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So...what's up with the Circe Staff?


Jotari
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So we have four main Agarthan characters in the game (there are more named but these are the four that do stuff in the plot and have faces), assuming Thales is Aurndel. Kronya has Athame (awesome weapon in heroes btw), Cordelia has Asclepius staff, Solon has the Circe Staff and bizarrely Thales/Aurndel gets no unique weapon at all, unless we count quake (and dubstep). The main villain of the group not having a unique weapon is a bit weird, but that's not really what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the Circe Staff which does...absolutely nothing. Kronya's sword is obviously a sword that she uses to attack people (or a knife if you ask Heroes). It has no specific effect, though it does have a crit rate (which is pretty nerve racking on enemies). Cordelia's staff grants her +2 defense and let's her heal every turn while Solon's Circe Staff just has no purpose at all. It's a piece of equipment you can equip that doesn't change any stats or increase any abilities. Hell it even has a negative impact as it has a weight of 1. So, like, what was the plan here? My guess is that they wanted all the Agarthans to have prf weapons and just maybe...forgot to give it any abilities. Or maybe it was just there for decoration? If it's the latter then it just becomes weirder that they'd go to the trouble of giving Solon a decorative item but not Thales. 

Not sure there's really much to discuss here. It's just sort of weird and maybe you didn't know about it. Any theory for what the developers were smoking when they made this useless item is welcome though.

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I remember trying to steal it off him to see if it had some hidden effect- but then of course you can’t steal it. 
 

Maybe it was intended to be like a cane? They gave it to him for decorative effect, and because Tomas had one. After all, super sci-fi rave man can’t just have a regular wooden cane, it’s gotta be a glowy one. Why they made it an actual item instead of just part of his model I don’t know. Maybe just to give him his own unique item.

Thales also does have his own sword, the Ridill, but I don’t remember him ever using it in game. Maybe it went unused.

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2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Thales/Aurndel gets no unique weapon at all, unless we count quake (and dubstep).

Wait, he actually does. I don't remember Ridill being used by anyone else, is it? It's a magic based 1-2 range sword, he has it in Shamballa.

And yeah, Circe staff is weird. It'd be cool if he got an effect that, say, raised his defences or inflicted status effects.

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On 9/5/2020 at 8:37 PM, Anathaco said:

I remember trying to steal it off him to see if it had some hidden effect- but then of course you can’t steal it. 
 

Maybe it was intended to be like a cane? They gave it to him for decorative effect, and because Tomas had one. After all, super sci-fi rave man can’t just have a regular wooden cane, it’s gotta be a glowy one. Why they made it an actual item instead of just part of his model I don’t know. Maybe just to give him his own unique item.

Thales also does have his own sword, the Ridill, but I don’t remember him ever using it in game. Maybe it went unused.

Oh cool. I didn't know about the Ridill. Though I question why people think its Thales sword as glancing at the wiki it says anyone can use it so it's not prf attached to him and he's never deployed with it on a map unless he has it equipped during a cutscene in which he appears and there's data associated with him. Though I can't recall any actual map appearances from him aside from the ones you fight him on. Would have been nice if he used as Arundel (Thales himself does rock the more sorcerer vibe).

EDIT: Oh wait, I see the description says it's Thales preferred weapon. So yeah, they did want to give prf weapons to all of the Agarthans, they just forgot to give the Circe Staff any effects and forgot to put Ridill in the game entirely. Part of me thinks maybe Heroes "Everyone gets a prf" design philosophy might have been influencing things here.

On 9/5/2020 at 9:38 PM, haarhaarhaar said:

Yeah the Circe Staff has bugged me for a while as well. My headcanon is that the item was what let him transform from Tomas to Solon (Circe was famous for being able to make people shapeshift). I wonder if the unique Agarthan items all had a similar effect.

You think the sword is what allowed Kronya to disguise herself as Monica then? Was it mentioned that their was a knife found with her and Flayn?

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

You think the sword is what allowed Kronya to disguise herself as Monica then? Was it mentioned that their was a knife found with her and Flayn?

Yeah I remember there being a discussion on this forum before about the exact nature of the knife Monica had and whether it was Athame. Can't remember what the conclusion was from that, but my headcanon is that the Agarthans need to have their item on hand to transform (but not to stay transformed). In Monica's case, she could very easily have transformed before she and Flayn get picked up, and it probably would have been easy for her to get ahold of Athame later to kill Jeralt (if indeed the knife she used was Athame). 

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Personally, I would have changed Circe a bit, and the named staves in general, as follows:

Caduceus gives White Magic Range +1, and Sacred Weapon healing (enhanced with Crest of Cethleann).

Thyrsus gives Black Magic Range +1, and Black Magic Crit +10 with Crest of Gloucester. Does Hero's Relic self-damage.

Circe Staff gives Dark Magic Range +1 and Dark Tomefaire. Wielders without "Agarthan Technology" lose 10 HP after combat. Dropped by Solon upon defeat (Chapter 10).

Aesclepius grants Healing +10 and Live-to-Serve (Cornelia now has Physic). Also, wielders with "Agarthan Technology" get Aegis and Pavise. Dropped by Cornelia upon defeat.

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25 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Personally, I would have changed Circe a bit, and the named staves in general, as follows:

Caduceus gives White Magic Range +1, and Sacred Weapon healing (enhanced with Crest of Cethleann).

Thyrsus gives Black Magic Range +1, and Black Magic Crit +10 with Crest of Gloucester. Does Hero's Relic self-damage.

Circe Staff gives Dark Magic Range +1 and Dark Tomefaire. Wielders without "Agarthan Technology" lose 10 HP after combat. Dropped by Solon upon defeat (Chapter 10).

Aesclepius grants Healing +10 and Live-to-Serve (Cornelia now has Physic). Also, wielders with "Agarthan Technology" get Aegis and Pavise. Dropped by Cornelia upon defeat.

do characters with Dark Magic spells count as wielders of "Agarthan Technology" or is it only for Slitherer NPCs?

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1 hour ago, salinea said:

do characters with Dark Magic spells count as wielders of "Agarthan Technology" or is it only for Slitherer NPCs?

Agarthan Technology is an enemy only skill associated with Those Who Slither in the Dark.

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2 hours ago, salinea said:

do characters with Dark Magic spells count as wielders of "Agarthan Technology" or is it only for Slitherer NPCs?

What @Shadow Mir said. The basic idea is, you can use their tools, but they're designed to be used by Those Who Slither. So you don't get the full effect, or you take damage upon using them.

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On 9/5/2020 at 4:08 AM, Jotari said:

So we have four main Agarthan characters in the game (there are more named but these are the four that do stuff in the plot and have faces), assuming Thales is Aurndel. Kronya has Athame (awesome weapon in heroes btw), Cordelia has Asclepius staff, Solon has the Circe Staff and bizarrely Thales/Aurndel gets no unique weapon at all, unless we count quake (and dubstep). The main villain of the group not having a unique weapon is a bit weird, but that's not really what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the Circe Staff which does...absolutely nothing. Kronya's sword is obviously a sword that she uses to attack people (or a knife if you ask Heroes). It has no specific effect, though it does have a crit rate (which is pretty nerve racking on enemies). Cordelia's staff grants her +2 defense and let's her heal every turn while Solon's Circe Staff just has no purpose at all. It's a piece of equipment you can equip that doesn't change any stats or increase any abilities. Hell it even has a negative impact as it has a weight of 1. So, like, what was the plan here? My guess is that they wanted all the Agarthans to have prf weapons and just maybe...forgot to give it any abilities. Or maybe it was just there for decoration? If it's the latter then it just becomes weirder that they'd go to the trouble of giving Solon a decorative item but not Thales. 

Not sure there's really much to discuss here. It's just sort of weird and maybe you didn't know about it. Any theory for what the developers were smoking when they made this useless item is welcome though.

I think you're right that they basically forgot to give Circe an effect, or Thales a weapon at all.

In general I feel like the designers cared very, very little about the slitherers. I get the impression that whoever came up with the early drafts of the game (Kusakihara?) thought up these characters and whoever actually filled in the writing and gameplay (Koei Tecmo?) really didn't care about them, and this shows up in both story and in gameplay.

I see where you're come from when you call Thales the main villain but honestly he never truly plays that role, despite all the bad things he did: CF and AM are very much more concerned with another clear main antagonist, and VW/SS spend only a single chapter with him as the main opponent, and in neither route is he the final boss or particularly difficult to defeat. He doesn't even get a unique battle music, just the same track as plays for the other Agarthans + major opponents.

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4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think you're right that they basically forgot to give Circe an effect, or Thales a weapon at all.

In general I feel like the designers cared very, very little about the slitherers. I get the impression that whoever came up with the early drafts of the game (Kusakihara?) thought up these characters and whoever actually filled in the writing and gameplay (Koei Tecmo?) really didn't care about them, and this shows up in both story and in gameplay.

I see where you're come from when you call Thales the main villain but honestly he never truly plays that role, despite all the bad things he did: CF and AM are very much more concerned with another clear main antagonist, and VW/SS spend only a single chapter with him as the main opponent, and in neither route is he the final boss or particularly difficult to defeat. He doesn't even get a unique battle music, just the same track as plays for the other Agarthans + major opponents.

Well I said he's the main villain of the group. Not of the game. Because clearly the main villain of the game is E- *shot in the head*.

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43 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well I said he's the main villain of the group. Not of the game. Because clearly the main villain of the game is E- *shot in the head*.

I would feel comfortable saying that Thales is one of the game's main villains. While Ediegard is the bigger threat for most of the game, Thales is directly responsible for her being an antagonist in the first place (in addition to other things like helping mastermind the Tragedy of Duscur). If you remove Thales you would need to have someone else be behind Edie's experimentation if she still wants to conquer Fódlan, or otherwise change her backstory. They could have Duke Aegir do that, but he'd need to be a more active and threatening participant in the plot in that case.

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6 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

I would feel comfortable saying that Thales is one of the game's main villains. While Ediegard is the bigger threat for most of the game, Thales is directly responsible for her being an antagonist in the first place (in addition to other things like helping mastermind the Tragedy of Duscur). If you remove Thales you would need to have someone else be behind Edie's experimentation if she still wants to conquer Fódlan, or otherwise change her backstory. They could have Duke Aegir do that, but he'd need to be a more active and threatening participant in the plot in that case.

Or just have Edelgard's belief legitimately be her own. I think the whole backstory actually muddles her a character way too much. If we're meant to take these as legitimate grievances and issues to the extent we and many other characters can side with them, then them being born purely from torture kind of gets in the way of that imo.

But let's not have Edelgard get us off topic again.

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