I love Rose the most from her Additions to her amazing back story and remember Demon's Gate takes care of the annoying enemies that uses status effects on the Ghost ship
@@tantacles Good job I just got another PS2 and start playing again. I just honestly thought everybody else was useless. Except Dart, Rose, Albert/Lavitz, and Kongel. I always went with Kongol, Albert, Dart. I thought when Kongol came Rose was useless naive kid. Using a strategy guide appears everybody is good to a degree.
As I posted on Meru's video...I'd just like to remind people some species truths about Kongol and Meru. Kongol is the 97th Seed of the Divine Tree. (Minitos are 99), Dragons are 105, Humans are 106...and Winglies are 107. Kongol is...a bad prototype of humans, overtuned to do one thing well to the exclusion of all else. That's why he's so terrible. Meru, on the other hand, is a wingly...seed 107. She has a species advantage over the rest of the party and hence, does most things better than the rest of the party. Indeed, in a Remake, I'd have her sprout her wingly wings during Perky Step, to remind people how she got to 600% in the first place. She's actually learning to fight like a Wingly. She should also sprout her wingly wings when using item magic. Maybe late in the game, she even sprouts her wingly wings for the entire combat, and her additions change a little to deal with the fact she's now flying. Remember that winglies are the reason humans needed Dragoon forms in the first place. It's also worth noting she's the same species as Lloyd. Where Dart couldn't keep up with him, initially, Meru, in theory, can.
Ima just say that Merus definitely holding back. If you recall in the Wingly Forest the Brothers are able to flat out cast explosive fireballs at you. Winglies are supposed to be capable of using magic naturally and effectively and yet somehow Meru needs items or her dragoon form. She cant fool me. Launch them fireballs dammit!
@@MrDark086 she doesn’t want to burn her delegate dancer skin. If they did make a sequel it would be cool to see her refined all grown up and kind of a bad ass. With hints of her cheery personality still present. Wouldn’t be that crazy since she probably really does have more potential over all the other members being a young winglie
You can give him bandit shoes and ring right? So you can still give him a speed boost at the expense of the magical greaves. Alternatively legend casque on meru or Shana makes any boss an absolute joke
Using soul eater with therapy ring is definetely the best option untill you get Claymore at the moon. Then the attack difference is like 30, so using an attack badge with claymore instead of souleater + therapy ring may be preferable if you want to add more magic damage to the expanse of 10 physical attack. Or maybe you want claymore + physical ring/bandit's ring/phantom shield instead of souleater+therapy ring.
The female armors are not as good physical protection through normal progression. Unless you do early money farms for that op gear wich is extremely practical but then the game is boringly easy.
Since the game has been released again I just completed another run and was pleasantly surprised by how OP Rose can become for most of the game. She only has 4 additions, and learns her third early, midway through the second disc. Mastering that addition is all she needs to unlock her final addition well before any party member comes even close to getting a 500 damage boost. On top of that, her additions are super easy. Most other party members really get screwed over by their fast additions when you just don't have time to react to a counter. Luckily, we now have rewind, but it's still annoying to deal with. So unless you grind, Rose will have the strongest addition until late game. And at that point, everyone is dealing massive damage, especially combined with power up and power down. Speaking of which, Meru with a Magical Hat could deal around 5K damage to normal enemies with the psy bomb. Talk about overkill.
I can’t begin to explain how much I appreciate the Legend Of Dragoon Content you post here. From One fellow big childhood fan to another, thanks so much for this.
Meru might be the most powerful character, but my young self had a crush on Rose... so... I usually bring her. And Rose has a lot of really emotional scenes with Dart, which helps.
I've been thinking since you mentioned coming up with ways to "fix" some characters, and I think Rose should get a new moveset and possibly even spells after that part in the game. Could even be tied into the story as her not having to "hide" herself anymore.
The dragoon spirits are made from the spirits of dead dragons, right? The darkness dragoon spirit predates Michael so it tracks that it'd be a different dragon... idk maybe I'm crazy.
There's Dragon summoning magic and vassal dragon IIRC. Michael falls into the latter. But at least Michael looks like a pterodactyl which looks like Dragon. What the heck Dark Dragon Summon is even supposed to be?
It's pretty nice to hear someone talk about Lavitz, not just Rose, in terms of the strength of weapons throughout the game. At this point (now through Rose) your analysis seems absolutely spot on. Bit strange how you didn't mention Dart's strongest weapon requires fairly frequent heals OR sacrificing one of the best accessories to mitigate its downside. An item cap of 32 means significantly less when you realize you're killing bosses within 4 items. The Divine Dragon? No worries, a power up and 2 attack items will get it done. Shana's magic damage is just bonkers. You could use Meru, or you could have an additional 33% magic attack. In testing, I did the same battle with both to check how much Psyche Bomb X damage. Meru clocked in just under 6k. Shana was hit for 7.6k. (Both level 41, same equips.) Kongol's usefulness swing based on equipment is hilariously large. Speed equips are additive, so he gets the most additional turns. Increasing his high HP by 50% means you get absurdly large HP amounts healed... and a Legend Casque effectively makes him invulnerable. He's a D tier character that with ideal equips rises all the way to A tier... in a game with two, arguably three S tier characters. (You can only pick two for a party anyways.) Meru is also garbage physically for the vast majority of the game. Her best addition until level 30 has a multiplier of 202 WHEN MAXED. You need to slog through 80 uses for still bad damage. You also need to grind out 80 uses of Cool Boogie doing Shana-tier damage, along with 80 uses of Double Smack doing just a bit better than Shana-tier damage. She will also not out physical DPS Haschel. Not only is his speed fairly close to Meru's, his damage is significantly higher. Shana also has significantly higher item DPS, so Meru DOES actually end up as the best jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none. She's not the best choice for either niche.
It makes sense that Albert and meru are best together because you can't have rain without the air and you can't have a sea breeze without water. They are best friends in nature forever in sync and considered equals. And my two favorite elements
watching this was fascinating and very informative! Though despite how bad "Shana" is, I still hold the belief that she's the best teammate for Meru lol the reason for this is that Dragoon "Shana" frees up Meru's Dragoon Turns and MP for more attack spells (unless you get hit with Status Effects), and "Shana" making great use of the Attack Items that passively fill up your inventory frees up more turns for Meru to grind out her Additions. you're probably gonna save most Attack Items for bosses anyway, so "Shana's" lower damage during random encounters isn't too bad, and getting Psyche Bomb X late game lets her wipe out entire enemy groups while Meru powers up her Perky Step. Her Dragoon Form focusing so aggressively on healing is absolutely detrimental as you really don't need THAT much healing, but at least her and Meru in your team means you don't need to stock up on Healing Rains and revivals as much lol Though easily "Shana's" biggest "flaw" is that you're stuck lugging Dart around for the entire game when even Rose would do his job better and more, and most people are gonna want "Lavitz" or especially Haschel to make up for the everything Dart lacks.
I lol'd at the part where Haschel says "your face needs a smash." Keep up the awesome work. I'm even watching your videos of games I haven't played because they are that entertaining.
I would take and read off the security code on the back of Bill Gates’ credit card if it meant incentivizing Sony enough to give its fans a true remake or remaster of this game.
Quick math thing for Meru - it would be *divided* by 1.5, not -50%. -33% from that total is about 696, which I think is pretty close. Her stat guide lists 646 hp for level 20.
Kongol could’ve cured and inflicted status effects in his dragoon it’d make him a unique utility maybe 1. Gold Guard - auto guard heals for three turns and lift status effects for grounded characters. 2. Mother Nature- cast poison fear confuse and lowers strength of all enemies for 2 turns. Gold Dragon- raises attack of all ground characters 3 turns lifts status effects and triples money gain at end of battle.
I wrote an essay about why Rose is slept on lol, if anybody's interested: An overlooked aspect of Rose is that there are dupes of the speed items for the ladies but there aren't any for the fellas. This means you can put the bandit item combo on Dart and still have 2 speed boosted party members. She also has balanced defenses despite her middling figures, meaning she usually won't get one-shot by high end magic attacks like Albert/Kongol will. All in all I think she's actually second in slot for the attacker role only behind Haschel. What really puts her over the edge is that she gets access to her dragoon armor in Zenebatos, giving you relatively early and low-resource access to the Faust fight with a Rose/Meru party as opposed to a Meru/Haschel or Meru/Albert party, since you'll only need silk scarves to survive the magic attacks instead of legend casques. All in all I think she edges out Haschel until disc 4, but is stronger through disc 2 and still competes with him enough afterwards to justify running her instead of Haschel alongside Meru.
If the I could get my emulator, or PS3 to play this damn game, I would be 100% glued to my screen. I'd probably binge grabbing EVERYTHING and just love as much as I loved it in my younger years. So much love for this game. And the universe keeps slapping my hand saying "NO!" whenever I try to play it. :(
Just wrapped up my 15th playthough of Dragoon last night. Dart/Meru/Haschel Speed boosting equipment all 'round, made use of Speed Up/Down, Power Up/Down for the later boss fights. Everything melted. :D The Final boss was unable to do anything, it was brutal.
I'm currently going through a playthrough, just got to disc three and working on getting Meru Perky step. Only need one more level to get her next to last addition. I really want it before the fight with the Grand Jewel. Yes, I've been grinding like crazy. I've even got Bandit's Rings for every male. Took forever to get those extra two. I'm going to end up with all the Legend armours, but I'm not gonna use them unless something goes south. But with as much as I've been grinding, I don't see that happening. Hahaha.
@@paulhiggins6433 I gave Haschel the Legend Casque because I had amassed 10k gold, wasn't really necessary. Meru with the Dragon Helm for extra health. Perky step is an absolute joy to pull off, I never got tired of it. Don't forget to grab the Dancer's Ring+ Shoes for Meru. The total of 110 speed+ speed up is obscene.
@@meenerman7693 no kidding. The legend gear, all of it, isn't really required for anything but Faust. Just speed gear, and the Dragon Helm on the squishy character, namely Meru. I currently have 3 Casques in my inventory, with 45k ish gold saved for the Armor of Legend, and will buy 3 sets when I get there. Just in case things go bad. Not that anything should. Perky Step and Omni Sweep are my favorite additions. Definitely worth the effort. Love them.
Here's an idea for a Kongol fix. Give him a magic spell that doubles, or increases the speed of the party for 30-50. Fixes his speed weakness. And honestly, if they'd implement that, they should switch it with the effects of Rose/Blossom Storm so Kongol gets the defensive. And fix Shana's attack. Give her bows that hit twice, or a HUGE increase to weapon damage. Detonate Arrow does hit for all targets but doesn't generate extra SP
Detonate arrow is such a strange item. Here's an attack all bow thats only useful for one phase in the final boss...if you dont want to chuck magic items. I heard there were plans to give shana additions but they scrapped it.
That would be good but I think element wise it would make since to give the wind dragoon speed buff and earth the defense boost spell Edit: you said that in the post 🤦♂️ great minds think alike 👍
@@russellg9622 only if in a way they gave shana an addition boost to MAGIC attacks. Actually, a dragoon addition for MP attacks is entirely possible why has no one thought of this
I'm actually curious of your analysis with Dart's Divine Dragon form. I know you get it so late in the game, but I thought it would be nice to cover it.
Making Konhol more viable? Easy. Instead of using the magic att. Status for dmg calculation of his dragoon spells, give the single target spell and the dragoon all enemies attacking spell the effect of :dmg calculation is based on strength Stat but does magic dmg.. (dmg output is increased while staying a physical wall) Second: His second spell should be a status conditioning spell for the party, three turns of increased strength, phys. Def. and Speed. (he would stay the physical wall, that's his character trade, get faster, but not in comparison to the group, it would simply provide great utility that has a barrier caused due to the time span, mp cap and dragoon spell, so it is actually required to use mp for it).. The end result would have been a great physical attacker and wall, with a way around his measly mag. Stats in at least dragoon form and a pillar for buffs that is not invincible. Viable for the group, everyone would welcome the boosts, but it actually gives a super nice synchronizing effect with Rose, Meru and Shana. The boys on the other hand would gain a specialty boost and be beatsticks. So his gameplay would go as follows: Come into combat, let Meru/Shana/Haschel buff the required Character (Dart, Kongol or herself/himself) or debuff enemy. Repeat with Darts with focus on the required strategic plan for the boss. Go with Kongol into spec. Dragoon mode and use the second spell, for Pillar setup strat. in completion. Go to town with Meru/Shanas spells on enemy, Hashel with physical att. and/or use Dart as a follow up corrector (for fights against multiple enemies or simply dmg increase.) Next step: Click one of the Spells Kongol as a dragoon uses to deal massive dmg. As the other team members are faster, they get run out of Kongols buff faster, whereas he stays in dragoon mode and can in his second to last move set up the buff spell again and Fire of on his 5th. Dragoon turn the last spell (again for massive dmg, while the two other party members correct strategically (gather sp, use consumables, att. spells). After that he would have 2 turns remain to deal physical dmg and gather sp, what would gave him at least the potential to get the combo running again, deal less but considerable dmg to finish the enemy or simply stall enemy to regroup and gather momentum again for an additional wave. That's how u build an Earthquake Dragoon, with landslide effect. First a little rumble to build the scenery, than the massive earthquake, get the avalanche rolling, topple enemy and burry him under the rubble, second quake to shred through the lasting chunk of HP, use the momentum to dance on his grave. If enemy digs his way out, do it again and use your party to gain another stack of stones. It seems broken, but his magical weakness, lack of speed and the reliability on the comrades actual makes it as fair as possible. If the enemy disrupt the build up, kills a buffed character or Kongol as the pillar, the strategy crumbles down to fractures and isn't solid anymore. Fix Shana/Miranda.. Easiest part: give both of them just one addition. Barrage of arrows. For every landed addition step, fire another arrow, give every landed arrow 20 sp at maximum strength (5 at minimum) and a dmg output of 250% when completed by 5 hits added a final six one. Her sp gain goes from 5 to 30 at the lowest, to 20 to 120 at the highest. Add the item buff of 50% into that and she would gain 180 ( actually reasonable) sp in one turn, In two turns a good 3 Stage dragoon lvl acquired for both scenarios, but with the use of the explosive arrows a nice non mp or consumable needed light attack on all enemies from an underwhelming att. Stat., that has at least usage. Fix Rose: give her better weapons dammit or fix the degeneration of the Stat points through leveling. Poor Rose bloomed long ago, the age takes his toll.
My favorite characters in terms of personalities and design are Meru, Kongol, Dart and Rose. My favorite characters in terms of gameplay are mostly Dart, Rose and Lavitz/Albert. I mostly use Meru for magic based emergencies, at the risk of her dying due to her low hp states, and Kongol in case of a difficult boss fight like Lenus and the Dragon Block Staff Crystal. Despite the fact that I find Shana annoying and her romance with Dart completely cringe, I used her during the Ghost Knight boss fight which was annoying as hell.
I like Shana and ALBERT/ Lavitz and meru but would’ve liked to see the black monster be a bit more…monster I guess she’s been around for 11k years she should be untouchable unless they are saying she went around astral draining everyone with hardly any experience to glean from it. As for speed you’d think wind would be the fastest or one of the fastest elements…
Hey Tantacles, do you think its possible to have a ruined save file by being under leveled? Given how bosses give gobs of exp I'm not sure if its possible, but have wondered about it.
My one issue with Merus’ character build is that she is NOT a Human, but rather a Wingly. This means she is supposed to have the ability to use MAGIC naturally, without needing to rely on items or Dragoon Spirits, like every other Wingly character in the game seems to be able to do, they even point this out in the storyboard. But instead, she does not have access to any magic, naturally, and she isn’t even the strongest spellcaster, so I don’t see how that supposed to make sense. But again that’s just my one issue with her character build. It would be awesome if they would rectify that by giving her the ability to use a spell similar to recall, from breath of fire, that allows her to randomly cast level, one magic spells of each element, just to say that she is in fact, capable of magic like the rest of her species.
@@tantacles yeah, I thought of that too, shame that Shana never learns to tap into that “Divine Light” power of hers at will. Maybe if an OVERDRIVE system was added to the game or something like a DESPERATION ATTACK, where a special attack or ability is triggered when a combatants is less than 20% of their max HP?
I do believe it is mentioned in the game that Winglies only have a fraction of the magical power they held during the Dragon Campaign. Which is further reinforced by the Faust optional boss text by Dart, whom is amazed by the vast difference in power that Faust had in comparison to the other Winglies
@@RoseNZieg and yet Lenus, the former Sea Dragoon and also a Wingly could cast spells of various elements, so I feel Meru having a similar, if not weaker, ability is that much of stretch nor “illogical ”
On my 1st playthrough, Rose is my favorite character it’s so heartbreaking that her stats fall short later on. What should i focus on making her better? I’m also collecting all the stardust.
@@tantacles thank you!! And omg lavitz just died :( i guess i should’ve seen that coming with all your videos talking about albert/lavitz. Fml does this mean shana dies too & i get this Miranda person(dont tell me lol) so sad i liked lavitz
@@tantacles is it possible for you to make a video on the best equipment for party members? lol i thought i searched everywhere before reaching disc 2 but i see people on old gamefaqs saying you can get a "legend casque" & other OP items. How the hell are people getting so much money or finding these items? i tried to YT best equipment & best builds for legend of dragoon & i don't see any. Sorry for such the long message my friend lol
As much as people say Kongol needs some kind of defensive spell and not Lavitz... What if Dart could heal? Having a forced character be a healer isn't so bad and would shift some of the power away from Shana and Meru (but not Rose sorry lol). also you should be able to summon the Super Duper Dragon at some point in the game. That's always left a bad taste in my mouth about Red Armor Guy.
1:30:49 I think Shiranda is a pretty much better healer than Meru because she is much more flexible. So while Meru is good at healing, Shiranda is exellent. She is way more flexible with her healing having one option to fully heal a character or revive it, having one option to heal all for 50 % and revive fallen members, and one spell to deal big aoe dmg while also healing party. And I actually think gates of heaven is better than rainbow breath. You hardly ever need to cure status problems, but you may need to revive party members while also healing others. Also the mana difference is negligible since you can restore mana easily or just wear magical hat and/or amulet on shiranda. However I do agree that Meru is much better otherwise, and overall better because of that. She is kinda broken in most playstyles. BUT I think Meru is kinda bad in a challenge playthrough where she does not get access to protective gear, rose storm or enough attacks to obtain her final addition. She is simply too weak physically, and dies to everything in such a playthrough. Without some grinding, and without the necessary setup I do believe Meru is the worst character in the game.
@@tantacles I wasn't thinking of a challenge run using only one character, I was thinking of a challenge run using 3 characters. I see in your video that Meru has like 4900 hp, maxed perky step and using speed up, speed down etc. In my last challenge playthrough I had Dart, Haschel and Meru. Meru had only 1700 hp against the final boss and was almost one shot with multiple of his attacks. She also didnt have time to learn Perky step so I was stuck with either cat's cradle at lvl 3-4 or going back to hammer spin for extra sp gain. It was a very tight fight because she is so frail, and deals so little damage physically. I ended up weaving in some attacks just to fill 1 dragoon bar in order to use her rainbow breath, and rest of the time just defending. Shiranda on the other hand would in such a playthrough have higher hp, Higher magic resist/defence, higher sp gain from her attacks and better healing. Shiranda would build 1 dragoon level from 1 attack, while Meru had to attack twice to fill her bar. Yes, Shiranda deals less damage than Meru, but tbh Dart and Haschel were the ones doing the dirty work in the Dart, Haschel & Meru challenge run.
@@tantacles Yes, but then you also max her additions and gaining perky step which I'm sure you'll agree ups her damage significantly. It also makes her overlevel so that she has an enormous health pool making her nearly invincible even though she is alone. I think that it is more powerful than a party of 3 underleveled characters that can be one shot easily, and that does not have access to their final addition.
I still consider Dart the best character. It's unfair due to the game because he's forced in but that's not his fault and nothing can change that boost.
"Shana's low hit points" Um... early game yes... but Miranda (at the same level as everyone else) has more hit points than Rose & Meru, and possibly even Haschel if I'm remembering correctly.
The moment you said Meru was more frail than Shana when you show the stats Meru is clearly more bulky than Shana before you show the under leveled save you had. ^^; I am so confused, Meru looks more bulky without any question. Meru's Defense gets countered by her HP stat so she ends up tied with Shana for worst Defense. But the HP gap is debatably enough to make Shana end up with the worst purely due to defense being defense stat AND HP stat, not one or the other alone.
Okay, now I know why rose is terrible... like truly bad. I always personally had issues getting haschel and meru's additions maxed out, the timing is weird... oh, a video about additions and their weird quirks/usefullness?
Bro why would you keep dragoon levels at 1. The game is called legend of dragoon so using their spirits are crucial for entertainment, especially during a boss fight where you think you might not make it thru or just to beat the shit out of the boss
I despaired for many years because Sony refused to offer this game on the PlayStation store, I’m even in the PS3 era and I couldn’t find my PS1. Having learned they remastered the game, I have now learned they’ve FINALLY MADE IT PURCHASABLE WHY THE FUCK DID IT TAKE SO LONG IM LITERSLLY TRYING TO GIVE YOU IDIOTS MONEY FFS So I’m super excited to play it again, because I have a PS4 I bought a couple years ago for the FF7 remake Child me had many playthroughs, yet always used the exact same party, because Shana was the waifu and Rose is just cool. So I’m pretty excited to do something new - I’m thinking Albert & Meru
Come join the tantacles discord! discord.gg/jy7VsGMFFc
I love Rose the most from her Additions to her amazing back story and remember Demon's Gate takes care of the annoying enemies that uses status effects on the Ghost ship
@@tantacles Good job I just got another PS2 and start playing again. I just honestly thought everybody else was useless. Except Dart, Rose, Albert/Lavitz, and Kongel. I always went with Kongol, Albert, Dart. I thought when Kongol came Rose was useless naive kid. Using a strategy guide appears everybody is good to a degree.
As I posted on Meru's video...I'd just like to remind people some species truths about Kongol and Meru. Kongol is the 97th Seed of the Divine Tree. (Minitos are 99), Dragons are 105, Humans are 106...and Winglies are 107. Kongol is...a bad prototype of humans, overtuned to do one thing well to the exclusion of all else. That's why he's so terrible. Meru, on the other hand, is a wingly...seed 107. She has a species advantage over the rest of the party and hence, does most things better than the rest of the party. Indeed, in a Remake, I'd have her sprout her wingly wings during Perky Step, to remind people how she got to 600% in the first place. She's actually learning to fight like a Wingly. She should also sprout her wingly wings when using item magic. Maybe late in the game, she even sprouts her wingly wings for the entire combat, and her additions change a little to deal with the fact she's now flying. Remember that winglies are the reason humans needed Dragoon forms in the first place. It's also worth noting she's the same species as Lloyd. Where Dart couldn't keep up with him, initially, Meru, in theory, can.
Ima just say that Merus definitely holding back. If you recall in the Wingly Forest the Brothers are able to flat out cast explosive fireballs at you. Winglies are supposed to be capable of using magic naturally and effectively and yet somehow Meru needs items or her dragoon form. She cant fool me. Launch them fireballs dammit!
@@MrDark086 she doesn’t want to burn her delegate dancer skin. If they did make a sequel it would be cool to see her refined all grown up and kind of a bad ass. With hints of her cheery personality still present. Wouldn’t be that crazy since she probably really does have more potential over all the other members being a young winglie
Kongol no care. Kongol has LC.
The hp drain of the soul eater can be negated by giving Dart the therapy ring.
We told him before, man. We told him.
You can give him bandit shoes and ring right? So you can still give him a speed boost at the expense of the magical greaves. Alternatively legend casque on meru or Shana makes any boss an absolute joke
Yes that would be the "not use speed boosting equipment" part.
Using soul eater with therapy ring is definetely the best option untill you get Claymore at the moon. Then the attack difference is like 30, so using an attack badge with claymore instead of souleater + therapy ring may be preferable if you want to add more magic damage to the expanse of 10 physical attack. Or maybe you want claymore + physical ring/bandit's ring/phantom shield instead of souleater+therapy ring.
The female armors are not as good physical protection through normal progression. Unless you do early money farms for that op gear wich is extremely practical but then the game is boringly easy.
Since the game has been released again I just completed another run and was pleasantly surprised by how OP Rose can become for most of the game.
She only has 4 additions, and learns her third early, midway through the second disc. Mastering that addition is all she needs to unlock her final addition well before any party member comes even close to getting a 500 damage boost. On top of that, her additions are super easy. Most other party members really get screwed over by their fast additions when you just don't have time to react to a counter. Luckily, we now have rewind, but it's still annoying to deal with.
So unless you grind, Rose will have the strongest addition until late game. And at that point, everyone is dealing massive damage, especially combined with power up and power down. Speaking of which, Meru with a Magical Hat could deal around 5K damage to normal enemies with the psy bomb. Talk about overkill.
Rose is a Jagen, there to help you out in the beginning until your other characters get up to snuff.
I can’t begin to explain how much I appreciate the Legend Of Dragoon Content you post here. From
One fellow big childhood fan to another, thanks so much for this.
Thank you! It means a lot. Just don’t be scared if you start to see some final fantasy IX content relatively soon. 🤓
"Gust of win d-dance"
-Albert
Meru might be the most powerful character, but my young self had a crush on Rose... so... I usually bring her. And Rose has a lot of really emotional scenes with Dart, which helps.
Is it wrong that I shipped Dart and Rose ever since Phantom Ship in Disc 2?
Getting lap pillow by Rose is a man's dream
An hour long Tantacles video? Time for a good pot of coffee and my favorite Legend of Dragoon TH-camr!
❤️
Seconded, cheers!
I've been thinking since you mentioned coming up with ways to "fix" some characters, and I think Rose should get a new moveset and possibly even spells after that part in the game. Could even be tied into the story as her not having to "hide" herself anymore.
NGL I was always confused why Rose's Dragon Spell doesnt summon Michael...
The dragoon spirits are made from the spirits of dead dragons, right? The darkness dragoon spirit predates Michael so it tracks that it'd be a different dragon... idk maybe I'm crazy.
I thought Rose put Michael down bc he went feral?
There's Dragon summoning magic and vassal dragon IIRC. Michael falls into the latter.
But at least Michael looks like a pterodactyl which looks like Dragon. What the heck Dark Dragon Summon is even supposed to be?
It's pretty nice to hear someone talk about Lavitz, not just Rose, in terms of the strength of weapons throughout the game. At this point (now through Rose) your analysis seems absolutely spot on. Bit strange how you didn't mention Dart's strongest weapon requires fairly frequent heals OR sacrificing one of the best accessories to mitigate its downside.
An item cap of 32 means significantly less when you realize you're killing bosses within 4 items. The Divine Dragon? No worries, a power up and 2 attack items will get it done. Shana's magic damage is just bonkers. You could use Meru, or you could have an additional 33% magic attack. In testing, I did the same battle with both to check how much Psyche Bomb X damage. Meru clocked in just under 6k. Shana was hit for 7.6k. (Both level 41, same equips.)
Kongol's usefulness swing based on equipment is hilariously large. Speed equips are additive, so he gets the most additional turns. Increasing his high HP by 50% means you get absurdly large HP amounts healed... and a Legend Casque effectively makes him invulnerable. He's a D tier character that with ideal equips rises all the way to A tier... in a game with two, arguably three S tier characters. (You can only pick two for a party anyways.)
Meru is also garbage physically for the vast majority of the game. Her best addition until level 30 has a multiplier of 202 WHEN MAXED. You need to slog through 80 uses for still bad damage. You also need to grind out 80 uses of Cool Boogie doing Shana-tier damage, along with 80 uses of Double Smack doing just a bit better than Shana-tier damage. She will also not out physical DPS Haschel. Not only is his speed fairly close to Meru's, his damage is significantly higher. Shana also has significantly higher item DPS, so Meru DOES actually end up as the best jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none. She's not the best choice for either niche.
It makes sense that Albert and meru are best together because you can't have rain without the air and you can't have a sea breeze without water. They are best friends in nature forever in sync and considered equals. And my two favorite elements
watching this was fascinating and very informative! Though despite how bad "Shana" is, I still hold the belief that she's the best teammate for Meru lol
the reason for this is that Dragoon "Shana" frees up Meru's Dragoon Turns and MP for more attack spells (unless you get hit with Status Effects), and "Shana" making great use of the Attack Items that passively fill up your inventory frees up more turns for Meru to grind out her Additions. you're probably gonna save most Attack Items for bosses anyway, so "Shana's" lower damage during random encounters isn't too bad, and getting Psyche Bomb X late game lets her wipe out entire enemy groups while Meru powers up her Perky Step. Her Dragoon Form focusing so aggressively on healing is absolutely detrimental as you really don't need THAT much healing, but at least her and Meru in your team means you don't need to stock up on Healing Rains and revivals as much lol
Though easily "Shana's" biggest "flaw" is that you're stuck lugging Dart around for the entire game when even Rose would do his job better and more, and most people are gonna want "Lavitz" or especially Haschel to make up for the everything Dart lacks.
I had no idea this game had been remastered! Thank you so much!
I lol'd at the part where Haschel says "your face needs a smash." Keep up the awesome work. I'm even watching your videos of games I haven't played because they are that entertaining.
Thank you!
Love these analysis breakdowns! Much thanks and appreciations ^_^
I would take and read off the security code on the back of Bill Gates’ credit card if it meant incentivizing Sony enough to give its fans a true remake or remaster of this game.
Gotta love a fellow Dragoon. Amazing videos as always.
Yo @Tantacles, make a video about the best equipment/loadout for each character
Quick math thing for Meru - it would be *divided* by 1.5, not -50%. -33% from that total is about 696, which I think is pretty close. Her stat guide lists 646 hp for level 20.
Kongol could’ve cured and inflicted status effects in his dragoon it’d make him a unique utility maybe 1. Gold Guard - auto guard heals for three turns and lift status effects for grounded characters. 2. Mother Nature- cast poison fear confuse and lowers strength of all enemies for 2 turns. Gold Dragon- raises attack of all ground characters 3 turns lifts status effects and triples money gain at end of battle.
love the energy and content, thank you
I wrote an essay about why Rose is slept on lol, if anybody's interested:
An overlooked aspect of Rose is that there are dupes of the speed items for the ladies but there aren't any for the fellas. This means you can put the bandit item combo on Dart and still have 2 speed boosted party members. She also has balanced defenses despite her middling figures, meaning she usually won't get one-shot by high end magic attacks like Albert/Kongol will. All in all I think she's actually second in slot for the attacker role only behind Haschel. What really puts her over the edge is that she gets access to her dragoon armor in Zenebatos, giving you relatively early and low-resource access to the Faust fight with a Rose/Meru party as opposed to a Meru/Haschel or Meru/Albert party, since you'll only need silk scarves to survive the magic attacks instead of legend casques. All in all I think she edges out Haschel until disc 4, but is stronger through disc 2 and still competes with him enough afterwards to justify running her instead of Haschel alongside Meru.
I hope you watched the rose only challenge of the game! Rose slayed.
This is the LOD X RPDR crossover I never knew I needed!
Because of the emphasis on ASStral Drain, I always thought she was saying "a**hole drain" when I was a child 😳
Oh, this is a compilation of all the characters.
If the I could get my emulator, or PS3 to play this damn game, I would be 100% glued to my screen. I'd probably binge grabbing EVERYTHING and just love as much as I loved it in my younger years. So much love for this game. And the universe keeps slapping my hand saying "NO!" whenever I try to play it. :(
I think now the PS4 or PS5 port is the best way to play. I managed to nab it before the PS3 store went down. But anyway, on PS5 it's only $10.
@@tantacles Thanks for the heads up! I've been trying to play this game again all year. But nothing works. Here's hoping this will work. Thanks again.
It worked! Now I can live my ultimate dream of using rose/Kongole. Thanks again!!
YES!
I will never get over the fact that the handsome boy Lavitz died so early in the game.
Just found this channel and dawg you are the video game nerd i wanted to be as a child.
And now I’m an adult child. And I’m still that same nerd.
❤️❤️
How about a video for each characters best equips/secondary? Maybe what equips depending on party use. Idk lol but keep up the good videos!
Just wrapped up my 15th playthough of Dragoon last night.
Dart/Meru/Haschel
Speed boosting equipment all 'round, made use of Speed Up/Down, Power Up/Down for the later boss fights.
Everything melted. :D
The Final boss was unable to do anything, it was brutal.
that set up is "Mamma mia" level. love it
I'm currently going through a playthrough, just got to disc three and working on getting Meru Perky step. Only need one more level to get her next to last addition. I really want it before the fight with the Grand Jewel. Yes, I've been grinding like crazy. I've even got Bandit's Rings for every male. Took forever to get those extra two. I'm going to end up with all the Legend armours, but I'm not gonna use them unless something goes south. But with as much as I've been grinding, I don't see that happening. Hahaha.
@@paulhiggins6433 I gave Haschel the Legend Casque because I had amassed 10k gold, wasn't really necessary.
Meru with the Dragon Helm for extra health.
Perky step is an absolute joy to pull off, I never got tired of it. Don't forget to grab the Dancer's Ring+ Shoes for Meru. The total of 110 speed+ speed up is obscene.
@@meenerman7693 no kidding. The legend gear, all of it, isn't really required for anything but Faust. Just speed gear, and the Dragon Helm on the squishy character, namely Meru. I currently have 3 Casques in my inventory, with 45k ish gold saved for the Armor of Legend, and will buy 3 sets when I get there. Just in case things go bad. Not that anything should.
Perky Step and Omni Sweep are my favorite additions. Definitely worth the effort. Love them.
Here's an idea for a Kongol fix. Give him a magic spell that doubles, or increases the speed of the party for 30-50. Fixes his speed weakness.
And honestly, if they'd implement that, they should switch it with the effects of Rose/Blossom Storm so Kongol gets the defensive.
And fix Shana's attack. Give her bows that hit twice, or a HUGE increase to weapon damage. Detonate Arrow does hit for all targets but doesn't generate extra SP
Detonate arrow is such a strange item.
Here's an attack all bow thats only useful for one phase in the final boss...if you dont want to chuck magic items.
I heard there were plans to give shana additions but they scrapped it.
That would be good but I think element wise it would make since to give the wind dragoon speed buff and earth the defense boost spell
Edit: you said that in the post 🤦♂️ great minds think alike 👍
It's gotta be named sandstorm
@@meenerman7693 it would have been cool if Miranda had additions and Shana didn’t. That would have been a nifty surprise.
@@russellg9622 only if in a way they gave shana an addition boost to MAGIC attacks.
Actually, a dragoon addition for MP attacks is entirely possible why has no one thought of this
I love watching your Legend of Dragoon videos 😁
All I want is for my final boss fight battle party to be Dart, Shana, and Lloyd.
Damn 1 hour video about dragoons :) i aint got shit to do now anyway, gonna get some food before i start watching it XD
BAHA XD ok ok...Dori and the chicken got me pretty good lol.
Strategy Party-Lavitz, Meru
Fun Party-Meru, Rose
Challenge Party-Shana, Kongol
Favorite Spell-Demons Gate
Favorite Charecter-Meru
Pluck, Marry, Kill-Rose, Meru, Kongol
Favorite Food-Tacos (Not relevant. Im just hungry.)
TACOS
Rose is basically a Fire Emblem pre-promote.
Great videos. Would you put together an ideal level guide for certain stages?
Love this idea
I neeeeed more legend of the dragoon content!
You must love the video I posted yesterday…
I'm actually curious of your analysis with Dart's Divine Dragon form. I know you get it so late in the game, but I thought it would be nice to cover it.
I did cover the spells in my spell tier list!
To thay game, i gives healing fart and a black period / 10
Amazing comment, I give it a rose/rose
Making Konhol more viable? Easy.
Instead of using the magic att. Status for dmg calculation of his dragoon spells, give the single target spell and the dragoon all enemies attacking spell the effect of :dmg calculation is based on strength Stat but does magic dmg.. (dmg output is increased while staying a physical wall)
Second: His second spell should be a status conditioning spell for the party, three turns of increased strength, phys. Def. and Speed. (he would stay the physical wall, that's his character trade, get faster, but not in comparison to the group, it would simply provide great utility that has a barrier caused due to the time span, mp cap and dragoon spell, so it is actually required to use mp for it)..
The end result would have been a great physical attacker and wall, with a way around his measly mag. Stats in at least dragoon form and a pillar for buffs that is not invincible. Viable for the group, everyone would welcome the boosts, but it actually gives a super nice synchronizing effect with Rose, Meru and Shana. The boys on the other hand would gain a specialty boost and be beatsticks.
So his gameplay would go as follows:
Come into combat, let Meru/Shana/Haschel buff the required Character (Dart, Kongol or herself/himself) or debuff enemy. Repeat with Darts with focus on the required strategic plan for the boss.
Go with Kongol into spec. Dragoon mode and use the second spell, for Pillar setup strat. in completion. Go to town with Meru/Shanas spells on enemy, Hashel with physical att. and/or use Dart as a follow up corrector (for fights against multiple enemies or simply dmg increase.)
Next step: Click one of the Spells Kongol as a dragoon uses to deal massive dmg.
As the other team members are faster, they get run out of Kongols buff faster, whereas he stays in dragoon mode and can in his second to last move set up the buff spell again and Fire of on his 5th. Dragoon turn the last spell (again for massive dmg, while the two other party members correct strategically (gather sp, use consumables, att. spells).
After that he would have 2 turns remain to deal physical dmg and gather sp, what would gave him at least the potential to get the combo running again, deal less but considerable dmg to finish the enemy or simply stall enemy to regroup and gather momentum again for an additional wave.
That's how u build an Earthquake Dragoon, with landslide effect. First a little rumble to build the scenery, than the massive earthquake, get the avalanche rolling, topple enemy and burry him under the rubble, second quake to shred through the lasting chunk of HP, use the momentum to dance on his grave.
If enemy digs his way out, do it again and use your party to gain another stack of stones.
It seems broken, but his magical weakness, lack of speed and the reliability on the comrades actual makes it as fair as possible.
If the enemy disrupt the build up, kills a buffed character or Kongol as the pillar, the strategy crumbles down to fractures and isn't solid anymore.
Fix Shana/Miranda.. Easiest part: give both of them just one addition. Barrage of arrows.
For every landed addition step, fire another arrow, give every landed arrow 20 sp at maximum strength (5 at minimum) and a dmg output of 250% when completed by 5 hits added a final six one. Her sp gain goes from 5 to 30 at the lowest, to 20 to 120 at the highest. Add the item buff of 50% into that and she would gain 180 ( actually reasonable) sp in one turn, In two turns a good 3 Stage dragoon lvl acquired for both scenarios, but with the use of the explosive arrows a nice non mp or consumable needed light attack on all enemies from an underwhelming att. Stat., that has at least usage.
Fix Rose: give her better weapons dammit or fix the degeneration of the Stat points through leveling. Poor Rose bloomed long ago, the age takes his toll.
My favorite characters in terms of personalities and design are Meru, Kongol, Dart and Rose. My favorite characters in terms of gameplay are mostly Dart, Rose and Lavitz/Albert. I mostly use Meru for magic based emergencies, at the risk of her dying due to her low hp states, and Kongol in case of a difficult boss fight like Lenus and the Dragon Block Staff Crystal. Despite the fact that I find Shana annoying and her romance with Dart completely cringe, I used her during the Ghost Knight boss fight which was annoying as hell.
I appreciate the jujube reference for kongol 😂😂😂
I like Shana and ALBERT/ Lavitz and meru
but would’ve liked to see the black monster be a bit more…monster I guess she’s been around for 11k years she should be untouchable unless they are saying she went around astral draining everyone with hardly any experience to glean from it. As for speed you’d think wind would be the fastest or one of the fastest elements…
First ^^ Hehe. Yey more dragoon shtuff
Albert and Rose are my squad.
Hey Tantacles, do you think its possible to have a ruined save file by being under leveled?
Given how bosses give gobs of exp I'm not sure if its possible, but have wondered about it.
Not really. If everyone dies except 1, your alive character gets all the exp, and all offfield characters get half, so you end up being MORE leveled!
Kongol is my favorite character 🫡
My one issue with Merus’ character build is that she is NOT a Human, but rather a Wingly. This means she is supposed to have the ability to use MAGIC naturally, without needing to rely on items or Dragoon Spirits, like every other Wingly character in the game seems to be able to do, they even point this out in the storyboard. But instead, she does not have access to any magic, naturally, and she isn’t even the strongest spellcaster, so I don’t see how that supposed to make sense. But again that’s just my one issue with her character build. It would be awesome if they would rectify that by giving her the ability to use a spell similar to recall, from breath of fire, that allows her to randomly cast level, one magic spells of each element, just to say that she is in fact, capable of magic like the rest of her species.
Well… meru might be a wingly but shana holds within her the soul of the ultimate god sooooooo
@@tantacles yeah, I thought of that too, shame that Shana never learns to tap into that “Divine Light” power of hers at will. Maybe if an OVERDRIVE system was added to the game or something like a DESPERATION ATTACK, where a special attack or ability is triggered when a combatants is less than 20% of their max HP?
I do believe it is mentioned in the game that Winglies only have a fraction of the magical power they held during the Dragon Campaign. Which is further reinforced by the Faust optional boss text by Dart, whom is amazed by the vast difference in power that Faust had in comparison to the other Winglies
the game operates on a eight-elements system. having her doing a random any-element attack is illogical.
@@RoseNZieg and yet Lenus, the former Sea Dragoon and also a Wingly could cast spells of various elements, so I feel Meru having a similar, if not weaker, ability is that much of stretch nor “illogical ”
On my 1st playthrough, Rose is my favorite character it’s so heartbreaking that her stats fall short later on. What should i focus on making her better? I’m also collecting all the stardust.
Speed items and the dragon helm!
@@tantacles thank you!! And omg lavitz just died :( i guess i should’ve seen that coming with all your videos talking about albert/lavitz. Fml does this mean shana dies too & i get this Miranda person(dont tell me lol) so sad i liked lavitz
Trying to avoid spoilers but I slip up sometimes…
@@tantacles is it possible for you to make a video on the best equipment for party members? lol i thought i searched everywhere before reaching disc 2 but i see people on old gamefaqs saying you can get a "legend casque" & other OP items. How the hell are people getting so much money or finding these items? i tried to YT best equipment & best builds for legend of dragoon & i don't see any. Sorry for such the long message my friend lol
ULTIMATE Legend of Dragoon Equipment and Build Guide
th-cam.com/video/DJoMdADoCjA/w-d-xo.html
As much as people say Kongol needs some kind of defensive spell and not Lavitz... What if Dart could heal? Having a forced character be a healer isn't so bad and would shift some of the power away from Shana and Meru (but not Rose sorry lol).
also you should be able to summon the Super Duper Dragon at some point in the game. That's always left a bad taste in my mouth about Red Armor Guy.
1:30:49
I think Shiranda is a pretty much better healer than Meru because she is much more flexible. So while Meru is good at healing, Shiranda is exellent. She is way more flexible with her healing having one option to fully heal a character or revive it, having one option to heal all for 50 % and revive fallen members, and one spell to deal big aoe dmg while also healing party. And I actually think gates of heaven is better than rainbow breath. You hardly ever need to cure status problems, but you may need to revive party members while also healing others. Also the mana difference is negligible since you can restore mana easily or just wear magical hat and/or amulet on shiranda.
However I do agree that Meru is much better otherwise, and overall better because of that.
She is kinda broken in most playstyles.
BUT I think Meru is kinda bad in a challenge playthrough where she does not get access to protective gear, rose storm or enough attacks to obtain her final addition. She is simply too weak physically, and dies to everything in such a playthrough.
Without some grinding, and without the necessary setup I do believe Meru is the worst character in the game.
Have you watched my meru only run? Because I think in a challenge playthrough meru is the same as shana but about 100 times better on the final boss.
@@tantacles I wasn't thinking of a challenge run using only one character, I was thinking of a challenge run using 3 characters. I see in your video that Meru has like 4900 hp, maxed perky step and using speed up, speed down etc.
In my last challenge playthrough I had Dart, Haschel and Meru. Meru had only 1700 hp against the final boss and was almost one shot with multiple of his attacks. She also didnt have time to learn Perky step so I was stuck with either cat's cradle at lvl 3-4 or going back to hammer spin for extra sp gain. It was a very tight fight because she is so frail, and deals so little damage physically. I ended up weaving in some attacks just to fill 1 dragoon bar in order to use her rainbow breath, and rest of the time just defending.
Shiranda on the other hand would in such a playthrough have higher hp, Higher magic resist/defence, higher sp gain from her attacks and better healing. Shiranda would build 1 dragoon level from 1 attack, while Meru had to attack twice to fill her bar. Yes, Shiranda deals less damage than Meru, but tbh Dart and Haschel were the ones doing the dirty work in the Dart, Haschel & Meru challenge run.
The thing is… I didn’t do any grinding in my meru only run. Just killed bosses.
@@tantacles Yes, but then you also max her additions and gaining perky step which I'm sure you'll agree ups her damage significantly. It also makes her overlevel so that she has an enormous health pool making her nearly invincible even though she is alone. I think that it is more powerful than a party of 3 underleveled characters that can be one shot easily, and that does not have access to their final addition.
I mean Shanna hp is only lower because of how long it takes for her levels to catch up after you know what
I still consider Dart the best character. It's unfair due to the game because he's forced in but that's not his fault and nothing can change that boost.
"Shana's low hit points" Um... early game yes... but Miranda (at the same level as everyone else) has more hit points than Rose & Meru, and possibly even Haschel if I'm remembering correctly.
Rose is still best girl especially since she can one hit kill annoying minor enemies with her Demon's Gate
This may be a dumb question, but does Rose Storm stack? I don't think it does, but that's why I'm asking.
Doesn’t stack, sadly.
Someone really pour gold fish snacks into the toilet and flushed it. Wow this country really is spoiled
Just stock footage!!! Not me
White mage for life!!!!
The moment you said Meru was more frail than Shana when you show the stats Meru is clearly more bulky than Shana before you show the under leveled save you had. ^^; I am so confused, Meru looks more bulky without any question. Meru's Defense gets countered by her HP stat so she ends up tied with Shana for worst Defense. But the HP gap is debatably enough to make Shana end up with the worst purely due to defense being defense stat AND HP stat, not one or the other alone.
So true! Thanks for the feedback.
Okay, now I know why rose is terrible... like truly bad. I always personally had issues getting haschel and meru's additions maxed out, the timing is weird... oh, a video about additions and their weird quirks/usefullness?
Late Game Lavtiz. -_-
What about Miranda?
What ABOUT her? She's basically a palette swap of Shana.
Wow. Comments section with guidelines. I miss the wild west of the internet.
You missed a spoiler fix a bit before 10 minutes
Dang thank you
Tell me where you got that snazzy shirt, and I'll subscribe. 😎
In which segment?
@@tantaclesThe black one with the UFO's on it from the Dart segment.
Edit: Oof, typos.
I believe I got it from a place called ragstock in Ann Arbor, MI
@@tantacles Thank you! You sir, just sold a shirt and gained a subscriber.
Lookin' forward to seeing more of this quality content. 🤙
Bro why would you keep dragoon levels at 1. The game is called legend of dragoon so using their spirits are crucial for entertainment, especially during a boss fight where you think you might not make it thru or just to beat the shit out of the boss
I rarely use the transformations as they've always seemed underwhelming to me.
Dragon. Goon
DRA (rhymes with ray) goon. Dragoon. Emphasis on the A
Nice try, Lloyd
Shit you got me....
I despaired for many years because Sony refused to offer this game on the PlayStation store, I’m even in the PS3 era and I couldn’t find my PS1. Having learned they remastered the game, I have now learned they’ve FINALLY MADE IT PURCHASABLE WHY THE FUCK DID IT TAKE SO LONG IM LITERSLLY TRYING TO GIVE YOU IDIOTS MONEY FFS
So I’m super excited to play it again, because I have a PS4 I bought a couple years ago for the FF7 remake
Child me had many playthroughs, yet always used the exact same party, because Shana was the waifu and Rose is just cool. So I’m pretty excited to do something new - I’m thinking Albert & Meru