Jotari Posted December 21, 2022 Share Posted December 21, 2022 So, I'm playing Shadow Dragon H5 and I've just received the Levin Sword from the Chapter 8 boss. And I'm surprised to see it dealing pretty good damage. About the same as an iron sword, only with 1-2 range. This surprises me as I've always remembered the Levin Sword being utterly useless in Shadow Dragon. And so I took a glance at the wiki and see it's meant to have only 6mt, while in my version of the game it has 10, the stat it's meant to have in New Mystery. I suspect this discrepancy is because I'm using a patch to give access to the Gaiden chapters and the DLC items and the maker decided to buff the Levin Sword to New Mystery's stats too. Much appreciated, but has gotten me thinking about the Levin Sword in Shadow Dragon, and, to some extent, New Mystery. You see, the Levin Sword is a bit interesting. It was there, in the original NES game, where it dealt set damage. This actually made it one of the better weapons in the game as it also gave sword units access to, fairly accurate, 1-2 range (Minerva also came with one, which is pretty weird considering how associated she is now with axes, which she couldn't even use in the original) and you were quite likely to double with it. The reason it did set damage is that the magic stat just plain didn't exist in NES Shadow Dragon, and every unit in the game, enemy and player, with the exception of Gotoh, had 0 res, unless you use a barrier, pure water, or talisman. Then, when they remade the game for the DS, they introduced the magic stat (well they probably did that in Old Mystery, but I don't have any memories of it from that game) and had the Levin Sword work off of that. And, while enemies resistance were still pretty low, the sword just doesn't pack the same punch as it did with reliable set damage. HP, overall, I think is higher. Especially with only 6mt (it might actually be genuinely decent in New Mystery, it seems like it'll be useful for my Shadow Dragon run with that mt value). But, the other part of this equation that I have never messed with it is reclassing. I'm wondering if, you genuinely want to accomplish it, could you make a build with a good Levin Sword user. And who in the cast would be best suited for the task. The problem is that a lot of the magic stats you have in the game, actually come from the class, and not a unit's innate magic stat. So swapping out of a magic class will see a huge hut to a unit's magic. And, even with all that, you'd still be better off just sticking to tomes, which, in addition to the class bonus, is going to have high mt than the Levin Sword any way. But if it's really a mission to construct a unit capable of dealing decent damage using the Levin Sword, who would be the best bet and how could you go about accomplishing it? I'm thinking, maybe, one of the early game units class changed to Mage and trained to promotion and then reclassed into cavalier or swordmaster after promotion to try and build some physical stats. The other option would be to just reclass an end game mage who already has a pretty high base magic. Though I don't think you can reclass Gotoh, so the last mage you get is...Etzel? Really, he's not even that late, he's just after Altea afik. Well, I guess there's Elice, who also has the highest natural magic growth in the game, but your only way to really train her is to spend 200 turns in the second last chapter having her spam barrier. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas how to accomplish something like this, or, better yet, if you've ever made it your mission to make a useless weapon useful, I'd like to hear you thoughts. This is mostly about Shadow Dragon as I'm a lot more familiar with it than New Mystery, but if you have any ideas about the Levin Sword in New Mystery, where it seems it has higher stats then I'd love to hear some ideas too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eclipse Posted December 21, 2022 Share Posted December 21, 2022 If you're looking for a growth character, I'd vote for Linde and rig Mag/Spd levels. If you just need someone to reliably chip for a good chunk of the game, that's Wendell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted December 21, 2022 Author Share Posted December 21, 2022 4 hours ago, eclipse said: If you're looking for a growth character, I'd vote for Linde and rig Mag/Spd levels. If you just need someone to reliably chip for a good chunk of the game, that's Wendell. Wendell actually has 0 base magic and 0 base magic growth. Though he'd still be a good choice because of his unnaturally high speed. Still Nabarl would have him matched in that regard and already has the weapon rank to use the Levin Sword out the gate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted December 22, 2022 Share Posted December 22, 2022 3 hours ago, Jotari said: Anyway, if anyone has any ideas how to accomplish something like this, or, better yet, if you've ever made it your mission to make a useless weapon useful, I'd like to hear you thoughts. This is mostly about Shadow Dragon as I'm a lot more familiar with it than New Mystery, but if you have any ideas about the Levin Sword in New Mystery, where it seems it has higher stats then I'd love to hear some ideas too. In New Mystery it is a surprisingly useful weapon against Medeus in the highest difficulties, and is what the Lunatic Reverse, 0% growth, no dodge/crit rigging run uses to defeat him. The big reason for that in Lunatic/Lunatic-Revers Medeus has a 10 higher defense than resistance, and all classes that can use tomes have too low of stat caps to survive a round of combat with Medeus, meanwhile Swordmasters do, so a forged Levin Sword tends to be the safest way to take advantage of that lower resistance. Also there are 3 Spirit Dust gained in the normal course of the game, 3 more from a Secret Shop, and 3 more if you have unlocked the expanded battle prep shops by having completed Lunatic mode once, add in a +2 temporary boost from tonics, which is enough to add 20 to any units magic, if you need to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted December 22, 2022 Author Share Posted December 22, 2022 1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said: In New Mystery it is a surprisingly useful weapon against Medeus in the highest difficulties, and is what the Lunatic Reverse, 0% growth, no dodge/crit rigging run uses to defeat him. The big reason for that in Lunatic/Lunatic-Revers Medeus has a 10 higher defense than resistance, and all classes that can use tomes have too low of stat caps to survive a round of combat with Medeus, meanwhile Swordmasters do, so a forged Levin Sword tends to be the safest way to take advantage of that lower resistance. Also there are 3 Spirit Dust gained in the normal course of the game, 3 more from a Secret Shop, and 3 more if you have unlocked the expanded battle prep shops by having completed Lunatic mode once, add in a +2 temporary boost from tonics, which is enough to add 20 to any units magic, if you need to. Oh wow. Thats really cool to know. Can it be used on mage dragons, do you know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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