Spoilers: About a certain gimmick boss

[Halfshell]

-Warning- This topic spoils the floor 500 boss. Read on if you have played up to floor 500. I do not believe this warrants further spoiler warnings or tags. Read at your own discretion.

So the floor 500 bosses gimmick is that you have to heal her to beat her. This means its a pretty tedious boss. Ok thats fine, its actually pretty fun figuring that out for the first time. But when floor 500 ruins your grinding by making your team stall on the boss until you run oom.. I mean come on. It just forces me to make grinding setups without a healer and even then it still wastes time. I know this game isn't being worked on, so fat chance of this being adjusted. But in Soda Dungeon 2 can you add in options to trivialize such bosses once we are miles ahead of the content? And don't get me started on the floor 700 boss that forces me to use fighters (who are the slowest farmers) and takes away any knights or healers I was using. But at least this one can be cleared in auto mode and can technically be 1 turned with any party with enough stats. Only spoiler tagged that because I don't want to edit the warning.

I don't mean to rant. I just don't want similar things overlooked in the sequel. Anyone else agree with this sentiment?

[Handoiron]

500 boss is pretty easy with crit gear which is also the best setup in dimension progression for grinding. Fork + demon armor + crit relics = more damage then he heals. Even with normal grind setup of healers thieves and a knight.

You only have to beat the 700 boss once. Maybe once per dimension after that if you don't want to warp right past it. You should be grinding for upgrades in LoD where you are unlikely to reach 700 until you're in WD. Once you're in WD all bosses lose their class requirement mechanics so no healer boss or fighter boss to worry about.

[Halfshell]

Are you talking about boss 400? Boss 500 is immune to damage and can only be damaged with heals. Which means that you have to actually fight her everything time you are auto battle grinding. This means that she takes forever to actually end an auto battle grind too if you were going for speed kills (no healer). As for grinding LoD, there are plenty of times that I want to be grinding rare drops in the normal dungeon and going from 200 to completion is optimal until I have the drops where I'll increase the starting floor. Now sure, I don't have to have the rare drops to win. But just having item find and dragon's blood makes everything else go so much smoother!

Although fair point if WD drops the requirements. Its still annoying that I can't get my healers to heal the boss thats only damagable through manual play and instead they'll slowly suicide. It would be nice to have the option to either run or have them actually be able to damage it? Maybe an upgrade thats purchasable after you beat her? Yeah I get that this won't be adjusted but I just want it to be fresh in the mind of the dev for the sequel. Hopefully the AI system he is working on fixes any related potential problems.

[Handoiron]

Yeah I brain farted because most people have issues with 400 and it's self healing because they don't gear right. 500 boss is the same deal as 700 -- you only have to beat it once. After that, just warp past it.

After that just warp past it for normal dungeon pushes and do all your farming in LoD.

Everything you need drops before 400 boss. Forks are free, demon armor drops before 100, gold shields and vaan's magnets drop before 400. Honestly, normal dungeon is only for pushing progression once you have LoD open. The gold gain per time spent is much better there and unlike all items, gold can be saved between dimesnions either as purchased upgrades or converted to essence for relic levels.

[Halfshell]

Well even then LoD mimics the boss layout so it totally ruins your grind to have your party stall on the manual only boss at floor 500. And warping past it is a big nono early on as 500 essence is a big deal at this point in the game. And I think you are overlooking a ton of good drops from later dungeon levels. Dragon Sword is a must for instance, increases your farming efficiency by soo much if you have shades or Thief relic. I try to at least get a few drops from the 500-800 range before moving on to grinding LoD. Which feel terrible to grind if you didn't have the damage output to one turn boss 700. I just don't want Soda Dungeon 2 to be like that.

[Handoiron]

Forks are 60% crit chance 200% crit damage. Dragon swords are 50% crit chance 230% crit damage.

Trading 10% of your crit chance to gain 9% or less damage per crit is an overall loss. Also, you lose consistency in your crit rate.

Using Shades in accessory slots to try to counter the loss in crit chance also costs you vaan's magnet space which lowers your gold gain.

If you absolutely must have dragon swords, they drop from level 600 to 700 so your best bet is to warp there, not spend time running from 1-600 where they don't drop. I still believe it's a waste of time because you can't take those dragon swords with you to the next dimension but you can take the gold fueled upgrades.

LoD 500 won't stop you, not to mention your LoD runs won't get nearly as far in levels but will still make you much more gold in the same run time.

500 essence from level 1-500 is the same amount of essence as you'd get for level 1-250 in LoD 2 times in the same amount of time plus in LoD you'll get much more gold.

Once LoD is available, it is just hands down better return for the time spent running.

That's why you only do the first run in normal dungeon each dimension then farm farm LoD.

After you get a few relic levels, warp as high as you can in normal dungeon just to push for the next dimension boss.

If you make it, go to the next dimension. If you don't make it, go back to LoD to gain in power faster to try to push to dimension boss sooner.

[Halfshell]

You seem to forget that Dragon Sword has +50 attack over Forks. Later on 50 atk is nothing. Early though? Thats somewhere between +25% to +50% damage. Not to mention, it will multiply with Dragon Blood %phys. Its only better to run Forks early over Dragon Swords if you happen to be swimming in Dragon's Blood, in which case the accessory slot is worth more than the 10 attack damage (since you would be trading Dragon's Blood for Shades to reach 100% crit). Earlier, you might not even be able to reach 100% crit rate anyways, in which case harder hitting crits is preferable to more frequent crits (at least for pushing higher). For farming its ofc better to crit more often for consistent clears.

Anyway, I tend to play this by selecting a floor and letting it go until I return. I almost never even hit up the LoD and I steamrolled through the first 1000 floors with almost no stops. Its really not that big of a deal which is faster unless you are actively playing. The big deal is to get the gear needed and use it properly. What does a little more gold and essence do for me? Just relic levels. Just use an extra +% gold item and its almost the same anyway (since you need your gear on attack to efficiently farm LoD early).

My strat throughout the first 1000 floors has been as much %item find as I could get and its by far the most consistent strat for getting the items needed to beat the current boss floor. More item find means faster Vaan's Magnet means faster Sacrosanct means faster Royal Shields and soon you'll be getting the rare drop on the first time through a given floor range. Better items means faster clears and farm the next time through as well.

So maybe your strat of stacking gold and essence works just fine for you. Its probably slightly faster. But insisting that its the only way to play is just silly. I much prefer my %item find strat in the regular dungeon, increasing the starting floor when you find the rare drop.

With the strat listed I even dropped a healer as soon as I got Thief relic and killed each boss past 700 on auto grind. Even floor 1000 was killed on auto grind. Item grind > relic level grind early.

So if it wasn't for 500 and 700 being dead zones for grinding, my strat would have gone 100% smoother because I wouldn't have missed grinding time due to my team not being able to clear the arbitrarily boss condition. I would have to skip past the floor and clearing it is just a waste of time. This is why I do not want such arbitrary clear conditions in Soda Dungeon 2. Let me play it the way I want, don't add in arbitrary conditions that make 1 grinding strat better than any others! Its fun the first time you have to fight that boss, but afterwards its just adding tedium due to needing to manually skip over the floor.

I don't know if I came across clearly this time. Just want to have more room to make my own strats in the sequel. If you want to play it your way, more power to you. But if %item find is an option in Soda Dungeon 2 I would like it be a viable grinding strat due to less dead floors.

Edit: Also want to mention that this was just with most relics being in the level 10-15 range. Didn't need to push anything higher than that. Only the crit, crit damage, attack and Thief relics were pushed to higher levels.

Edit2: Looking the forums over seems like I'm probably the only one crazy enough to be running 4 Thieves and a Knight with as much %item find as I can cram in (first 2T for damage 2nd 2T for utility). So I guess I can understand why you didn't know it was a viable strat for clearing dimensions past 500. Also this is my 2nd time through as I lost my save which is why its fresh in my memory.

[Handoiron]

Insisting that I'm insisting my way is the only way to play is silly...

I was just pointing out something I figured out over the 4-5 times I've gone through dimension progression. Farming for items is wasted time. Farming for gold is much better.

50 attack being 1/2 your damage?? not if you have a decent attack relic level. If you're spending your time in normal dungeon farming items instead of gold which you can convert into essence to level relics that don't disappear when you go through the portal then your attack should be much higher than 35 before equipping a weapon by the time you get to the point of going to 600-700 for farming trips.

Consistent crits being for farming and not for pushing levels?? Being able to guarantee or at least nearly guarantee a crit is better for max level. Guaranteeing 3.5x damage every hit is much preferrable to risking having 2-3 hits of 100% even if your crit hits are 3.8x damage.

Even for non thief / before thief relic, you can reach 95%+ crit chance with forks. Without having to use up time farming in normal dungeon where you get less gold.

If you have more fun doing it your way and then coming here to complain about problems you are creating for yourself then go ahead and do that.

[Halfshell]

Well you have valid points and I am sure your strats have their advantages. But with just my previously listed strats I pushed directly to floor 2k+ while following the same principles after I unlocked Thief relic (3T,1H,1K). If it wasn't for the dimension gimmick, I would have went directly from floor 700 (or is Thief relic 800?) to ~1200 and once I re-geared, to over 2k. And this was with minimal relic levels at the time since I wasn't ever grinding for money. So for game time you are probably right that your strat is faster. But for playing time I only had to gear my setup a few times and send them off to be done with the bosses. Being fully geared outweighs the relic stat bonuses until you get a ton of them anyways. And you need more and more farm to keep getting bonuses as they are diminishing returns. How long would it take you to make up for the difference in 50+ stats you are missing from rare drops?

Anyway, I was just saying that there are different ways to play the game. Pushing for relic level is valid. Crit damage strats. %Item find. Spell damage strats. Tanking strats. Read the guides and what people have used and there are a ton of strats to get to floor 1000. I believe mine is the smoothest since it requires a minimal amount of effort and understanding. Just farm items and push for the next area with those items. Doesn't need anything besides attack relics to work so less farm is required. You'll even smoothly defeat every boss in auto mode once you can since rare drops make you far stronger than the boss requirements. The only downside is perhaps that it slows down a little around floor 500-600 but once you get Thief relic you are fully prepped to make use of it. Whereas spelldamage takes longer to be useful in higher floors.

This is all besides the point. I'm just saying that the design to include gimmick bosses really stuck around for far too long. I wasn't even aware that the gimmick bosses dropped their class requirements because I just started skipping those floor ranges entirely after clearing the first 1000 floors. Because it isn't mentioned anywhere ingame that the requirements drop (or if it does its easily missed). Imo the floor 500 boss' gimmick should drop much sooner. After the first clear it should be 80% damage immunity so that she is beatable on auto. And after each dimension her resistance would drop by 20% until its full damage done. Same with floor 700, not too hard to just make him make less people flee each dimension. This is a much cleaner way of informing the player that their gimmick is dropping too. This is what I want to see in Soda Dungeon 2. Less arbitrary restrictions so that players are free to play the way they want.