Boring Sunday and a Tactical thought - AA's and sub-80 teams

So I have recently re-rolled as Covert mostly thanks to the clan I am joined up with, and the massive learning I've gotten from our fearless leader (he learned me real nice...mmm...so nice) has helped me form a damn nice AND cheap team -- Lind, Mesh, Quetz, Sky, Jupiter. Took quite a bit of EP but I maxed Lind to (20) and I have been able to climb the weekly Honor Point rankings in short order....during a BP event HELPS A LOT.

I recently came into the ownership of a Terra+ and it should be 150 in the next week, but this has gotten me thinking about where to go next.

I am also working over the New Year holidays and will be BORED to tears, so I'm doing some theorycrafting and would love inputs on this thread.

I have stopped skilling up my team and just saving EP, as my initial plan was to focus on a post-80 team of Wingarm, DoD, Terra, with perhaps Lind and Mesh, but now with Vanity added...that's another huge AA winged wyrm to add for a stupid strong covert team to go after Impulse teams. Basically I understand that Impulse is the largest playerbase so why not make a team that can go after them, more targets.

Issue with all this, Wingarm is not cheap, DoD is more EP as well, and Vanity is brand new so no idea where it will fall for EP but an AA winged wyrm with ID will fetch a fairly huge EP sum I'm guessing. SO for now these are waaaay down the road plans unless I can hover on chat/AH and do some flipping (thus far only one sweet deal i've made, ended up with a 2nd covert winged wyrm team).

So I was wondering about the Sub-80 game. It is primarily populated by A+ teams that focus on Attack, and striking first with maxed Agility, correct? I have only been hit by a few people, and it seems few and far between to find people at my level (40) who know the game and have a fleshed out team with high skills. I was wondering about creating a hybrid AA+/A+ team that I can use to defend from attacks by people under lvl 80 who may attack me.

My theory is to have a team of Terra+, Venus+, Neptune+, flanked by Quetz+ and Mesh+. Would this essentially make the team attack any basic A+ team even with Agi(20) letting my 3 AAs get a first strike, possibly taking out 3 of the opposing team members?

Or am I waaaay off base here? I know this is not the way the post 80 game goes, but I'm just playing with ideas here.

Also trying to see if I should BOTHER maxing out my Sky's IPA, or just search out an Upper Attack Spirit for Terra+ since it will be part of my end-game team.

I've messed with the bestiary, and the overall stats NOT adding in skills are not terribly far off from my current team to the 'theory' team, but upping IPA to 20 makes a huge difference in the final attack numbers (duh).

There is the concept of the three Planet AAs, and since I'm covert adding in the casts, probably Assassin/Hallucination, the final numbers are attack that is respectable (55k/73k) and defense/health around 62k+. Although that loses the Agi20, so even with innate AA Agi, against an A+ team with maxed AGI it would probably lose...

Apologies for rambling.

TL:DR - While below 80 for 40 more levels, worth it to make a hybrid AA+/A+ team? Or just max out current A+ team?

the under 80 game is broken up into two sub games:

the 1-50 and the 50-80 games

1-50 players are generally idiots, you can easily dominate with a simple max level team(even without combos) with just a bit of agi. the 80 bp 2 cast/3 planet AA+ team will be impossible for players here to beat.

50-80, now here things get interesting. combos become progressively more common and people start using agi, and skilling it. by the time you're on the doorstep of 80, you'll want to have one of the basic A+ teams in the formation guide just to survive. the 80 bp AA+ team gets tricky to use here, though if you skill change them all, they will have a better time. upper defense and lower attack are the spirits you want to have if you want this team to do well.


in both games, hybrid AA+/A+ teams are potent, though toward the end of the 50-80 game they are less potent mainly because by this time you should have good enough agi and ipa/ded to be able to go first and/or do lots of damage to the AA+(s).

since you're level 40 already, i'd just jump on a A+m(20) team asap if i were you. UNLESS you do the hybrid AA+/A+ team properly, at least 2 AA+s and keeping at least 2 combos, three if you can manage it(guild/species at least, guild/species/[winged | bp] if you can manage it).

Armitaage wrote:in both games, hybrid AA+/A+ teams are potent, though toward the end of the 50-80 game they are less potent mainly because by this time you should have good enough agi and ipa/ded to be able to go first and/or do lots of damage to the AA+(s).

since you're level 40 already, i'd just jump on a A+m(20) team asap if i were you. UNLESS you do the hybrid AA+/A+ team properly, at least 2 AA+s and keeping at least 2 combos, three if you can manage it(guild/species at least, guild/species/[winged | bp] if you can manage it).

I guess I'm just looking ahead and trying to spend time/ep wisely. I'm already at an A+m team but maxing all the skills to (20) seems like a waste if I'm going to evolve beyond it buying AA+ etc...especially with the skill-ups failing at an absurd rate these days. Currently IPA(, ImpD(4), DemonD(2), DEA(4)...since those would be ditched I'm guessing my EP would be better spent trying to obtain the AAs I want...but everything is so costly

So IF I go Hybrid, I should look for a way to save up for ... say Wingarm+ and a skill of DEA or IPA for Terra+ and stack those two into my current A+ team. That would keep covert/winged/wyrm up and running at least.

I really feel like I'm rambling in these posts... boredom at work can do that. Plus I need more coffee...

So... 16bp team is viable now, but skill spirits would be expensive as well? Of that team I'd lose 4 of them going into a fleshed out post-80 AA team, so this seems like a waste of time/ep...??

Hybrid A+/AA+ is doable, already have a traditional A+ team and it is working, only need one skill spirit for Terra+, and somehow get at LEAST one more covert winged wyrm AA+.

By the time I get to a full-bore AA+ team of DoD/Vanity/Wingarm/Terra there may be a 5th winged wyrm released...but this is waaaay down the road.

Scratch102 wrote:
I guess I'm just looking ahead and trying to spend time/ep wisely. I'm already at an A+m team but maxing all the skills to (20) seems like a waste if I'm going to evolve beyond it buying AA+ etc...especially with the skill-ups failing at an absurd rate these days. Currently IPA(, ImpD(4), DemonD(2), DEA(4)...since those would be ditched I'm guessing my EP would be better spent trying to obtain the AAs I want...but everything is so costly

So IF I go Hybrid, I should look for a way to save up for ... say Wingarm+ and a skill of DEA or IPA for Terra+ and stack those two into my current A+ team. That would keep covert/winged/wyrm up and running at least.

I really feel like I'm rambling in these posts... boredom at work can do that. Plus I need more coffee...

So... 16bp team is viable now, but skill spirits would be expensive as well? Of that team I'd lose 4 of them going into a fleshed out post-80 AA team, so this seems like a waste of time/ep...??

Hybrid A+/AA+ is doable, already have a traditional A+ team and it is working, only need one skill spirit for Terra+, and somehow get at LEAST one more covert winged wyrm AA+.

By the time I get to a full-bore AA+ team of DoD/Vanity/Wingarm/Terra there may be a 5th winged wyrm released...but this is waaaay down the road.

actually, i wouldn't say it's a waste raising skills, you'll be surprised how useful it is. i'll tell you what isn't worth skilling very far, though: Jupiter+. given aforementioned fail rates and the cost of demon down, it's just not worth it going very far. i'd go to demon down(4), maybe (5), but then just stop. on the other hand, some of the toughest battles i've been into have been against maxed guild downs and other skills, even before level 80.

getting skill spirits for the 80 bp AA+ team doesn't really strike me as worthwhile if you're going to be rushing into making a full fledged AA+ team, the ep would be better spent on getting those badboy AA+s.

yes, if you're going for a hybrid, get at least one more covert winged wyrm AA+ besides terra+, this specifically has been mentioned before on this forum: for hybrid teams, try it only if you have at least 2 AA+s, and have as many combos as you can manage.


personally, i'd just spend some time raising those skills up, especially ipa and agi. high skilled monsters, even A+ rank, can be sold for some decent ep when you badly need a boost, even with better monsters being released to supersede them.

I was worried this was going to be the outcome. Was kinda hoping for a nice discussion on the pro/con of different setups but TBH there really is only one way to get things done in the sub-80 game... Get an A+ team, max Agility, ????, Profit.

I dread working on IPA. I really do. Going from 10 to 20 on my lindwurm was less painful than jabbing sporks in my eyes.

I do see the point though. The fights I've been having while hitting 80+ people for honor points, the only close ones are against teams with maxed DEA or DED and IPA... I still win but it is WAY closer than I'd like.

I also am GLAD I am on here, I've seen your name on the ranking lists while I scroll through looking for Sin Demon teams to attack *click* *click* *cliWAIT...no wait yeah NO* LOL

Back to farming raid crystals for skill stacks, gotta do SOMETHING while making the stupid amounts of ep needed for those AA wyrms!!

lol, you're welcome to try me if you like, i'm used to getting attacked by everybody and their dog, not that you'll have an easy time against my current team(still running sdm+, but as i don't yet have a second cannon to evolve mine, i'll just stick with the +m(20) i have), lol. all monsters in my current team are +m(20), except balrog which is +m(13), lol, so attacking me with your current team(as you described it) is just th other side of suicide, lol.

more on topic, though, there are merits to running an 80 bp AA+ team, but not really worth skilling them if you're making a mad dash for a proper AA+ team, lol. hell, i'm actually working on a 80 bp AA+ team myself(rot+, hall+, venus+, terra+, and neptune+), lol, but then i've already worked out a battle plan, lol. the only real con(though it's a weighty one) to the 80 bp AA+ team is the lack of skills, but it should still be more than a match for just about any A+ team w/o ipa/ded(even if they have agi, they won't last against the 80 bp AA+ team w/o ipa/ded, lol)

Armitaage I will take you up on that! In about another 10-15m I'll swing by and see if I can win a fight with you LOL

I seriously wish we had the option in here to do a practice fighting with-in the guild or something.

I also just used your party calc, and I'm shocked at the stats of my team once I get IPA to 20... sheesh like 77k attack!?!? heheh

Keep in mind, went to lvl 81 on my other account, and bailed on it, AND STILL learning all this.

It is tempting to go for the 80bp team, skill up only my Terra+ and work on things... but meh...it is something to chew on. Need to do some research on how much these skill spirits are going for, seen some stupid prices around...

EEEEP



I told my Wyrms to be nice, I said "Don't kill him we have an Alliance guyZ" but nooo...

It was pretty close though. If I had more than the one *MISS* I'm sure that would have gone badly for me.

Lol thanks for using my party calc, but I should warn you that there is ONE mistake that unfortunately I can't fix cuz I'm not a collaborator of the spreadsheet. It's the skill combo, it doesn't activate if none of the monsters has a skill. So the form's def is actually about 56k, not 61k, lol. Still, toss just a dea and ipd spirits and it won't be easy to beat, lol.