Dragon Quest 8 - I'm getting my hero ass handed to me. Need help. [MINOR SPOILERS]

[go-10]

As far as weapons and weapon skills go in general, you can pretty much use any weapon you want, but Boomerangs for Hero and Knives for Jessica are generally pretty weak (aside from earlygame boomerangs), so you generally shouldn't put points into those.

I would advice against that, sure early on knives suck, hell the knives in general suck through out the game but once you get that skill to level 50 it unlocks swords for Jessica, meaning she can equip any sword that Angelo can, meaning the Hero, Angelo, and Jessica can dish out huge amounts of damage since you can change the swords amongst them. You'll be able to/WANT TO give Jessica the most powerful sword in the game

 

[Little_Rudo]

Maella Abbey (and the boss fight immediately before it) is the first of a couple big spikes in difficulty in the game, and probably the worst one as you have the least amount of things you can do to bide time while gaining XP.

When I played through DQVIII, I did so using a spoiler-free guide that walked through the best alchemy recipes available at major milestones in the games. I still did a lot of grinding, but I grinded to get specific item drops and gold from random encounters. By the time I had my gear upgraded to the best potential gear at each milestone, my levels were usually at least decent for the area. It was a way to give grinding focus; might be worth a shot if you like the alchemy mechanic but don't mind having the recipes handed to you.

 

[And Man]

As far as weapons and weapon skills go in general, you can pretty much use any weapon you want, but Boomerangs for Hero and Knives for Jessica are generally pretty weak (aside from earlygame boomerangs), so you generally shouldn't put points into those.

I would advice against that, sure early on knives suck, hell the knives in general suck through out the game but once you get that skill to level 50 it unlocks swords for Jessica, meaning she can equip any sword that Angelo can, meaning the Hero, Angelo, and Jessica can dish out huge amounts of damage since you can change the swords amongst them. You'll be able to/WANT TO give Jessica the most powerful sword in the game

Eh, Hero and Angelo can use swords better than Jessica and get much better skills for swords. I especially wouldn't wanna put points into Knives if you're also putting points into swords for both Hero and Angelo, since if you buy/make a strong sword, you have to buy/make two more, and if you found the sword, then two people will just be SoL and will have to use a weaker sword. Personally, I would also find it kinda boring having three out of four characters using the same weapon type, since there are so many weapon options in the game. Knives can work with Jessica, but in general, whips are better, and I would definitely recommend against putting points into Knives while also putting points into Swords for Hero and/or Angelo.

 

[go-10]

Eh, Hero and Angelo can use swords better than Jessica and get much better skills for swords. I especially wouldn't wanna put points into Knives if you're also putting points into swords for both Hero and Angelo, since if you buy/make a strong sword, you have to buy/make two more, and if you found the sword, then two people will just be SoL and will have to use a weaker sword. Personally, I would also find it kinda boring having three out of four characters using the same weapon type, since there are so many weapon options in the game. Knives can work with Jessica, but in general, whips are better, and I would definitely recommend against putting points into Knives while also putting points into Swords for Hero and/or Angelo.

the benefit of Jessica being able to use swords comes out mid way through the game, the hero will be using powerful heavy swords (which neither Angelo or Jessica can use) Angelo will be using high level bows (only he can use bows) and healing magic, Jessica uses the strongest light sword available. The swords skills don't really matter in the late game and Jessica ends up having an attack level equal to the Hero where Angelo will roughly be half of that, plus Angelo is an awesome healer so most of his turns will be spent healing which is why you want Jessica attacking with the strongest rapier available and Hero using the strongest heavy swords available in whatever part of the game you are in. Basically you'll want this formation

Hero - heavy Swords/ Lance (critical attack skill for killing Metal Slimes)
Yangus - Scythe/ Axe (critical attack skill for killing Metal Slimes)
Angelo - light Sword/ Bow (critical attack skill for killing Metal Slimes and causing elemental/status aliments) he's also your main healer
Jessica - light Swords/ Magic/ whatever you want, she's always attacking and casting powerful magic. Having her use swords instead of Angelo will speed up boss fights where most of his turns are wasted healing.

really it's up to you though since you might find it boring to have too many characters using the same weapon type.

a good advice to take is that after the Abbey and the castle that follows it you'll be meeting a dude called Mori who invites you to a monster arena, don't shrug it off! Invest some time on it and get the Hero Spear, it allows the Hero to attack twice per turn

 

[And Man]

the benefit of Jessica being able to use swords comes out mid way through the game, the hero will be using powerful heavy swords (which neither Angelo or Jessica can use) Angelo will be using high level bows (only he can use bows) and healing magic, Jessica uses the strongest light sword available. The swords skills don't really matter in the late game and Jessica ends up having an attack level equal to the Hero where Angelo will roughly be half of that, plus Angelo is an awesome healer so most of his turns will be spent healing which is why you want Jessica attacking with the strongest rapier available and Hero using the strongest heavy swords available in whatever part of the game you are in. Basically you'll want this formation

Hero - heavy Swords/ Lance (critical attack skill for killing Metal Slimes)
Yangus - Scythe/ Axe (critical attack skill for killing Metal Slimes)
Angelo - light Sword/ Bow (critical attack skill for killing Metal Slimes and causing elemental/status aliments) he's also your main healer
Jessica - light Swords/ Magic/ whatever you want, she's always attacking and casting powerful magic. Having her use swords instead of Angelo will speed up boss fights where most of his turns are wasted healing.

really it's up to you though since you might find it boring to have too many characters using the same weapon type.

a good advice to take is that after the Abbey and the castle that follows it you'll be meeting a dude called Mori who invites you to a monster arena, don't shrug it off! Invest some time on it and get the Hero Spear, it allows the Hero to attack twice per turn

Sword skills definitely matter lategame; Falcon Slash, which Hero and Angelo can learn but Jessica cannot, does about 150% of the damage of a normal attack, and is also free to cast. And I don't want to get into spoilers, but there's also a sword skill that's very useful postgame. Jessica doesn't have any active sword skills that increase her damage (active as in not counting standard +XX attack passives), but she gets Twin Dragon Lash for whips, which does about 150% of the damage of a normal attack to a single target. Whips also have the utility of being able to hit multiple enemies with standard attacks. So lategame, the best Whip in the game outdamages the best sword on Jessica, while also being able to hit multiple enemies. I do agree though that lategame, Angelo will be doing a lot of healing. Also, the Hero Spear doesn't allow you to attack twice, it heals on attack for 25% of the damage dealt. You're thinking of:

Spoiler

the Falcon Blade, which you can buy at the Baccarat Casino.

 

[ninja666]

The more I'm reading your posts, the less I want to play this game. It sounds too confusing and overcomplicated.

 

[And Man]

The more I'm reading your posts, the less I want to play this game. It sounds too confusing and overcomplicated.

lol sorry. It's really not that confusing or complicated. The game just doesn't really tell you a whole lot about what the specific skill trees let you do. For now, my advise to you is just to buy a boomerang. A boomerang will help out a ton early in the game.

Edit: And for advice on how to make Jessica not suck early game, there kinda isn't any. She's just really weak early on and there's not a lot you can do about it. She'll eventually catch up in power though

 

[go-10]

The more I'm reading your posts, the less I want to play this game. It sounds too confusing and overcomplicated.

LOL yeah don't fret dude, just remember that towns ahead of your current point offer better weapons/armor so sometimes it's a good idea to seek those out.

I guess me And Man are going back and forth between building the strongest team possible which shouldn't really be a problem as we both beat the game, and I assume all the dragons, despite having different builds. So really it doesn't matter what you do the game gets really simple after Angelo, but if you want to go all out uber crazy powerful near the end I guess we'll be here to help ya XD

also I'll agree early on you'll want to have the Hero carry both a sword and a boomerang (remember that you can change weapons during the battle) and get some shields

 

[Grampy_bone]

Get a boomerang. Boomerangs are really strong early game; they hit all enemies, and earlygame boomerangs have high damage. You generally shouldn't put any skillpoints into boomerangs though (unless you specifically want to do a playthrough using boomerangs), because later in the game, their damage really falls off. But they are excellent early. Also, there's a boomerang you can make that will help out a lot (which I will put in spoilers in case you don't want to know, since you don't learn the recipe until after Maella Abbey):

Spoiler

Boomerang + Iron Nail = Reinforced Boomerang.

It's an amazing weapon for Hero early on, and you should use it even if you don't have skillpoints in boomerangs.

As far as weapons and weapon skills go in general, you can pretty much use any weapon you want, but Boomerangs for Hero and Knives for Jessica are generally pretty weak (aside from earlygame boomerangs), so you generally shouldn't put points into those. Every other weapon type and skill tree is more or less viable. Even fisticuffs is pretty decent. I dunno how much you care about spoilers for skills, so I'm just gonna throw the next section in spoilers, just in case.

Spoiler

There's a fisticuffs skill called Thin Air that Hero, Yangus, and Jessica can learn that does damage to all enemies for 2 SP, which can help out a lot in the first half of the game. Yangus and Hero learn it at 42 points into Fisticuffs, and Jessica learns it at 68. If you do wanna get it, I'd recommend only getting it on Hero or Yangus though, since Yangus gets tons of skill points early on and Hero already has an amazing ability he learns at 11 points in Fisticuffs. But again, if you do decide to get it, you should probably only get it on one of them.

Also, there are some weapon trees for which you learn some of the best skills early on, such as Swords and Whips (Whips in particular), so you shouldn't feel compelled to dump all of your skill points in just one weapon type. It certainly helps to focus on one weapon type per character, but it's not really required.

Edit:

Forgot to say this before, but yeah, the game can be pretty rough early on. It gets a bit easier though as you progress.

Boomerangs are THE BEST weapon for the entire game, and you should put lots of points into them to boost the damage. The main issue with DQ8 is the monster encounters are always like 6-8 enemies. If you don't play boomerangs it just takes forever to win battles.

I've beaten the game twice; went swords for the hero the first time, boomerangs the second time, and boomerangs resulted in the far easier playthrough.

The more I'm reading your posts, the less I want to play this game. It sounds too confusing and overcomplicated.

Here's what you do:
Hero-
Put enough points into Swords to get metal slash, then boomerangs all way. Boomerangs are the game's win button. Don't be scared by the low damage. Your main concern in this game isn't single target damage, it's dealing with the huge crowds of monsters it throws at you.

Metal Slash + Falcon Sword is the easiest way to kill metal slimes for leveling purposes, but you don't need to do that to win the game at all. Just dump points into boomerangs and slaughter hordes.

Yangus-
Axes. He gets an axe attack that can hit a group, and another axe attack that reduces defense which is nice for bosses. Later on you can find a Flail for him that always hits a group. He's easy, not many complex skills.

Jessica-
Whips for group damage (see a pattern?) The damage will come up as the attack power bonuses kick in. She eventually learns this double-whip attack that's cheap on MP and outdamages all of her spells. It's that strong.

Angelo-
Swords. Having a second Falcon Sword + Metal slash is good for EXP hunting, but mostly he is your healer so his damage output is not that important.


That's all you need to know. Trust me when I say this, Boomerang owns. It's the win button. Pro tip: build tension on the first round, throw for more than double damage on the second! Repeat until dead. I know it's not as cool as swords but when you're killing every group of enemies in two rounds who cares?

 

[jedisensei]

if you're at the Abbey and at level 12 you're too weak, I'd suggest you continue advancing until you get to the monster arena and ignore the Abbey the monsters in that area should help you grind to level 25 at least. Also invest all of Jessica's points into Knife/Swords so that she can use the same weapons as the hero, Yangus should have equal axe and club skills and the hero should be spread evenly in swords and spear, courage should be around 5 points below Sword skill

Wow. I surely hope that's a typo and you meant lvl 15...I beat the ENTIRE GAME before level 45, so grinding that much is completely unnecessary. In terms of skill distribution -- there is no "right" answer -- but that seems like an ineffective party.

Out of curiosity I loaded up my save -- man I forgot how awesome this game was, BTW! -- and my main level 45 stats were:

Hero - 22 Sword, 77 Spear, 42 Fisticuffs, 100 Courage
Yangus - 45 Axes, 90 Scythes, 42 Fisticuffs, 55 Humanity
Jessica - 20 Knives, 82 Whips, 100 Staves, 20 Sex Appeal
Angelo - 93 Swords, 66 Bows, 20 Staves, 27 Charisma

...and I beat the Dragovian Trials (post-game) with that party, so take that for what it's worth.

 

[Grampy_bone]

I guess I'll focus on levelling up the Staves skill, then cause I'll have more use of Jessica as a caster. In her case, no melee is a viable option, no?

Don't go staves. Offensive magic sucks in DQ games. Even with the handy MP bonuses, she's still better off with whips.

Spells scale poorly, while whips get continually stronger via skill and strength bonuses. I know it's a bit counterintuitive. I have played through the game with Staff Jessica and Whip Jessica, and even compared to spamming her strongest spells all the time, Whip Jessica was still way better.


On a normal playthrough you will only get about 150-200 skill points. The best abilities are at the 80-100 point mark so you need to specialize. They give you a bunch of weapon choices so you can experiment, but it stinks that you are stuck with your points. The skill system in DQ8 frankly sucks but otherwise its a beautiful game with an amazing cast and story, so I really recommend sticking with it!

 

[ninja666]

I regret creating this thread. I've gotten so many diverse info from you, it all turned into a snow job. I literally don't know what to do and what to invest into cause every time someone says I should invest in one thing, another person says I shouldn't because it sucks. The only thing I know for sure so far is I will be grinding a lot in this game.

 

[go-10]

Out of curiosity I loaded up my save -- man I forgot how awesome this game was, BTW! -- and my main level 45 stats were:

Hero - 22 Sword, 77 Spear, 42 Fisticuffs, 100 Courage
Yangus - 45 Axes, 90 Scythes, 42 Fisticuffs, 55 Humanity
Jessica - 20 Knives, 82 Whips, 100 Staves, 20 Sex Appeal
Angelo - 93 Swords, 66 Bows, 20 Staves, 27 Charisma

...and I beat the Dragovian Trials (post-game) with that party, so take that for what it's worth.

CRAP! yeah I meant 15 not 25 >_< sorry bout that
did you have problem with the dragons at that level?

My party were all level 99/100 I did a lot of metal slime hunting and skill seed farming, I would not suggest it or advice it since it's a long tedious process

Hero - 100 Sword, 77 Spear, 100 Courage
Yangus - 100 Axes, 90 Scythes, 25 Humanity
Jessica - 100 Knives, 80 Staves, 25 Sex Appeal
Angelo - 100 Swords, 100 Bows, 32 Charisma

the dragons were piss easy, hell most of the game was, but again I love grinding so there's a high probability that I was mostly over level for most of the game, add to that the 3 golems backing me up and I dunno maybe my playstyle would be considered ineffective since I rely more on physical attacks than magic or skills unless I'm hunting slimes

but I think if you want to follow a more non grinding strategy you follow Jedisensei's advice, apparently Jessica is best with whips... I kinda want to start a new game now to see how the other weapons are like... yep I'm gonna start a new game it's been too long since I last played this game

 

[aozgolo]

I regret creating this thread. I've gotten so many diverse info from you, it all turned into a snow job. I literally don't know what to do and what to invest into cause every time someone says I should invest in one thing, another person says I shouldn't because it sucks. The only thing I know for sure so far is I will be grinding a lot in this game.

Mileage varies in the game, it's got a very simple accessible UI but the challenge is quite up there. There is grind in the game but honestly no more or less than your standard JRPG, you don't have to level grind CONSTANTLY through the game, but there are difficulty spike areas where a little grinding ahead of time is advisable. I honestly do NOT believe that the major challenge in this game is just an arbitrary "level limit" but is more about what tactics you use in battle to defeat enemies.

Once again, no skill sets "Suck", but some may "suck" in certain instances, boomerangs are great for dealing with groups of enemies, spears are good against single target enemies and bosses, swords are great for specific enemy types like Metal Slimes and Dragons, Fisticuffs skills are there kind of as a "challenge playthrough" thing if you want to go without weapons (which does save you a lot of money later for alchemy), and Courage is for your spells. Likewise for other characters each 'tree' is valuable but it's up to you how you want to use them, there isn't really a "wrong" way to do it as by the end of the game you should have plenty of points to put in everything you want but you can gimp yourself early on by spreading points out too thin instead of focusing on an area.

Tension is great for fighting bosses, I always let Yangus raise his tension up two or three times (just do it each round with him), and the pay-off is HUGE. Early in the game you can only raise as high as "50" tension, so just shoot for that number and in just 3-4 rounds you'll end up doing 5-6 rounds worth of damage with that character.

Experiment with Abilities and Spells, many enemies have weaknesses and immunities and it's good to figure these out, usually the same types of enemies have the same weaknesses so play around with it.

Prep your items, use alchemy to make good healing and buff items and make sure each character has a good stock of items. Give healing items to your characters lacking healing magic.

Finally you do NOT need to be level 25 to go through the Maella Abbey region, according to the official Bradygames Strategy Guide, a level of 14 is recommended for that particular area's dungeon. The last dungeon in the game it recommends Level 41, so you can definitely beat this game without an undue amount of grinding, but the nice thing is later on when you hit difficulty spikes that require grinding there's a lot of other activities unlocked you can do to make the grinding more pleasant. I won't spoil those for you.

 

[jedisensei]

I've gotten so many diverse info from you, it all turned into a snow job. I literally don't know what to do and what to invest into cause every time someone says I should invest in one thing, another person says I shouldn't because it sucks.

Perhaps what you should take from the responses is that there are many, successful paths you could go down. Mere preference surely plays a part, but there is surely an optimal build for your given preference.

Thus, I might suggest researching the skills that become available to each character by level; I don't consider it 'cheating' and, in any case, it's a friggin' 10 year old SINGLE-player video game fer crissakes, who cares even if it is?!

This tells you what they do and at what level they're unlocked -- you must still decide which path the choose:

Spoiler

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/583527-dragon-quest-viii-journey-of-the-cursed-king/faqs/40285

Having said that, WHEN you go for the skill is at least as important as the WHICH; for instance, with Jessica, it's best to go into Staves deep enough to get the free healing skill 'Caduceus,' and then shift focus to the Whips long enough to get 'Twin Dragon Lash,' and then jump back into Staves for the rest. Going whole-hog into their 'best' skill is not necessary, right off the bat.

The only thing I know for sure so far is I will be grinding a lot in this game.

Not so; I finished the game with minimal grinding. My battle log for my lvl 40 team shows only 1672 battles with 16 flees. That's an average of ~42/level. That's very reasonable, I might suggest, especially considering the encounter rate.

No, the parts I spent so much time on were the alchemy pot (which is critical, as has been suggested) and the casino -- the roulette table is seriously THE best place to get money in the whole game. [I forgot my strategy, but it's fairly easy to figure out] You will find that most helpful in getting the best gear, if I recall.

did you have problem with the dragons at [level 45]?

Yes, they were the most significant challenge in the game to that point, most of them, as they should be; that said, I only vaguely recall wiping once or twice. They each had their routines, which were easy enough to figure out. That said, I knew enough to build for a 'Critical Hit' skill on each character, for a certain boss...(you have been warned!!)

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Its been a long time since I played this game, but I did play it through at least twice. I remember using boomerangs and spears for hero, can't remember Yangus much at all, I used bows I think with Angelo, and I used whips with Jessica and maybe staves.

I remember getting the Gringham Whip was a pain, as usual. So much slot machine save scumming and roulette...

 

[ninja666]

-snip-

Thank you for clearing that up. I was literally getting confused when I saw the other posts.