near the end of the game, at a boss fight (shall not be named for the sake of spoils) that i seem to be underleveled for but can not farm exp anywhere

[Beyndips]

I am stuck on E_ _ _ _ as i do very little damage and take a lot of damage. Is there actually no way to farm exp as u can not leave w/ wings and there are no enemys to farm in the room.

[Doomlord]

Yeah, if you went there severely underleveled you're pretty much stuck. Hope you have a previous save file. If not my best recommendation is to soldier through him, he's not THAT difficult. You can use the healing spell against him, so that's something to keep in mind.

[Beyndips]

what exactly do you mean by "soldier through him"?

[Doomlord]

I meant try to beat him even if you're underleveled, use healing items if you arent playing on catastrophe, use his own healing spell against him whenever you can and try to wear him down little by little. Once you get the hang of it he's an absolute pushover.

[Beyndips]

ok cool, thanks for the help

[Mondae Sundae]

Originally posted by DOOMLORD:

Once you get the hang of it he's an absolute pushover.

Being able to charge all three Magics before the fight begins contributes a lot to this.

However, on Nightmare Time Attack, I wouldn't call him a pushover.


Beyndips, there are a few things that would make your situation clearer:
1. What difficulty setting are you on?
2. What accessories are you using? Do you have the Emelas Accessories?
3. What Level is Adol at? What Level is the three Swords at?

I'm assuming you at least have the Emelas Armor and Shield. If not, even on Normal, this might be tricky.

[Doomlord]

Originally posted by Mondae Sundae:

Originally posted by DOOMLORD:

Once you get the hang of it he's an absolute pushover.

Being able to charge all three Magics before the fight begins contributes a lot to this.

However, on Nightmare Time Attack, I wouldn't call him a pushover.

You don't even need to charge all three swords for him. Upgrade the poking stick or just learn how to abuse the i-frames it gives you and he's a complete joke even on Nightmare.

Majuunun's the only legit hard boss in this game.

[Beyndips]

I am on normal classic mode (first play through). the accessories i have are the wood bracelet, silver armlet, magic talisman, and runed earings. Those are about all the ones i have. I am Level 47 and sword levels are the following: wind 10, fire 10, electric 9. When i fight him, the only really good dmg i deal is when i use the magic. the dmg with normal attacks is about 10

[Mondae Sundae]

So. I've never done a speedrun before, but I managed to get to Ernst at effectively identical conditions as yours within a few hours. And then I tried to beat him...

Under these conditions, Ernst is more challenging than on Nightmare [Catastrophe] Boss Rush, even with the Healing Items!

I came within 100 HP of beating him, but I required 4 Blue Potions in order to do so. If I had a fifth, I might have done it.

However, I now have an idea of how to beat him. And its also stupidly hard to pull off, but might actually be easier than just trying to beat Ernst from the get-go.

Step 1: Level Up
The Fairies give EXP when knocked out. So step 1 is to dodge everything and the kitchen sink, and attack the Fairies until you Level-Up. At Level 47, this should happen fairly quickly, especially if you're already close to leveling up as it is.

Step 2: Actually fighting Ernst
The only way I know of to beat Ernst under Nightmare [Catastrophe] Boss Rush is to use Brillante and the Lunge Attack. At Level 48, this is still brutal, but far better than Level 47.


OK, lets be honest. This is so brutal that you may be better off starting over. I don't say that lightly.

However, if you do manage to beat him, go back to the savepoint, collect the three Blue Potions, and Save.

Originally posted by DOOMLORD:

Upgrade the poking stick or just learn how to abuse the i-frames it gives you and he's a complete joke even on Nightmare.

Have you tried fighting Ernst on Nightmare Time Attack?

[Doomlord]

Yep. On PS2 when I was younger and on PC when the fan translation got released a couple years back. Poking stick completely breaks the game from the moment you get it.

[Beyndips]

well thanks for the help but idk what im going to do in the end. I not making too much progress on beating him but im trying. I might just have to restart in the end or just watch a video about the ending. Kinda a big flaw in game design not having anything to lvl up on but w/e. I appreciate everything guys!

[Mondae Sundae]

Well, I actually beat this. I didn't need to level-up, and I only used 3 Blue Potions!

I remembered that the [Galba Shield] gives STR +5, so I swapped that in (DEF -10 though). That really made all the difference. The big problem with Ernst is that you need to be able to deal consistent significant damage since eventually some of the Healing Spells will reach Ernst.

Regardless, I still found this more challenging than beating Ernst on Nightmare Catastrophe Boss Rush.

Originally posted by DOOMLORD:

On PS2 when I was younger and on PC when the fan translation got released a couple years back.

Fair enough. I do agree that Napishtim's Boss Rush on Nightmare [Standard] is easier than Felghana's Boss Rush on Nightmare (and definitely easier than Felghana's hypothetical Inferno Boss Rush).

Originally posted by DOOMLORD:

Poking stick completely breaks the game from the moment you get it.

I'm assuming you mean Ericcil? I actually don't understand how it breaks the game.

In regards to i-frames, the only ones I'm aware of come from using Magic. But Magic takes a significant amount of time to charge if a sword is only at Level 10.

Other than Level 11 Swords, I'm not aware of anything sword related that breaks the game.

However, I also go out of my way to play through Story Mode at Nightmare Catastrophe Time Attack conditions, so my perspective may be odd in general. Either that or there's something I don't understand about the swords.

[Doomlord]

That's the one, I keep messing up its name, so I just call it the poking stick. The i-frames I'm referring to come from the charging attack you do after you spam several attacks with it in quick succession. That thing is devastating if you learn how to use it properly. In my case I can unleash that attack once every 4-5 seconds.

As for the other two swords, personally I've found the fire sword completely useless for most of the game aside from that one boss on the wall before you meet up with Dogi again. I mainly stick with the wind sword until I get the poking stick, after that I only switch to the other two if I need to use their magic, which is rare.

For Ernesto himself my tactic has been the same since 2005. I abuse the poking stick's charge attack, use its magic to get rid of his little pests and kek him out of his healing spell every once in a while (believe it or not it never actually occured to me you could heal during bosses until I played the Steam release. Yes I'm an idiot XD). I've never had trouble with him on any difficulty, but that also applies to the whole game (minus Majuunun). Ark has always been a fairly easy game for me.

Can't speak for Felghana because it's the only Ys game I've yet to Nightmare.

[Mondae Sundae]

Well, I did a light experiment to see whether the Thunder Element has i-frames. For my experiment, I used the flame from the spinning Flame Turret in the Ruined City of Kishgal.

Specifically, I charged directly through the spinning flames. On every attempt, with every variation I tried, I took damage. Charging parallel through the flame, I took damage three times almost simultaneously.

My experiment was not what I would call exhaustive (and I'll probably do more experimentation later). However, I have not been able to find the i-frames in the attack. Do you know of a video that shows how to use the i-frames? (I haven't been able to find that either)

Whether I can make use of the i-tfames or not, I agree that the Thunder Element is powerful.

Originally posted by DOOMLORD:

believe it or not it never actually occured to me you could heal during bosses until I played the Steam release. Yes I'm an idiot XD

I think we all have moments like that.

In almost every playthrough of any Ys game, I'll buy and fully upgrade an Equipment, and then forget to equip it. Sometimes I'll even beat that section of the game before I realize that I'm an idiot.

[Doomlord]

I don't know if it protects against projectiles since I prefer to dodge those manually, but against melee attacks I've never actually took damage while executing it. Found that especially useful against Ernst, since his sword counter attack is the only one I generally get concerned about. On all difficulties I've had him strike me while I perform the charge and I'd always take 0 damage.

EDIT: Okay, so I did some actual testing myself just to make sure my memories didn't get mixed up with something else as that sometimes tends to happen (I've played so much ♥♥♥♥ my brain can't even keep up with all of it).

I fought some regular enemies for about 20 minutes then I did Ernst on time attack normal for about an hour non-stop (and then nightmared him twice for good measure, though I'm sad I couldn't beat my old record). You do in fact get i-frames with that charging attack, but they are less than the ones you get when you use its magic. Getting them is also really precise. I couldn't get them to trigger against any sort of projectile, but it worked against melee attacks. From what I gathered you need to time launching the charge at the EXACT moment you get hit (like it's extremely precise, I'm genuinely wondering how I was able to do it so easily when I was younger). I can only compare it to an extremely hardcore version of the flash guard from SEVEN and beyond.

Maybe this wasn't even an intended feature and I'm triggering some sort of weird glitch, but I did manage to poke Ernst to death in 30 seconds (add another minute and a half on nightmare because he desided to spam that AOE attack of his like an autist), so I can at least confirm that my old strategy still works.

[Sumire Yoshizawa]

Does anyone know how to get "Emelas Guard"?
after defeat "Deadollon" boss in "Limewater Cave", the chest must appear. But when i defeat the boss, nothing appear?
sorry for my bad english