[DS] Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

I'm a little bit after getting the boat (hit up the village on the Great Plains), and I love the game so far. I've played it a ton lately, especially with the power outages I've been getting due to storms, and I just wish there was some wi-fi multiplayer instead of local only.

The quests unlocked via the DQVC shop are apparently only available in the post-game, and treasure maps aren't nearly as plentiful as I was hoping. Then again, I just got my first treasure map from an NPC in a fairly early dungeon that I'd passed over and the boss in that grotto beat me to a pulp and spat on my corpse. It was partly because my main character was only level 10ish after a class change, but mostly because he was too heavy a hitter. If that's how strong the lowest of the grotto bosses is then they may just be withholding maps until later.

My party is made up of:
- Main character - Minstrel -> Thief
- Martial Artist -> Armamentalist
- Priest
- Mage

I may try to take pictures like Nutty later so that I can demonstrate my poor naming skills as well. None are even close to as frightening as Bart.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

That's good news. I know they've said in the past that treasure maps would come out on the DQVC, but I've yet to get any to appear on mine. As Nutty said, the closest participating EB to me was about an hour and a half away. I'm not going to drive out into the wilds of Tennessee just to get a single map.

Pretty neat that they've used the two main story bosses from DQ3 (Baramos and Zoma) as treasure map bosses. I've just finished Fygg hunting and am onto the next leg of the story, but I'm sure Zoma would still crush me. I might give Equinox another try soon.

Originally Posted by Dagget

I've been grinding my nuts off trying to level and gear out around Bloomingdale. I probably should try to unlock some of those classes but they just seem a little far fetch for me. Especially the metal slime one

The metal slime quest to unlock the armamentalist class isn't all that difficult once you try to do it. It isn't easy and is mostly luck over not having the metal slimes run away, but it worked out surprisingly quickly for me. DQ IX's visible encounters make it easy to find metal slime encounters, so these things aren't too bad. I've got all classes unlocked except for Superstar and Sage now, and I've heard Sage is unlocked in the final dungeon and Superstar in post-game.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Paladin is incredibly easy to unlock. Ranger is kind of tricky, but not bad.

Oh, and if you have fun with the quest to unlock the Armamentalist then you'll love the skill rank 30 spear quest.

Spoiler:

You have to kill 3 Metal Medleys (the metal slime stack) using Pressure Pointer. Not by having the 1 damage from Pressure Pointer deal the finishing blow, but by having the ability actually work and instant kill the Metal Medley. On the plus side, they aren't quite as prone to running as normal metal slimes and you get plenty of exp for your trouble.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

What Dancer book? First I've heard of anything like that unless you just mean a bookshelf that had alchemy recipes for the Dancer Costume and such.

I read that after a point Deftness doesn't have much of an impact on stealing, and that your level in relation to the enemy is more important. Either way, stealing is a pain in the ass.

I finally managed to beat that level 1 grotto boss, Equinox, the other day. He gave me a map to a level 8 grotto where the enemies were even easier, but the of course the boss was much harder. My priest learned multiheal this morning, so I may be able to take him down now.

Also, we've got a new visitor this week. Guess this means they'll be bi-weekly. I laughed pretty hard at the "hat" this one gives.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

This visitor does indeed have 3 items to give. It's still the same using birthday/job to get them too.

The Sharp Shades only came up twice in my shop, but I did grab a pair the second time. I've got my mage wearing them, since they were pretty good in addition to looking hilarious.

Most amazing jew boots

Oh, that.

Spoiler:

That quest only results in learning a party trick.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Pretty sure the only unlockable classes are Ranger, Gladiator, Armamentalist, Paladin, Superstar, and Sage. I read that Superstar is post-game only and the Sage quest requires a monster in the final dungeon.

The DQVC updates daily at 8am GMT (4am EST). If you mean when the weekly themes change and visitors arrive, it's apparently on Fridays since a new visitor arrived today and the sale theme changed to slime apparel. Be sure to grab Slime Crowns since they were used in some high level alchemy recipes in DQ8. I wouldn't be surprised if they're required for stuff like liquid metal equipment in 9 too.

FELIPE NO

Angelo is a priest. Paladin really would've made more sense, but I figure they may be trying to stick to base classes. At least for early visitors.

Aw, I want to have my ass handed to me by Estark. I skimmed a list of "Legacy" bosses last night and they seem to have at least one from every game. Considering I still can't beat a powered-up Slime Knight who calls in King Cureslimes it'll be awhile before I could take down any former final bosses.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Lucky. I bought a Slime Shield the first day, but I only need one of those. I'd love to get some ice crystals to help make some Enchanted Stones.

Most amazing jew boots

Speaking of endgame content, how about those grottos? Tons of them, and once you get up to the high level ones they can take forever to thoroughly explore for chests since the thief's abilities don't work in the one place you need them to. So here's a handy tool that I came across which makes finding what you need significantly easier, and here's the thread it came from that gives a rundown of chest rank contents and a description of how to use that Japanese site.

Essentially, you put in the name and level of the map, select its map coordinates (clicking on them brings up a picture of the location), and it tells you how many of each rank chest is in the grotto. Not only that, but you can bring up a crude map of every floor indicating the locations of the stairs and chests. It does take some of the fun out of exploration, but some of the grottos are so huge and empty that there comes a time when you just want to find some Metal Slime equipment.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Getting higher level grotto maps can be a pain in the ass since it's essentially random with a formula to determine just how random. It goes off of your main character's highest level class, the number of times he's revocated in one class multiplied by five, and the level/quality of the map you just completed. Then there's a fairly wide +/- margin. So basically, level up your main character and keep doing your highest level grottos.

I was stuck in the 20's and then the 40's forever, but one map can shoot you up 20 levels. My highest maps are 81 and 83 at the moment. I really want to get a Greygnarl map so that I can get the Dragonlord legacy map off of him. In the meantime I'm just raiding for Metal Slime gear (need those damn sollerets for one of the 2 non-DLC quests I have left) and rare boss drops since I figured out the Hoimi trick this morning. Not as hard as I'd originally thought.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

If Baramos beats your ass then don't bother trying other legacy bosses like Estark. He's by far the weakest, though he has a pretty crazy critical hit rate to balance that out. So far I've taken down Baramos, Murdaw, and Dhoulmagus. According to that grotto calculator Greygnarl is the boss of the map I just got, so I'll be able to fight the Dragonlord, Psaro, and Nimzo before having to wait on DLC quests.

Oh, and if you think Nemean is a bitch with Disruptive Wave you'll have fun with Sir Sanguinus and Excalipurr. They like to cast it pretty much every turn.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Erdrick's Sword is one of the strongest, but I find the Uber Falcon Blade is much better at dishing out damage. Uber Falcon Blade + Falcon Slash + Oomph + Frost Fource = 4 powerful hits all at once. Not to mention if you get lucky and tension boost up to 50 or 100 with the Gladiator's coup de grace, because then each of those 4 attacks will do around 1600 damage.

Be sure to get the Aliahan clothes and boots from Baramos too. They're some of the strongest defensive equipment I've found. For some reason the Somnia gear from Murdaw and the Trodain gear from Dhoulmagus are both slightly weaker. Even the Alefgard Boots from the Dragonlord are a point or two weaker than Aliahan Boots.

I was speaking idiomatically.