Too weak to progress?

[Solivarnik]

Hi all,
I reincarnated so far twice, when defeating the Demon King. Now I would like to try a different ending, aiming for ED3, Hero of the Holy Sword.
I killed the first demon king, reforged the sword, killed the Scarlet Dragon and thats all. I have unlocked Vast Desert and Demon`s castle, but I barely scratch enemies there.
I unlocked equipment, just starting to use it, so far I have only wooden sword.
Should I continue grinding the equipment? Or how could I make myself strong enough to progress?

[archmag]

You can grind gluttony instead of equipment. It will give better bonuses. Or you can go for ending 1 now and grind for more Anchovy Sandwiches at the very beginning. I wouldn't go for ending 3 if I were you, try 2nd at first. I think bosses are progressively stronger in each next ending. I cleared ed2 easily, but when I tried ed4 I couldn't even scratch the boss. Instead of getting stuck at harder ending when you are not prepared to do it it may be better to complete several quick easy ones.

Equipment won't help much. Sword gives 100 atk with 1 extra attack per level. Silver Scaled Dragon in your party gives 30 atk and def per 1 Wind or Earth, so almost 1500 total for 24 wind/earth which can be easily reached. Compared to just adding the dragon in your party bonus from equipment is really small.

After ED2 kill the hermit for the extra 131k levels to You. Farm some research from the Hermit to get better units. By that time you will have more and better equipment and will be more suitable to new ending.

There are 5 bonuses for each ending, so if you can complete some you can just farm it for more bonuses and only after that switch to the next one.

[pengi10]

It sounds like you are currently on track for Ending 2: A Moment of Peace, as Ending 3 requires you to beat Tournament round 6 before Graduation and that is a lot harder than beating the first two Desert areas. This will be a good thing if you decide that farming is worth the time investment as the large bonus to your max destiny will help in future runs.

As for how to get strong enough to finish your current run, if you've neglected The Destroyer now is a great time to start farming his five Summons. They all have great baseline stats so if you spend a day or two building up your Status upgrades in the Astral World you should be able to make the Brutal Arm strong enough to handle the first Desert area.

Do note that while they are pretty amazing all five of the summons you get from The Destroyer require ten seeds per level. You can definitely grind Demon Fort or Scarlet Dragon to seed them up but it would definitely take longer than focusing on your Main Character.

I found myself able to beat the Demon Lord a couple runs after I beat the second Desert area, largely because (like the first battle) you can exploit the flaws of his Summoning skill to get in a lot more hits than you would expect. He is extra vulnerable to a Sharp Spike setup, though it can be hard to tell when you cross the gap from "I had no chance" to "I can beat him fairly easily" because of how long it takes.

In regards to equipment; the main attraction of each piece is the additional effects you get from bonus levels, the most notable effect being that a +5 Magic Wand can allow you to add AoE to a spell that already has AoE to grant a massive damage spike while Magic Formation is up.

Unfortunately you need to use Mana Crystals to unlock these additional effects and you don't really have access to those yet. I actually just converted all of the free shards you get while unlocking equipment and ended up 20 shards short of a level 5 item bag so unless you're willing to do exceptionally long runs (100k gold = 277 Scarlet Dragons = 1 Mana Shard = 1/100th of a Mana Crystal) you're only getting a decent boost to one stat.

Definitely wait until you have a lot more Instant Action+ before you convert your shards, and definitely consider waiting until you start getting conversion-specific upgrades first.

My recommendation is to only grab Equipment that doesn't require many Dungeon drops, as anything which takes away from your Seed/Food farming will add a substantial delay to your progress. The Stone Spear, Magic Wand, Spirit Orb, and Charm Incense are all pretty good choices.

tl;dr: Buy Status Ups in the Astral World until your Brutal Arm can Sharp Spike the first Desert, then do Area 2 with your MC. Grab Stone Spear (or Magic Wand) and DO NOT convert your Mana Shards into Mana Crystals

[Solivarnik]

Thanks both of you!