I got my first black phantom invasion today. I managed to kill him and get the black stone. I’ve been having a lot of fun invading other people now. Invaded someone in the Shrine and he summoned two other phantoms to fight with him, I actually managed to kill all three of them. It took some careful planning and some dividing tactics but I managed to split the strongest fighter off and kill him, then took on the other two later on and won by a small margin. This game just keeps getting better.
Jarmo
1822
Thanks for the farming guide link! The info there will be a big help with marrowstone farming.
Internet chatter says Soulsucker doesn’t work against the bosses that drop special souls. I can test this with Flamelurker in my next run, but it will be a while. The net also says that Soul thirst stacks with Soulsucker (requires 6 magic slots = 40 INT). I don’t have Soul thirst yet so I haven’t tested that myself.
As you already found out, the Black Phantom skeletons in 4-2 are a great target for Soulsucker (requires >50% black world tendency, pure black is not needed for the Black Phantoms to appear, >75% black WT would add 10% to souls and enemy attack strength, source: deluxe edition strategy guide).
I am currently trying to get the Pure Bladestone from the BP black skeleton (backtracking from the Old Hero Archstone). I’ve killed it about 150 times now, no luck so far. I use Soulsucker to get 130,000 souls per run in about three minutes in New Game+. I kill the two BP golden skeletons right behind the black one for 60k souls. The reaper and BP black skeleton are about 70k with my equipment. I use the Silver Bracelets (female characters only) and Ring of Avarice to squeeze out this amount of souls.
Needless to say, my soul level is climbing at a crazy rate. I’m now >200. I figure it’s the game’s decision how high it wants me to get before it deigns to drop the stone.
Have any of you gotten the Pure Bladestone? How was it to get it?
EDIT: The Atlus wiki chapter on soul farming says the reaper can also be Soulsuckered. That would be about 13k extra for 143k per run. A blacker world and soul thirst would bring the haul to over 200k per run.
EDIT 2: Someone claims that the Japanese perfect guide says that the Pure Bladestone drop rate is 0,5%. It’s good to know(?) what kind of a mountain I’m trying to climb here.
So, how do you manage the mp expenditure? You get to that stairway (backtracking from old hero) with the reaper, cast thirst, kill reaper, and then soulsucker the black skeleton? Then normally kill (presumably with a mace) the gold skeletons? Do you use the ring of avarice + thief ring?
I already have int 40 and both thirst and soulsucker, but thirst is tremendously expensive (200mp) so I’m not sure how it fits in.
Bladestone and marrowstone have been the two that I simply haven’t seen much of. Does the black skeleton drop anything at all?
Jarmo
1824
I don’t have Soul thirst yet so I don’t have experience with it. The Atlus wiki covers your question in great detail under the 4-2 heading. It will be a long time before I will be able to test the run with thirst.
I tried Soulsuckering also the reaper. You need to get it to turn its back to you first. A luring arrow does the trick, for example. The additional ~7k souls aren’t worth the extra complications in my opinion.
My current drill is: kill reaper with two arrows (297 damage per), soulsucker black skellie, soulsucker first golden skellie, retreat behind the nearest corner, eat one fresh spice, soulsucker second goldie, evacuate. 130k in ~3 minutes. I wear Ring of Avarice and Graverobber ring (and Silver bracelets). Thief ring is not necessary for the reaper and the snails I just run quickly past.
Bladestone and marrowstone have been the two that I simply haven’t seen much of. Does the black skeleton drop anything at all?
It always drops domething so Large Sword of Searching does nothing. It drops soul remains or shards of bladestone or a chunk of bladestone or (so they say) a pure bladestone. I’ve got about 50 chunks of bladestone now and I’ve thrown away hundreds of shards. The golden ones drop the same mix but without the pure stone.
I screwed up with Patches (I added it to wikidot under patches) and he’s gone from my new game + (no easy fresh spice), so I’m probably going to have to be satisfied with what you are doing. Going from 130k to 150k doesn’t seem worth the hassle of the crazy ass timed system they describe in the wiki. I’ll give it a shot, though, that sounds a lot better than the 27k I’ve been getting out of the first reaper in 4-2.
Jarmo
1826
Woah, thanks for the heads-up! Is there a story reason for this disappearance or is this just a random gotcha? What does Patches care about the world tendency?
Please do share your experiences after BP farming at 4-2. It’s my first time farming a lot in a game and it’s been an interesting experience – if not one I desire to repeat.
It’s just a bug, as far as I can tell. The whole sequence with Urbain and the trap is very prone to screwing up your ability to use Patches as a vendor. Quatoria and a few others reported having the sequence permanently stuck with a respawning black phantom NPC even after freeing Urbain, or something (I forget exactly). NG++, I’m playing it straight by the book until I have every NPC I need. Not one bit of farming, I swear. I thought I’d only been screwed out of the hard arrows (no big deal, so long as Blige is still alive), but the fresh spice is more of a problem since I fucking hate farming 3-1.
Please do share your experiences after BP farming at 4-2. It’s my first time farming a lot in a game and it’s been an interesting experience – if not one I desire to repeat.
If it makes you feel any better, I made almost 2m souls in 4-2 using the basic reaper trick and soul thirst. If you break that down at 27k apiece, 1:30 per run at best, it’s pretty scary. In my defense, I had some new albums I wanted to listen to, and that provided the kind of gray space in my mind that I needed to concentrate on the music. I think I’m barely at the 140’s, now, and the first stat I’m looking to max is probably magic power since it controls my favorite weapons and (obviously) spells. It’s too bad that there’s not a lot of coop opportunities around this level, although there’s no shortage of Yellow Monk victims.
Not sure what the level gap is at 100+ as it seems I’m fighting both wildly underpowered and overpowered types. I hit a guy with two different weapons…meat cleaver and moonlight 2h sword as well as magic and arrows from the sticky bow, and did not even do a single point of damage while he cast spells frantically in complete ignorance (apparently) of what Anti-magic meant for his plans. The meat cleaver wielded 2h did not even knock him down with r2 strikes, and he was not even guarding but in mid swing. Then he figured it out, and one shotted me through a purple flame shield +10 with a one handed katana of some kind.
Jarmo
1828
I’ve been listening to podcasts. The trouble is, I’m running out. Plan B is to listen to TED lectures from a laptop next to me.
Jarmo
1829
What about Blacksmith Boldwin at Nexus (350), Graverobber Blige (300) or Former Royal’s Wife (200)? They all sell fresh spice (price in brackets). Are none of them available for your use?
That is some serious farming. The most I did was a single 4-2 or 1-3 reverse to get just enough souls to level when I was close.
Wait, so why the hell was that Atlus tip talking about Patches at (800)? I guess they were listing a worst case scenario for the cost benefit analysis. It was just one of those things I’d never needed so I didn’t think much about it, and my Patches despair from losing hard arrows just took hold of me.
Yeah, losing hard arrows is a drag. I bought a ton of them before I moved to NG+.
God, I’m a chump for buying all that spice from Patches @800.
Jarmo
1835
That’s what I was wondering, too. A certain caution seems to be in order when trying out stuff found on the various sources. No one place seems to hold the whole truth. I guess the wild variety of situations possible with different character builds or levels, equipment at hand, the different tendencies etc. etc. complicate writing instructions for the game. It makes for a good game but one requiring intense study when minmaxing.
The music changed in the nexus for me. What’s up with that?
Finished tower of Latria last night, wild place.
That means you’ve progressed in a significant way, and a new major area has opened up. Quoth the wiki:
Once you have defeated three Archdemons, the normal background track becomes an organ track.
Then it gets quiet again right before the end, IIRC, or maybe it changes right before the False King.
It actually worked out that the music shiftedfor me right after I killed Adastra…quite fitting I thought.
Heh. I tried to fight Garl Vinland with shield and sword, and got whomped.
Then I brought out the Meat Cleaver, and rolled-attacked him to death. 5 hits…
I’ve killed him every time by backpedaling so he strikes the ledge over head or the ground, then hitting him. He’s probably the easiest black phantom thanks solely to his unwillingness to pursue melee enemies past 5 paces. It’s a good time if you try to fight him legitimately, though.
