some questions with leveling

[Meat Miracle]

- When leveling up Items, can you still get significant boosts once the item hits level 500?
- For the above, when gaining Training Bonus, is it the amount of innocents that matter (it was like this in the old games), or was it changed to use the innocent levels?
- When you apply Magic Extracts and Shards, is it better to apply them when the character is low level, or does it make no difference (ie. the extra stats are a flat bonus no matter the level)?
- Do the evilities that give you faster stat growth (for ex. Ultimate Mean Guy, Ultimate Smart Guy, etc) matter at all, or will it only matter for lower levels and the stats will get "equalized" by level 9999? Because right now I'm seeing the latter, early on there seems to be a huge boost on the stats I have evility growths on, but by the end all the stats are the same despite the huge earlier growth.
- Does that bonus stack with the Elite Squad?
- Does the Raised Flag stack with the above two? Right now I seem to end up with LOWER stats when I use the Raised Flag.

My current setup had troops with around 22 million stats by level 9999, but when I reincarnated and used the raised flag for its additional stat boost, I only ended up around 20 million. Everything else was the same. Not sure if this is a fault in the evilities or if the raised flag overwrites some other stat boost.
Not sure what direction to go in, I have all the level 40 items (except the ones in mystery rooms), and I can farm shards fast enough to get about 1 million bonus stats in extracts after the interrogation room gets full. Gonna use that to hit (near) 30 million, then try checking out the item world on some carnage items. Meanwhile, I'm using the Innocent farm to build 50k innocents.

For the item world, ultimatels what I want to knos is if I can go back to a level 500 item, stick it full of 50k innocents, set the invader route, and give it a significant stat boost (there's only something like 100 training bonus there currently). Or is it better to start over from a new item for that.

[Meat Miracle]

Also, do the Netherworld Exploration gets stronger and stronger bonuses even after hitting level 9999 on Carnage netherworlds? I seem to have some Carnage netherworlds at bonus item level 28, some on 32, I wonder if it will go high enough so I can use it to get the level 40 carnage gear.
Although with only 30 million in stats, I'm probably not strong yet to fight the overlords for those.

If the innocent levels matter, and not their count, then I suppose my next step should be sticking 50k innocents on some item to give them a boost in the millions, right?

[KarmaTheAlligator]

- Yes, it's the training bonus and kill bonus that matters the most.
- The level of the innocents matters (they need to be at 50k to work).
- No difference, the stats from extracts/shards are 'stored' separately from natural stats and stats you get after getting Eclipse Power (once you have that you can see the different stats).
- The HP ones can be used on your last reincarnation to boost your natural HP, but the others will be useless if you've mastered all the classes.
- You'll need to be in a maxed out Elite 4 Squad to reach max natural stats anyway, but yes, they stack.
- They should all stack, but mastering all classes and being in a maxed out Elite 4 should be all you need to reach 10M natural non-boosted stats.
- Yes, you'll eventually get rank 40 carnage worlds, just like the regular ones. Depends on your setup, but yeah, the overlords of rank 40 carnage worlds are at max stats, IIRC.

[Meat Miracle]

OK, so if I have a maxed Elite squad, I don't need to use the rest of the stat boosters (evilities, raised flag). Then I only need to max out shards and get 50k innocents and boost some equipment.
One more question then, how to deal with the last levels where everyone has max stats by default? Is it just a matter of slugging it out with more maxed out troops in return? In the previous Disgaea games, no matter how high the enemies were, you could still get more stats, but there seem to be clear limits set in this game.

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Most of the time the enemy's HP is pretty low, so as long as you focus on damage evilities while also surrounding your attacker with support chars (like male angels and Christo) you should get through fine. That plus Squad Attacks can deal with most everything.

[Pickleton]

Originally posted by Meat Miracle:

OK, so if I have a maxed Elite squad, I don't need to use the rest of the stat boosters (evilities, raised flag). Then I only need to max out shards and get 50k innocents and boost some equipment.
One more question then, how to deal with the last levels where everyone has max stats by default? Is it just a matter of slugging it out with more maxed out troops in return? In the previous Disgaea games, no matter how high the enemies were, you could still get more stats, but there seem to be clear limits set in this game.

Enemy stats might be 99,999,999, but they lack the evility/squad/curry multipliers that you can use. The enemy not really being able to take advantage of those mechanics is why I think this game is actually pretty easy compared to other games. Doesn't matter if they have 99mil RES when they don't have 20 evility slots focused on multiplying those stats.

[Meat Miracle]

What are the best evilities and curry setups? I use the 100 thumbles right now for all crits, and for evilities I use Greedy Disposition and Heavy Stance - but those last two add 30% stats, so if the stats are maxed out, they might not do anything.

[Pickleton]

Originally posted by Meat Miracle:

What are the best evilities and curry setups? I use the 100 thumbles right now for all crits, and for evilities I use Greedy Disposition and Heavy Stance - but those last two add 30% stats, so if the stats are maxed out, they might not do anything.

For curry, the standard for most people is Carnage Elixir in all 3 main slots, with the sub ingredient as 100 Thimbles (for the crit) and then just jam as many Elixirs as you can. Billions of health with the huge regen makes you tanky as heck.
However, one that I would argue is better once you hit super high stats is to up your star resist. There's a list of what ingredients do what to curry here[gamefaqs.gamespot.com]

There are entire guides on evility setups that I can't really explain well enough here, but here are a few good ones:
Stats (can skip these if you're already pushing max stats from gear):
Squad - Foot Soldier (+20% stats)
Unique - Greedy Disposition (39% stats)
Common - Heavy Stance (30% all stats, cannot be lifted)
Common - Violence (50% all stats, 50% less EXP)

Bonus damage:
Unique - Magic Bundle (30% special skill damage)
Unique - Twin Heads (Attack again if you don't move)
Unique - Acceleration Shot (+15% ATk per panel distance. 150% for max range star)
Mana Scarcity - 30% damage, 50% less mana
Purgatory - 50% damage increase to criticals
Over Limit - 50% special skill damage
Desperation - 50% damage, -100% defense

[Meat Miracle]

What is the optimal way of leveling up weapons? In the old games you had to add as many simple-stat boosting innocents as possible, since you got a bonus per innocent.
I've read that in Disgaea 5 you have to reach
- level 500
- kill bonus 400-550 (gets very difficult to increase after level 400)
- training bonus in the 3 thousands

Level being the value listed under the item, but higher levels means stronger enemies.
Kill bonus you get for clearing a floor by killing all enemies. Using 20 star difficulty makes this increase much faster.
Training bonus is what you get for killing Item General/King/God/God2, Proto drop, killing invaders, clearing mystery room fights. This will add a bonus based on the level of innocents you have on the item. So for max stats I should add as many 50k innocents as possible.

What is the best way for boosting the item, while keeping enemy strength low enough that I can blaze a past very fast? Right now what I do is kill move all innocents off an item, summon Proto with the assembly bill, kill him, then gency out and repeat until I have 8 innocent slots (killing Proto adds an innocent slot).
Then I pile on as many 50k innocents as I want, and beeline to the item god by nuking everything with Land Decimator. I'm on the Invader route, with my Sage having the Explorer evility which adds a chance for mystery rooms. I do this up to level 100, where I steal the item off the Item God 2.
Not sure what is the correct way to progress after that. I found that killing everything becomes prohibitive due to my Sage not having high enough stats. So right now I try using Dive +10 items with the cheat shop set to not skip bosses, and basically farm the Item General/King/God.

My main question is, do I have to worry about leveling the item wrong? Or can I just re-visit the item even after level 500 and increase the kill + training bonus, and reach the same values no matter what way I reach them?

[Pickleton]

Originally posted by Meat Miracle:

My main question is, do I have to worry about leveling the item wrong? Or can I just re-visit the item even after level 500 and increase the kill + training bonus, and reach the same values no matter what way I reach them?

The short answer is that there's no "wrong" way to level an item outside of things with negative stats. In those cases, you'll need to make sure to correct the negative value ASAP via training bonus. Past a certain LoC rank, axes become impossible to max all stats, as the SPD/HIT values are just too far into the negative to fix.

The long answer:
Even at 20 stars and 99,999,999 stat enemies, you should still be able to sweep through the stages assuming you have 50mil INT on your sage (20mil base + 100% stats from squads/evilities + a staff full of Hard Worker or Nerd innocents). The only real exceptions would be bosses because they have evilities and resistances on top of the max stats, but you can still 1-shot them if you do a similar build with a magic knight focused on single-target damage evilities and maxed elemental affinities. There's a great guide on YouTube that demonstrates their build for doing this.

Additional note:
With how easy it is to steal a fresh item from the item gods (plus Artina's rarity evility), you could do a casual run as prep for the hardcore run.
Personally, I leveled up a Trap and Yggdrasil the "wrong" way at first so that I could hit over 50mil INT without sacrificing 6 slots on Violence (just Greedy Disposition and Foot Soldier Squad for 59%). When doing that, I was on 0 stars with the rabbit's Fatal Slash evility (30% chance to deathblow enemies with lower SPD) and the Mic (50% chance to paralyze on hit) as subweapon. Chances were pretty good that I'd either 1-shot them or at least inflict paralysis, reducing their SPD to 1 and setting up for the next round. Even if 1 or 2 enemies somehow survived, I was rocking billions of health from LoC Elixir curry, so they couldn't even tickle me. By the time I got these items to lvl500, I had scooped up a couple copies from the duplication room, and a fresh pair of Trap and Yggdrasil (RARE 70 due to Phantom Angel evility) to level the "correct" way (20 star from floor 1 with fully stacked Dieticians).
Could argue that this additional bit of item worlding I did was a waste of time, but it got me a great set of equipment for leveling up 10 generics for netherworld expeditions for only a few hours investment. Having 10 units with 20mil base stats plus the expedition squad and related evilities really helped with the grind to R40-3 LoC weapons, since I could send out 10 expeditions at once of only 1 character, and they'd clear their respective worlds in 5 or fewer stages. Sending those out as I leveled my Traps got me tons of items (for point exchange) and prisoners (for boosting squad attack on all squads to max or extracts), reducing those grinds by leaps and bounds.

[Meat Miracle]

Huh, I was using the megaphone for farming shards, but I guess I don't need those anymore since I'm close to maxing them for two groups already. I had items wins set to disabled because I hated sorting out all the junk from my inventory, I guess I'll have to re-enable that for getting elixirs.

I found that troops with very low stats (2-3 millions) can beat l40 netherworld research, accompanied with a single non-boosted nobody from the researcher squad. The trick is that I have to do item world in the mean time. Then they'll clear the research nearly instantly. But if I'm for example farming Asagi maps or Martial Training, then they'll get absolutely nowhere with research, they'll get stuck at the first enemy. No clue why that happens.

My main damage dealers are at 40 million right now but that's with all the evilities (Violence, Greedy, Boorish Counter, Heavy Stance, Purgatory). With a bit of teamwork and a lot of curry bonus (I've been using 100+ Frog Sweat from the synthesis thing, plus 100 thumbles and any elixirs I had left over) I could beat the 99 million stat enemies in the L40 netherworlds to swoop up some L40 gear, but those don't add much of a bonus (300k+ is nothing when my troops are at 40 million).
At this point I have to level up some traps into having millions in stats.

So what you are saying that as long as put the 50k innocents on an item, it doesn't matter what order I do things on the Item world, is that correct?

I read somewhere that the Fatal Slash (30% deathblow to lower SPD) isn't good because if someone is killed with Deathblow it does not count towards kill bonus on item world. But if that's wrong, I could remove Violence in favor of Fatal Slash.

[Pickleton]

Originally posted by Meat Miracle:

Huh, I was using the megaphone for farming shards, but I guess I don't need those anymore since I'm close to maxing them for two groups already. I had items wins set to disabled because I hated sorting out all the junk from my inventory, I guess I'll have to re-enable that for getting elixirs.

I found that troops with very low stats (2-3 millions) can beat l40 netherworld research, accompanied with a single non-boosted nobody from the researcher squad. The trick is that I have to do item world in the mean time. Then they'll clear the research nearly instantly. But if I'm for example farming Asagi maps or Martial Training, then they'll get absolutely nowhere with research, they'll get stuck at the first enemy. No clue why that happens.

My main damage dealers are at 40 million right now but that's with all the evilities (Violence, Greedy, Boorish Counter, Heavy Stance, Purgatory). With a bit of teamwork and a lot of curry bonus (I've been using 100+ Frog Sweat from the synthesis thing, plus 100 thumbles and any elixirs I had left over) I could beat the 99 million stat enemies in the L40 netherworlds to swoop up some L40 gear, but those don't add much of a bonus (300k+ is nothing when my troops are at 40 million).
At this point I have to level up some traps into having millions in stats.

So what you are saying that as long as put the 50k innocents on an item, it doesn't matter what order I do things on the Item world, is that correct?

I read somewhere that the Fatal Slash (30% deathblow to lower SPD) isn't good because if someone is killed with Deathblow it does not count towards kill bonus on item world. But if that's wrong, I could remove Violence in favor of Fatal Slash.

I haven't heard anything about the kill bonus, and it was a while back so I don't remember if it did have an effect, but just the raw levels and training bonus when getting to 500 will give your traps a good amount of stats, plus the unique innocents from killing a few item gods. Especially early on, at 0 stars, I was killing some enemies with LD and some with Fatal Slash. The Fatal Slash was mostly to kill high RES enemies once my LD couldn't keep up anymore.
With 100 armor skill and 300% equip aptitude, a little goes a long way (500% effectiveness pre-stat squads/evilities). Even if a trap is only 600k stats, with just Greedy Disposition (39%) and Foot Soldier Squad (20%), that's 4.77mil stats each (600k x 5 x 1.59). Figure 3 of those plus a staff with at least 600k INT and you'll hit 50mil pre-buffs.
As far as ATK/INT stats go, you never "need" to have anything between 50,000,001 and 99,999,998, since a rank4 buff (with Professor's unique) will double it to the cap of 99,999,999. Only real reason to go through all the effort to have max stats is to have max stats without having to use buffs. So once you have enough equipped stats to hit 50mil, you can start shedding those eviliities and replace them with things that increase "ATK%" (the multiplier, not the stat).

Additionally, you could slap a bunch of lvl 50k INT-boosting innocents (Tutor, Hard Worker, Nerd) onto your gear to hit 50mil. Not the route I went, but it probably takes less time than making the first round of traps/staff. I think the way I went is better because it means you'll still have a good amount of HIT along with it when leveling new characters through Marshal stage. This caps out at 400k per item

Edit: Booted up my save file and found one of the Trapezohedron dupes I got from doing that method. Altered my numbers above to reflect new information.
It was just shy of 600k stats across the board.
Equipping it on my sage in fact does increase stats by 5x that amount without squads/evilities, 10x with 100% stat-boost.
I dunno what happened to the staff I had from that time, but I did find a Genesis Wand at ilvl127 with 518k stats. I thought I had hit 500 on the staff as well, but guess I stopped once I got an Yggrdassil. Either that or it's a dupe I got along the way and I lost the original somehow.
Regardless, I crunched numbers and with 20mil base stats, 300% aptitude and 300 weapon/armor skill, 4 items with 600k stats will hit you to 50mil with only the 59% stat increase Greedy Disposition and Foot Soldier Squad give.