother of Gods +5 Magic/Spirit/Charm ?? Nymph of Dawn No stat modifier Allows essences to raise to level 6. Nymph of Orchards +2 Skills ?? Nymph of the Sky +5 Skills ?? Ocean God ?? ?? Phoenix ?? ?? Princess ?? ?? Ragnarok ?? Limit 1. Transforms Pixie cards. Raven ?? ?? Ruler of Sky ?? ?? Sacrificed Nymph ?? ?? Sage ?? ?? Sala +1 Power Increases Sala essence. Shade +1 Spirit Increases Shade essence. Sorcerer ?? Allows Dryad, Sala, Jinn essences to raise to level 7. Spirit ?? ?? Spring ?? ?? Sun God +10 Charm ?? Thunder God ?? ?? Tower ?? ?? Undine +1 Magic Increases Undine essence. Unicorn ?? ?? Volcano ?? Placing 3 on a weapon increases attack power, any less lowers it. Wind God +10 Skills ?? Wings of Darkness ?? ?? Wisdom Goddess ?? ?? Wisp +1 Charm Increases Wisp essence. Witch ?? Allows Aura, Gnome, Undine essences to raise to level 7. Witch of Moon ?? ?? Wolf ?? ?? Yggdrasil +1 all stats Limit 1. Each time the Yggdrasil card would appear on a weapon in while the card already exists increases all stats by +1, permanently. Stat Modifiers separated by a / indicate cards whose modifiers increase/decrease according to how many of that card exist on the weapon or armor. Example: +1/+1/+3 Power implies that with one card the modifier is +1, with 2 cards the modifier is +1, and with 3 cards the modifier is +3. __________________ 3.3 Plunge Attacks Plunge attacks are powerful attacks usually used to finish a combo. They are stronger than a power attack but, unlike power attacks, do not leave you stunned afterward. The basic plunge attacks for all the weapons are perfomed as follows: (Bows have different plunge attacks but are still performed the same way): Thrust/Double Shot - forward, hold forward, power attack Uppercut/Shot - down, down/forward, forward, power attack Jump - back, hold forward, power attack On top of the basic plunge attacks, each weapon can acquire new, more powerful, plunge attacks by tempering certain mystic power cards into the given weapon. Below is a list of some of the various plunge attacks I have discovered and how to get them (Still working on completing the list, any help would be appreciated): Plunge Attack Replaces Description Card Needed --------------- ---------- ------------- ------------- Knife - Quick Blade (Uppercut) Med dmg cut, raises WP. Clown Poison Blade (Uppercut) Med dmg cut, poison. Beast-headed God Sinister Blade (Jump) Med dmg cut, good v demi-hmns. Lord of Flies Sword - Sunlight (Uppercut) Med dmg cut, good vs undead. Sun God Moonlight (Jump) Med dmg cut, good vs aquatic. Moon Goddess Vampsword (Uppercut) Med dmg cut, steals HP. Witch of Moon Flame Tongue (Uppercut) Med dmg cut, blazing. God of Dest. Axe - Dragonslayer (Uppercut) Med dmg cut, good vs dragons. God of War Woodchopper (Jump) Med dmg cut, good vs plants. Wanderer 2H Sword - Ragnarok (Jump) Lrg dmg cut, raises strength. Ragnarok Chaotic Avenger (Thrust) Fire/earth/air/water med dmg cut Fallen Angel 2H Axe - Treefeller (Jump) Lrg dmg cut, good vs plants. Leviathan Hammer - Magma Hammer (Jump) Gold/fire-based med dmg blunt. Volcano Mjolnir (Jump) Fire-based lrg dmg blunt. Thunder God Sledgehammer (Jump) Med dmg blunt, good vs pltrgst. Blacksmith God Quake Hammer (Jump) Gold/earth-based med dmg blunt. Spirit (Ether) Spear - Gungnir (Thrust) Lrg dmg pierce, raises mental. Ruler of Sky Trident (Thrust) Med dmg pierce, good vs aquatic. Ocean God Spear of Light (Thrust) Light-based lrg dmg, pierce. Man of Valour Staff - Demonicide (Jump) Med dmg blunt, good vs demons. Cleric Electrosceptre (Jump) Fire-based lrg dmg blunt. Ruler of Sky Golden Touch (Uppercut) Weak dmg, EXP becomes money. Wings of Drk. Gloves - Hand of Midas (Uppercut) Weak dmg, EXP becomes money. King Flail - Green Princess (Thrust) Med dmg blunt, raises defense. Mother of Gods Game of Death (Uppercut) Med dmg blunt, raises skill. Mother of Gods Red Dream (Jump) Med dmg blunt, raises strength Mother of Gods Bow - Phoenix Falling (Double Sh) Med dmg pierce, good vs aerial Phoenix, Sage Lunar Shot (Shot) Shadow-based lrg dmg, pierce. Moon Goddess Solar Flare (Double Sh) Light-based lrg dmg, pierce. Sun God Elven Archer (Shot) Med dmg pierce, paralyzation Spr. (Moth Wing) I am still missing a fairly large number of plunge attacks. At one point I came across a list of, what appeared to be, the names of all the possible plunge attacks. It was only the names but I used it to help me figure out what cards gave the plunge attacks. According to the list, these are the plunges I'm missing: Knife - Flash Blade, Ice Blade, Ripper Blade, Cats Claw, Lions Claw, Numbing Blade Sword - Icebrand 2H Sword - Holy Avenger 2H Axe - Great Axe Attack Staff - Caduceus, Extreme Attack (possibly for Spear) Gloves - Flying Fist, Bullslayer Flail - Flail Flog Bow - Medusas Arrow, Flaming Arrow, Icicle, Magical Shot The list may not include all the possible plunge attacks, I have no real way of knowing. I do know, however, that all the ones listed above do exist. ____________ 3.4 Theories Although I have discovered a majority of the mystic cards and plunge attacks, there are still many missing and I could use all the help possible. I have been presented with a few theories as to how to get other plunge attacks/mystic cards. Remember, these are only theories, but if you come across anything like one of the theories, or something completely new, I would love to hear about it. 1. As has been proved, to some degree, certain items give different cards depending on the weapon/armors essence levels. Two such items are Virgin's Sigh (Sacrificed Nymph/Goddess of Love) and Ether (Spirit/Blacksmith God). It is possible that there are other items that give more than one mystic card, depending on essence levels. 2. The Ragnarok card allows Pixies to be transformed into new cards, it might also be possible for the Spirit and/or pictureless cards to be transformed using a different card. 3. Certain plunge attacks may require more than one card to exist on a weapon at the same time to activate them. I have not discovered any so far, but the possible number of combinations is insanely immense and I haven't focused any of my time on it yet. 4. Certain cards require low essences in for certain elements. I.E. Bed of Thorn requires that there be no Sala essence on the item. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 4. Contributors, and a Bibliography. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __________________________________ Part 4.1 - Contributors and Thanks Questions For the Beginner: Chrono_LV99 was the first to note an aura day effect on hunting rare metals and woods. Weapons: Without Sean Kelson and his ground breaking work on tempering we don't have the Kelson tempering method, but there were people, such as kiah, who created preliminary methods that helped us all develop the techniques we use now. After all, someone had to be first. Moonlore later developed a sword of strength 363 and ShiroKage was the first to note that kiah's method could be enhanced to essence levels higher than 4. Masterwai soon followed with an improved method as well. JumiViolet was the one who first introduced me to using grave dirt as a weapons modifier. Armor: Senlur, iirc, was the first to note that Salamander essense would prevent the 'Bed of Thorns' from working. Senlur did some early work on pendants and noted as well the beneficial qualities of tempering in Squalphin, Ear of Wheat, and Pine O Clock. As well, he pointed out the Tower of Leires as a place to find adamantite. XxHolyDeViLxX@aol.com provided info on Altena alloy for Chrono's charts. Mystic Cards: Among the early posters of data on mystic cards are: Deathwing [moogleman@geocities.com] Darth Fury Phildo, Sariel, and Chrono_LV99 have added a great deal in comments about the various mystic cards. Email messages about the FAQ: Edward Liu sent a wonderful email suggesting some things we're beginning to incorporate (a beginner's section, for example) and he has a 5 part breakdown of tempering that we may eventually accommodate. Darren Stoll asked for better indexing. Hopefully we've accommodated him by version 1.2 Strite went ahead and calculated the *exact* cost of the ultimate sword and mailed it to us. Thanks! Kelly Hinkle offered to help us with some stats. Please do! Fred Lupus wrote and asked that we include locations of places to get rare stuff. These days, it's in the beginner's section. Check Q9. Al Amaloo wrote and asked if he could post this FAQ on his site. We have no objections to other sites posting this FAQ so long as access to this FAQ is free. For-pay access is in violation of our copyright. Adrienne Brambila thanked us for writing the FAQ. We want to thank Adrienne for telling us she liked it. Greg Elkington wrote about the mystic cards we have and a couple he thought we missed. Thing is, we checked and we actually covered them. But thanks for writing, Greg. Kenru Omega mentions that "bed of thorns nullifies synchro effects and crouch which means you can't heal without a candy..." He's correct on this. Senlur noted this a few weeks back and people then started promoting the Lizardon as the optimal healing pet with bed of thorns use. XxHolyDeViLxX@aol.com pointed out that chaos and glow crystals are not chaos and glow coins. Yes, that's true. And we'll fix this discrepancy asap :> Vulpes Mundi sent a remarkable letter, well written and literate, explaining a tempering method that he and a friend devised. It is exceptionally economical with silver coins and we've published it in this FAQ. Jason Wall wants clearer explanations of the things we discuss. I can only say that one, we're trying, and two, right now things are getting very complicated to understand and explain. To borrow a phrase, things are as clear as mud right now. :> Brian Chu reports a Kelson tempered IshePlatinum 2H sword with a power of 355. This is consistent with Phildo's sword. All of Brian's essences were at 6, with stat bonuses of +2 and +3. Andre Wong (hiryu1115@yahoo.com) writes to say that he thinks the Succubus is a better pet than the Lizardon with bed of thorns armor because it is able to drain hit points from your enemies through its synchronization ability. The Succubus is a demi-human pet you can get from the Fieg snowfields if the shade level there is 3. As Andre says, "I have drained around seven hundred hp in one strike against a level 99 Land Dragon with a Kelson tempered Dior Spear." Acceptable Risk [clayton@magicmagic.com] sent us a cool Lorimar 1H axe formula. We've published it pretty much in its entirety. Black Reaver wrote in and spoke in depth of the materials that are only available by the gameshark. Matthew Howe Cloutier points out that not all synchros are shut off by bed of thorns. We've clarified that as well. _______________________ Part 4.2 - Bibliography We're giving three major bibliographic references. Now, we've read and heard far more than we'll be able to effectively credit, but these three documents are a good place to start. The Mastery FAQ will help you play the game well, Sean's FAQ has weapons and armor charts found nowhere else, and Mike's guide (Shdwwyrm@uymail.com) is very thorough and useful for finding very rare items, such as ash, and his was the only guide who could walk me out of Niccolo's third quest. All three resources are highly recommended. 1. Emirzian, Matthew, "Legend of Mana Mastery Guide FAQ 2.5", July 27, 2000. Online posting. Available: http://www.gamefaqs.com August 29, 2000 2. Kelson, Sean, "SeanKelson's Legend of Mana Walkthrough, version 5.5", August 6, 2000. Online posting. Available: http://www.gamefaqs.com August 29, 2000. 3. Mawhinney, Mike, "Legend of Mana Walkthrough Version 8.0", July 29, 2000. Online posting. Available: http://www.gamefaqs.com August 29, 2000