rayres2007: I have some questions about the magic essence skill. Do I need it for the mage spells which increase monsters' AC? I have an alchemist who switched to a mage then will switch to a cleric and back to alchemist. If I don't need magic essence for post-game, I will probably just take high magic source.
Thanks.
Rob
You don't need magic essence for spells that increase AC; they always work. (Hallobuti even affects the third row and enemies that haven't been summoned yet.)
You might want a mage or bishop with magic essence, however. In the final bonus dungeon, I have encontered an enemy that has Swallow Return (so physical attacks are dangerous to use and unreliable), 300% resistance to all attributes (so attack spells and breath attacks don't work at all), and 80% resistance to all three types of magic. (99% summon resistance as well, so Contract is not going to work without brawler assistence either.) It does not have status resistance, however. In my experience, the best way to deal with that enemy (which appears in groups of three) is to have my Faerie Bishop with Magic Essence use status ailments.
Remember that Magic Essence only affects mage spells. High Magic Source, on the other hand, does not need to go on the character using the spell. High Magic Source, I believe, is only about as reliable as Tackle, however.
rayres2007: I noticed that my lord has "special resist up" at 9.0%. However, my special resists as shown on the character screen don't reflect this. Is this a bug, or do they actually come into effect and just not say so on the character screen listing resists?
Thanks.
Rob
The Special Resist Up ability does not stack with resistance from race or equipment. Therefore, it will not show on the status screen until it surpasses natural resistances, which for typical characters, happens at level 26. (Formula is 3% * sqrt(level))
Note that, unlike equipment bonuses, this will let you equip items with status resist penalties and ignore that drawback.
Court Sanctuary works similarly, but will stop working if the Lord dies. (I don't know how it interacts with other status ailments.)
