Bard’s Tale 3: Working on 3rd Geomancer

After reading that tip on a two Geomancer party, I decided to give it a shot. I powereleveled one to level 18 and now am working on another from my secondary party. This other Geomancer is at level 15 and I hope to get her one more run in Malefia for a few additional levels before transitioning her back to the secondary team and taking them for a spin in Tenebrosia. The goal is to have both Geomancers around level 20 by the time they “officially” get to Malefia.

Usually, on a normal Malefia run, I can get anywhere between 3-5 levels. I rediscovered an old technique to really maximize experience in certain fights, namely again Tarjan Bulls. Tarjan Bulls have a unique ability that periodically allows them to call more allies. Unlike summoning spells and illusions, calling on more allies is a mechanic in Bard’s Tale 3 that provides an experience boost. For a party of seven, a single Tarjan Bull can grant 5k XP. So the trick to getting the most out of a Tarjan Bull is to cast Far Foe (FAFO) and try to get them to call more allies. Since you cannot exceed 100k XP, then you need to calculate the rough amount gained per fight. In an instance where you receive only one Tarjan Bull, this means you will require 20 total to receive the full experience amount.

However, there are a few catches to this technique. One is that a Tarjan Bull has the ability to lower your AC. I can’t tell what the exact spell they cast is but Anti-Magic (ANMA) won’t prevent it. Also, I can’t tell if there’s other effects beyond lowering your AC. Nonetheless, you don’t want to be overwhelmed by Tarjan Bulls as they can easily get out of control in terms of calling allies. Also, they can hit for a fair amount of damage (~100+) so you don’t want to allow them to go beyond 20 at most (especially because you won’t get anything beyond 100k XP except gold, which you won’t need at this point in the game).

Anyway, using these tricks, I’m at a pretty good point with the Geomancers. Again, I want them to be around levels 18/19 before I start the secondary team again. I figure with Tenebrosia’s reasonably decent XP along with the 600k boost you get for completing the zone (which is the last you’ll receive as Tarmita gives nothing), you should be able to start Malefia with two Geomancers at around levels 20-21. In all likelihood, you will probably have just enough spell points for a single NUKE but most monsters will probably resist and take half damage at best. Also, you will struggle for some time in being able to hit a lot of monsters in Malefia. I think maybe the Bard’s Rhyme of Duotime could help but I found that my Bard does a better job with the Strifespear especially with all the additional levels compared to my Geomancers.

Some people might prefer to just grind out Tarmita for a while or even do the whole zone for the experience. I just think that once you hit roughly level 50 and above for most of your party (except potentially your Geomancers and Chronomancers due to the the class change level resets), you should be more than capable of handling Malefia. My only concern with this party is that I’m bringing a Monk as opposed to a Hunter. Too many monsters in Malefia have more life than a Monk can output at that stage of the game. So the only real benefit of a Monk is as a target dummy for monsters and mule.

On the other hand, I read another Walkthrough where the author converts all his fighters over to Geomancers. While that idea is novel, the real problem with Geomancers is that you have to put in a lot of effort to really get the long term benefit. They can replace a solid Hunter and Archmages to a lesser degree. But to get them to a point where they are valuable takes time. The gearing aspect isn’t so bad though but you have to decide whether their focus will be on spellcasting or melee combat. And the key aspect here is that they can wield either a Stoneblade or Staff of Gods.

The reason this situation gets a little hairy is that Geomancers simply do not have the amount of spell points compared to a normal Archmage nor a lot of solid utility spells like Melee Men (MEME), Anti-Magic, (ANMA) or low cost healing (REGN, REST). Also, because of the amount of equipment a Geomancer probably will wear, you won’t have enough room for spare Harmonic Gems. So if you don’t end up taking a Monk as a mule for spare gems, you might struggle a bit on spells in Malefia.

If you decide to go hybrid, then a Geomancer will still struggle compared to a Hunter. For instance, it seems my Hunter at level 150 or so is one of the few people in my party capable of hitting a Rock in melee. Everyone else misses. I haven’t tried using my Bard to sing Rhyme of Duotime to see if multiple attacks can help the situation but it really depends on the situation. Like if there’s multiple Rocks (3+) along with a Gremlin, then I feel the need to balance healing with clearing out the Rocks asap. At lower levels, I try to conserve my spell points on my Geomancers.

That’s why I’m not too big on the idea of three Geomancers in a single party. It seems like overkill for no good reason. You really are better off at that point just moving the Rogue into the front ranks and taking two Archmages along with a Chronomancer in the rear. Also, I think a Stoneblade just ends up being the better weapon. You just need to make sure the Geomancer is capable of hitting their foes 99% of the time (which I think starts to happen around level 50)

Some adjustments I ended up making compared to the min/max’d armor version of a Geomancer is using Breath Rings instead of a Shield or Angel’s Ring. I found that my Geomancers were getting slaughtered at low levels against Black Dragons, Gremlins and Storm Demons. Since I’m using Minstrel Shield and Shadow Shield, my AC is generally quite high. But my HP isn’t that great still which means I’m capable of getting one shot especially when combined against certain monsters. I read you can go below -50 AC but the value won’t display (which is why a monk is valuable as a front line tank).

Also, I prefer the Stoneblade vs a Staff of Gods. While I’m power leveling my Geomancers, I really don’t need for them to cast many spells. My main Archmage and Chronomancer are capable of handling the big NUKES that don’t get resisted. Everything else with over 2k HP end up being in smaller packs anyway (outside of Tarjan Bulls but that’s a different story), so I only need NUKES to clear large groups. I only bring out the NUKEs with every character in crazy fights that can go sideways (like Vampire Lords in melee rang with two Shadow Dragons that can drive you insane, etc). But there’s far better strategies for handling situations like that. If anything, a lower level Geomancer is good as hopeful clean up act with some side utility like doing the initial Earth Ward spell.

I still need to purchase the Divine Intervention spell for my Geomancers though. NUKE is the only non-Geomancer spell I try to get everyone. Also, DIVA is so costly that it’s not worth casting for low level Geomancers as they simply do not have enough spell points. GILL is only used in two zones so you only need to give it to a single magic user (unless you’re a completionist).

With these things lined up, I’m thinking that I might do one more round for my lower level Geomancer in preparation for Malefia. Then I’ll finish up Tenebrosia and see how far my party is. I still would like to take this secondary party into Malefia and do some grinding and see how far they can make it with this composition. I might twink out another paladin or warrior at some point for a 3rd Geomancer for that group if the Monk turns out useless. The only bad thing is that I’d have to go through Kinestia again to class change one more fighter.

One comment I have about the Geomancer is that I read some complaints over on the Gog forum about Geomancers. The issue was how not great they ended up being. Some people argued that Geomancers were balanced out in their design. But I have to think that it sucks that you simply lose your previous class to gain some spell power. For instance, there’s no reason to use a Gods’ Blade in the end game. Damage has no meaning even with a high level Monk for single target. But at least if a Geomancer could have retained their fighter’s attack bonus, such a weapon might be a little usable. Also, the fact that any fighter class can become a Geomancer just makes most of these classes feel identity-less. Meaning, if you have three Geomancers, there’s no real distinction between them. You can’t tell what they were before so it’s kinda boring. It would’ve been nice as a reward to retain a portion of your previous fighter class’ ability.

Beyond these things, I finally managed to find two Mages Gloves. For the longest time, they weren’t dropping and I thought it was a bug. Finally, I got two. Can’t remember if it was from the same Malefia run but what a pain. These items were probably the last on my laundry list of things I was hunting for. I’m still i need of a few extras or at least one more for my main party.

At any rate, I’m a little eager to try the secondary party once this geomancer is complete. I’m kinda speedrunning certain parts of the game where I can. I figure it’s best just to get to Malefia as soon as possible to take advantage of the best XP in the game. Gear-wise, beyond those Mages Gloves, I’m pretty set (minus the artifacts but those are a given once Tarmita is done). I didn’t grind as much on this secondary party but the characters that needed boosting have decent levels. So I’m very close to getting them in position and seeing how this plays out.

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