What does Familiar Grade do? (And Alchemic Bounty?

[ShadowDragon8685]

This is less-than-obvious. Ranking-up a Familiar shard says it will make the Familiar more powerful, but the text on the left says it summons forth a familiar.

I farmed Carabosse until I got Grade 9, and I'm sure not flying around with an entire wing-squadron of Carabosse. As funny as that would be (especially an entire choir of them singing at the gardens,) it doesn't seem to be clear what my time spend hacking tiny little demon faeries in half has earned me.

Also, how does Alchemic Bounty's Grade work?

Rank says "Increases the probability of obtaining items," while the text on the left says "Occasionally, the number of items obtained by crafting increases." Is it both Grade and Rank that affect Proc chance? Does one affect Proc chance while the other affects the numbers dropped? Did I slaughter an entire midwestern dairy farm's worth of demon cows so that I'll almost never get an extra, but when I do I get ten items for the price of one?

[SmallGespenst]

pretty sure familiars just get stronger from both rank and grade, a bit boring, but there's only so much that can be done with familiars.

as for alchemic bounty, I'm pretty sure you have it right, rank affects the success rate, grade affects the number of items when it succeeds, though I think it maxes out a five items.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Ah. That's kind of a shame, I was thinking that Grade might, like, speed up the familiar's attack (which misses more often than not, especially for the melee familiars,) and/or increase their utility value - the way the fairy heals you when you're low and points out hidden things.

Still think the fairy's best familiar, anyway.

[Scythia]

Only the dulla heads increase number with grade. There's some discussion if other familiars become more aggressive, unlock new actions, or attack more quickly with grade but it's all speculation right now.

[Sinsling]

Fairy only wins cuteness. Dullahead and book sadly outclass it.

[Grr. [SG CMD] Majah Lazah]

Grade for knight and dulla increase damage, and also increase targeting frequency.

[⛧NecRoBile⛧]

I noticed that the higher rank your fairy is, the more potions she's allowed to hold. For the longest time I had her at rank 5 and I could only hold 5 fairy potions, but once she was rank 9 then I could hold 9.

To be honest, though, I'm not really sure how helpful she was with those potions. When I was actually seeing her heal I never got much health at all, and more often than not she was out of potions. So either she's so good that during hectic fights I didn't notice her help, or she just wasted my money.

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by Necrobile:

I noticed that the higher rank your fairy is, the more potions she's allowed to hold. For the longest time I had her at rank 5 and I could only hold 5 fairy potions, but once she was rank 9 then I could hold 9.

To be honest, though, I'm not really sure how helpful she was with those potions. When I was actually seeing her heal I never got much health at all, and more often than not she was out of potions. So either she's so good that during hectic fights I didn't notice her help, or she just wasted my money.

it depends on the type of potion, they're basically potion/high potion/ex potion but they can only be used by the fairy, she'll heal you when you get to low health (red outline and warning sound) and will try to use better quality potions first, but you're better off just using your own healing items, no delay which can be pretty important.

[Medusahead]

Alchemic bounty isn't that good but if you combine it with the apron you can get a bunch of food items when you're cooking I've never had it trigger when I'm making anything other than food.

[Schnittertm]

Originally posted by Medusahead:

Alchemic bounty isn't that good but if you combine it with the apron you can get a bunch of food items when you're cooking I've never had it trigger when I'm making anything other than food.

Oh, I had it trigger for, e.g. the Dansleif sword getting five instead of one. However, since there is a chance you can game the system by first going into the save room to save and only creating what you want to create with a (hopefully maxed) shard. If it gives you more than one you just go on doing what you wanted to do, if it doesn't you just reload the save. The probability for more than one item created seems to be fairly high with a maxed shard.

I guess it will help quite a lot if you want to do a level three of each of the backer weapons (which you don't need, but, hey, OCD). Makes it easier to get the 8-bit Nightmare books needed for their final stage, as well as reducing the cost to only the Alkahest needed for disassembly.

[Medusahead]

Just max out 8 bit fireball and crafting becomes pointless after that.

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by Medusahead:

Just max out 8 bit fireball and crafting becomes pointless after that.

no. getting a shard strong enough to carry you through the rest of the game doesn't render the crafting system pointless, you see I'm going to introduce you to a concept called variety. basically some people like to try different things because when the do the same thing over, and over, and over for hours at a time, it bores them out of their skull and becomes a tedious chore. when a recreation activity becomes a chore, it has failed as recreation. This is why you have options, so you can try different things, spice up the gameplay, enjoy the game instead of turning it into work.

[Grr. [SG CMD] Majah Lazah]

Originally posted by Medusahead:

Alchemic bounty isn't that good

Carpenter bones for days, 30 of the anchor weapon from the Underwater area, all of which contain gold when dismantled, lost count of the numbers of Harpes I sold for all those sweet sweet 32 bit upgrades, and since gold dullaheads spawn by the truckton it literally just rains money for zero effort.

[KaZudra]

Alchemic Bounty; Max it out and equip it, save scum crafting to absolutely break it, especially Cooking; Missing an ingredient? Buy something with that ingredient, dismantle, craft, get 2 or 3, makes the cooking quest basically free.