Disgaea 2: Max Stats Guide
Version 1.10
December 12, 2006
by Aerius
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- TABLE OF CONTENTS -
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1: Introduction ................................................... [SEC001]
2. Levelling & Maximization Guide ................................. [SEC002]
2.1  Preface to the FAQ .................................... [LMG201]
2.2  Levelling to finish the game (Lv100) .................. [LMG202]
2.3  The Dark World ........................................ [LMG203]
2.4  Capturing Lv9999 Nekomatas ............................ [LMG204]
2.5  Armsmasters and Legendaries ........................... [LMG205]
2.6  Item World Exploration ................................ [LMG206]
2.7  Legendary Rank 39 Levelling ........................... [LMG207]
2.8  Creating a Character Structure ........................ [LMG208]
2.9  Collecting Felonies ................................... [LMG209]
2.10 Unlocking Land of Carnage ............................. [LMG210]
2.11 Creating a Mothman .................................... [LMG211]
2.12 Making Perfect Items .................................. [LMG212]
2.13 Extreme Leveling ...................................... [LMG213]
2.14 Reincarnation and Specialist maxing ................... [LMG214]
2.15 Weapon and skill mastery maxing ....................... [LMG215]
2.16 Final Challenges ...................................... [LMG216]
3. Appendix ....................................................... [SEC003]
3.1 Passing Bills .......................................... [APX301]
3.2 Optional Bosses ........................................ [APX302]
3.3 Item World Strategies .................................. [APX303]
3.4 Learning Magic ......................................... [APX304]
4. Commonly Asked Questions ....................................... [SEC004]
5. Credits ........................................................ [SEC005]
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- INTRODUCTION -                                                    [SEC001]
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The purpose of this document is to explain how to achieve ‘maxed
character(s)’ in Disgaea II.  This FAQ is not meant to explain every aspect
of the game and assumes that you have a relatively solid grasp of how the
game works; the ideal user is someone who has just finished the game and is
now looking to max their characters in the least amount of time and tedium
possible.  I have also included a brief section at the start for those who
are having trouble with the last chapter and are looking for a couple
strategies to quickly beat the game.  There are many steps in power
levelling and the order is rather interchangeable for a lot of it. I have
compiled the steps in what I feel is optimal, but you can do a lot of the
steps out of order and arrive at the same result although it may come at the
cost of additional time spent.
On the topic of credit for various strategies, I can say that I have learned
a lot from some of the GameFAQ Disgaea II forum regulars.  In particular I
think the following people have made a significant contribution to helping
others and further general knowledge of the public, listed alphabetically:
BirgitteSilver, danieljrod, Darth Stalin, LordMagus, KarmaBeast, Kylain, and
tacomagic.  I generally have not attributed specific contributions because I
cannot quantify the degree of thought leadership that can be directly
inferred from forum posts.  I’d imagine most of the strategies out there are
pulled from the official guide and various excellent websites, many from the
era of the original release Japanese release.
Saying that, if you have performed significant testing on a certain aspect
of the game think you deserve special credit, I will be more than happy to
make your name more prominent in the relevant sections if you can show that
you were one of the first to prove something or think of something.  Lastly,
thanks to my friend Brad for testing various mechanics that I have not been
able to devote time to; this FAQ would not be possible without you.
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- LEVELLING & MAXIMIZATION GUIDE -
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2.1 Preface to the FAQ                                               [LMG201]
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As a preface to this FAQ, I wanted to explain some general tradeoffs and
decisions that one can make.  The extent to which you will follow this FAQ
will depend greatly on the level of your existing party and your preference
to saving time or using humans.  To elaborate a bit more, if you already
have a strong party, you can skip a lot of the earlier levelling material
and just go directly to maxing items and reincarnation.  If your party are
all relatively low level (say, sub lv250) then you need to either do the
Nekomata trick or levelling up naturally.  That brings up the point of using
monsters vs using humans.
This FAQ will teach you how to get a lv9999 monster almost immediately, and
if you use this method you will save a lot of hours of game time.
Throughout this process you always have the option of switching back to your
normal characters, but just realize that the longer you wait the faster
you’ll be able to level them up.  To quantify it, it’ll probably take you
around 8-10 hours to get to level 1500 if you try to use humans right away,
and if you wait until the end you can get to level 9999 in 30-45 minutes.
While this isn’t too bad if you are only levelling one character, fact is
you will probably need more than one multiplying your time investment.  In
15 hours you can have a monster with 1.2 million attack power, and probably
most of the high level weapons and maps, or you can have a couple guys at
level 1500.  Ultimately for a lot of people it is not really about the
destination but more about the journey, so if you are happy to make the time
trade off to use human classes then by all means go ahead.
Since using Lv9999 monsters is a significantly faster way of maxing out,
this guide is centered on using this strategy.  However, I am mindful that
some people want to use story characters and I have included some short
blurbs on what you should do at certain points if you want to switch from
monsters to humans.
2.2 Levelling to finish the game                                     [LMG202]
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This section is dedicated to those who just want to beat the game but are
having trouble with some of the later levels.  There are many ways to level
up, but I’m only going to outline what I feel is the quickest way to get to
lv100 which should realistically be all you need to beat the game.  If you
no where near beating the game (say before Episode 10) you just want to play
some random stages a couple times to gain some few levels.
I personally find Cave of Ordeals 1 (CoO1) to be the best place to gain the
necessary levels.  To unlock this special stage you need to pass the ‘Cave
of Ordeals’ bill in the Dark Assembly.  The only requirement for this is
that one of your characters must have at least 700 Mana, which shouldn’t be
a problem.  If you are having trouble passing the bill, refer to the
‘Passing Bills’ section in the Appendix.
After you unlock the Cave of Ordeals you can access the level through the
Dimension Guide.  Go into the first stage of CoO and you’ll see a bunch of
lv60 archers surrounding your base.   This stage is useful because you can
hit the geos behind the enemies to cause a combo almost killing them.
Afterwards, just mop up by dealing the killing blow with whoever you want to
gain some XP.
If you feel that you can take higher level enemies (and thus get more xp) go
pass the ‘Stronger Enemies’ bill in the Dark Assembly, though realize that
you will probably eventually need to reduce it back to kill the boss so
don’t go too crazy here.  After awhile you’ll have a nice chunk of cash that
you can use to buy some new gear for your characters, and with your buffed
characters you should be able to easily kill the boss.  It is recommended
that you do not make a clear save but instead continue your previous game
(that is, be at the point in the story where you are right before the last
boss).
Now that you have beaten the game (congratulations!) you now have the option
to unlock all the goodies in the game.  This is a process that could easily
take in excess of 100+ hours, so if you do not have the patience or really
don’t love this game *that* much, then this is probably a good time to stop
playing.
If you are committed to maxing your characters then you have a decision to
make at this point.  The logical next step in terms of difficulty is the
Dark World; if you go there now, all the stages will be fairly challenging
and you’ll come out of it at a fairly decent level.  Alternatively, if all
you want to do is to max levels and skip a lot of content then bypass the
Dark World and go directly to Capturing Lv9999 Nekomatas’ section.
Going through Dark World now will add maybe like 10 hours to your game time
but it will be fun challenging battles, but if you wait and get really
powerful characters then it will be super easy (thus boring) but it will go
a lot faster.  The choice is up to you.  Either way, I recommend that you do
*not* start a New Game+ but instead reload to a point previous to the last
battle so that you have maximum flexibility in obtaining characters and DW
maps.  As a final note, if you want to obtain one of the best items in the
game you will need to do the Dark World, so it is not a matter of whether
you will be doing it, it is a matter of when you will be doing it.
2.3 The Dark World                                                   [LMG203]
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The Dark World is essentially a mirror image of all the stages you have been
through except with one caveat.  Every stage will now have a ‘Dark Sun’ who
performs unpleasant actions on you while you fight; it varies per stage but
it can change your characters into dragons, resurrect all enemies that you
have killed, and whatnot.
There will also be an option to ‘Ascend’ and will essentially suicide one of
your guys against the Sun.  If you win, the Dark Sun will be ‘dead’ and
won’t do anything for the rest of the battle; if you lose its life bar will
go down by an amount depending on the strength of the character you sent up.
Regardless of whether you kill the Sun or not, you will not get to use
characters you Ascended for the rest of the battle.  As a side note, if you
Ascend anyone with felonies it will level up enemies on the map instead of
damaging the Sun.
The first step in doing the Dark World is to unlock it.  You can do this
simply by pressing five invisible buttons around Holt Village.  Just go to
the five locations describe and run around while mashing the X button until
you see a prompt that says ‘There is a mysterious button.  Would you like to
push it?’ to confirm that you have found it.  The buttons are:
1. Behind the character who sends you to the Dark assembly between the
broken pillar and the edge of the screen.
2. Behind the house behind the zombie character.
3. In the corner of the backside of Adell’s House (go behind the house
and press X where the walls of the house intersect)
4. Across from the Wood Golem on the little break in the wall. (Go to
the Wood Golem, and jump over the wall in the direction of the
zombie, there is a little patch of grass that you should jump to,
face the break in the wall and press X)
5. Near the Ghost, between the tree closest to the corner and the corner
After you press all five buttons a box will pop up that says ‘an eerie
shadow lurks upon Holt village’ and a new character that looks like a shadow
(Friday MKII) will appear near the ghost.  Talk to her a couple times and
she will ask if you want to want to go to the Dark World.  Answer ‘Of
course’ then ‘Yes’ to enter in a fight with her.  She is lv100 but not very
hard.  After you defeat her she will stand beside your other Dimension Guide
and will take you to the Dark World.
Once you travel to the Dark World you will notice that you only have one map
(1-1) unlocked.  In order to play the other ones you need to complete
special objectives in the Holt Village equivalent levels, some of these
objectives cannot be completed on your initial attempt of the stage, hence
why I recommended that you not start New Game+.  Below is a list of what you
need to do in each stage to unlock the Dark World equivalent.  After you
complete the objective, you will either be transported automatically to the
DW equivalent stage, or it will give you the option of going there; the word
in parenthesis following the objective should indicate how it works.
Remember to save regularly, there are a number of DW maps where you can
screw it up and basically never be able to beat it even though you have
maxed out characters.
Town Fields
1-1 Initially unlocked.
1-2 Do not take any damage  (Optional)
1-3 Take at least 1 point of damage (Automatic)
1-4 Kill a Green Skull (Automatic) – Killing one of your own counts
Zenon's Palace
2-1 Defeat enemies within 2 turns (Optional)
2-2 Defeat enemies within 1 turn (Optional)
2-3 Move 9 or fewer spaces (Optional)
2-4 Pick up an enemy or one of your characters (Automatic)
Murderer's Vault
3-1 Let 11 turns pass (Automatic)
3-2 Destroy a Geo Symbol (Automatic)
3-3 Make a tower of 5 by lifting characters (Automatic)
3-4 Lift nothing (Optional)
Dallos River
4-1 Destroy all red panels (Automatic)
4-2 Fuse 5 enemies by throwing them together (Optional)
4-3 Fuse all enemies (Automatic)
4-4 Let 30 turns pass (Automatic)
Cavern of Evil
5-1 Let one of your characters die (Automatic)
5-2 Clear the stage with less than 5 characters (Optional)
5-3 Make a tower of 8 through lifting (Automatic)
5-4 Use only Tower attacks by attacking while lifting someone (Optional)
Battle Arena
6-1 Make a tower of 10 through lifting (Automatic)
6-2 Clear the stage with less than 7 characters (Optional)
6-3 Fuse all enemies through throwing (Optional) – You may open it before
you are done fusing them all
6-4 Defeat all Prinnies by blowing them up or throwing them (Optional)
– Destroy the ‘No Lifting’ geo symbol then throw them at each other
7-1 Destroy all Geo Panels (Automatic)
7-2 Take zero damage (Optional)
7-3 Throw an enemy onto a lifted enemy (Automatic)
Colosseum Depths
8-1 Change the color of at least 6 Geo Panels (Automatic)
8-2 Destroy the moving ‘No Entry’ Geo Symbol (Automatic)
8-3 Do not use the ‘Special’ command option (Optional)
8-4 Take zero damage (Optional)
8-5 Raise your bonus gauge above 4 (Optional)
8-6 Throw an enemy onto a lifted enemy (Automatic)
Alche City
9-1 Move to the highest spot on the map (Automatic) – On a house at 64m
9-2 Move fewer than 9 spaces (Optional)
9-3 Raise Bonus gauge to 2 (Optional)
9-4 Move onto the head of the center serpent (Automatic)
Carcassed Lands
10-1 Fuse at least 5 enemies (Optional)
10-2 Destroy all Geo Panels (Optional)
10-3 Deal at least 500 damage in one combo (Automatic)
10-4 Raise the bonus gauge to at least 3 (Automatic)
Shinra Tower
11-1 Take zero damage (Optional)
11-2 Do not change the color or destroy any Geo Panels (Optional)
11-3 Deal more than 1000 damage in one combo (Automatic)
11-4 Clear the stage with fewer than 4 characters (Optional)
11-5 Do not use the ‘Special’ command option (Optional)
11-6 Take zero damage (Optional)
11-7 Use only Tower attacks (Optional)
To Zenon's Castle
12-1 Merge all the enemies (Automatic)
12-2 Clear the stage within 2 turns (Optional)
12-3 Make a tower of 9 through lifting (Automatic)
12-4 Make a tower of 3 through lifting (Automatic)
12-5 Clear the stage with only 1 character (Optional)
12-6 Deal at least 2000 damage in a single combo (Automatic)
Zenon's Castle
13-1 Take zero damage (Optional) – Does not apply to poison
13-2 Do at least 2500 damage in a single combo (Automatic)
13-3 Destroy all Geo Panels (Automatic)
13-4 Do at least 3000 damage in a single combo (Automatic)
After you unlock all the levels and beat them you will obtain an Usagi’s
Journal.  If you complete at least 10 levels you unlock Zetta, and at least
24 levels you will unlock Baal.  You do not have to complete all the levels,
just do enough until you feel bored or just want to get on with the game.
2.4 Capturing Lv9999 Nekomatas                                       [LMG204]
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Whether you have just beat the game (but reloaded) or finished the Dark
World, this is where the real power levelling begins.  This strategy uses
game mechanics to create an Lv9999 Nekomata which is considered extremely
cheap to some.  If you do not want to utilize this tactic it is ok, but you
will need to level up your normal guys through standard means spending a lot
more time.  Another neutral option is to only use Nekos to steal and to use
your normal characters to kill enemies.  Just keep in mind that using all
Nekos is faster than using a mix, and using a mix is way faster than only
using your normal characters.
If you choose to use your normal characters, this section will be much
longer as you need to grind up your characters to a reasonable level before
you can steal legendary rank 39 items.  As a quick primer on item levels,
everything in the game is categorized with a rank ranging from 1 to 40.
Rank 1 is the weakest, and rank 40 is the strongest; the highest level you
can obtain in ‘normal’ game play is rank 39, the highest rank item you can
buy is 38 (at customer rank 12).
If you do not want to use nekos, then what you want to do is pass the ‘Cave
of Ordeals’ bill then do CoO1 repeatedly.  Note that this level is good
because you can blast the geo symbols to start combos dealing major damage
to the enemies, and if you want you can also move the XP bonus Geo Symbols
to boost XP gain.  Continue to do CoO1 until you think it is too easy, then
go to the Dark Assembly and pass a ‘Stronger Enemies’ bill.  Go back to CoO1
and repeat the process until your characters can one hit an enemy around
level 250.  While you are doing this, try to unlock additional
Consumer/Product ranks and buy better weapons as you go.
After CoO1, go back to the Dark Assembly and pass ‘Weaker Enemies’ all the
way back down and unlock CoO4.  Use area attacks such as Winged Slayer or
Big Bang to kill the enemies, but you may need to raise your weapon mastery
a bit if your sword/fist users cannot do the special moves yet.  You can do
this by using two of your characters to hit each other repeatedly.  If you
want to ‘solo kill’ for levels you can do that too, but it is quite a bit
slower.  As you gain levels keep passing more ‘Stronger Enemies’ bills and
do CoO4 repeatedly until you are around level 1000-1500, depending on your
tolerance for boredom.
After you are happy with your levels, pass ‘Weaker Enemies’ bills all the
way back down so that Item World is easier.  You do not need to pass the
easier enemy bills if you don’t want to, but you’ll probably get stomped
once you progress further into the Item World.  If you have been forcing all
your bills, doing 40-50 bill passes will make you cry, so make sure you use
the bribe method as outlined in the ‘Passing Bills’ section in the Appendix.
Note that doing this does not put you on equal ground as nekos as you
cannot steal from high level enemies and you are substantially weaker, but
it will get you to the point where Item World will not take you forever.
Anyway, back to making uber Nekomatas.  The way monster capturing works is
that you pick up the enemy you want to capture and throw it into your base
panel.  Of course there are some restrictions, one is that you cannot
capture enemy types that you cannot make.  It means that you can’t capture
upper tier monsters until you unlock them through levelling the lower tier
types.  Secondarily, when you throw a monster into your base panel it fights
whoever is in there and you only capture it if you win the fight, this means
you cannot capture a super high level monster at level 1.
The strategy circumvents the restrictions by capturing a tier one monster of
the Felynn class (Nekomata) and uses a ladder system so that the monsters
you capture help you get even higher monsters.  To get into the meat of the
tactic, first you want to go to level 4-3 (Red Waterfall).  This map is
unique in that it has lots of Geo panels that raise the enemy’s level; it
means that given enough turns everything will be level 9999.
Of course you cannot capture a Lv9999 directly because your levels are too
low so you need to slowly work your way up.  Monsters captured on this map
will always have a very small amount of HP so you can capture safely around
2.5x your level.  For example if your highest level character is lv100, you
can capture a lv250.  The next time you do the level you now have a lv250 so
you can capture a lv600, and then a lv1400, then a lv3000, then a lv6500,
and lastly a lv9999.  This is only an example of course and your capture
order will depend greatly on your beginning level and how aggressive you are
in jumping levels.  Most people stick to around 2x to as a capture multiple
while you can push it to 3x if you do not mind the risk (if you fail it
kills your base panel, so you capture nothing and have to try again the
level again).  As a final note, remember that your newly captured monsters
are captured ‘dead’ and must be revived in the hospital; they also must
remain in the base panel while you are trying to capture so they can fight
whatever you throw inside.
Now that the general strategy has been laid out I’ll outline how I actually
do a 4-3 stage.  There are many ways to do this, some people fuse enemies,
some people capture the top cat while others capture the bottom cat, some
people sacrifice characters, some people don’t, etc.  Point is, my strategy
is not only one way, and you are free to use your own if you find that you
like it better.  Before you start I suggest you make a couple of Heavy
Knights since they can throw the furthest and will help out a bit; their
level and gear do not matter so don’t stress over that.  I also recommend
that you have at least 750,000 HL for hospital expenses through if you have
more it is even better.  To describe 4-3, there is a bridge at the bottom, a
bridge at the middle, and a river at the top separating the two sides.  We
will not be using the middle bridge.  There are also lots of red geo panels,
anything that is red is not considered part of the bridge, so when I say ‘3
spaces on the bridge’ I mean, R123, where R is a red geo panel and the
numbers represent spaces.
When the stage starts, move one of your stronger characters who can counter
to the bottom bridge. Move another decently strong character and a Heavy
Knight towards the top near the null Geo Symbol.  Heavy Knights move really
slow so it might be advisable to throw him on the first turn with your other
character so you get up there slightly quicker, but it’s up to you.  Also
move another couple Heavy Knights out of your base panel to the surrounding
area; they will eventually be used to throw in the enemy inside.
On the second turn, continue to move your character across the bottom bridge
while the two move up the side.  Depending on who you chose, the bottom
bridge character may be able to cross the entire bridge.  Be sure that you
do not move past the first red geo panel on the other side.  Moving across
the bridge will provoke the Nekos to run up and attack you; given the level
difference you’ll probably counter kill most of them.  Move back to three
squares on the bridge and stay there at the first opportunity, all the lower
positioned Nekos should now be dead except for one in the corner.  If you do
not move back on the bridge fast enough, the neko you want to capture will
also move, so make sure you are quick.
With the two characters up the side, use the Heavy Knight to throw your
other character across the river to deal with the Beast Tamer and whatever
is left up there.  Now there should only be one enemy alive in the lower
corner.  Now keep on ending turns doing nothing.  Once the computer feels
confident about damaging your character on the bridge they will run up and
use Cat Blast.  Unless you are using a really weak character, it should not
be enough to kill you.  Immediately run your character on the bridge back
towards your base panel.  If you used someone like Adell you should be able
to get away easily, but if you are using a character with low movement you
may need to chain lift him out the harm’s way.  This will drain essentially
all of the monster’s SP so it cannot blast you anymore.
Keep on ending turns until the enemy is at the level that you want (if you
are lv75 you’ll want something around lv150 to 175) then use the Heavy
Knight in the top corner to pick up the Geo Symbol so the enemy stops
gaining levels.  Now move a character that cannot counter or is very weak 5
squares from the Nekomata and it will run forward on its turn and hit you.
Now lift up the Nekomata and chain throw it into your base panel to capture
it.  After you have captured one you repeat the same process over and over
except allowing the Neko gain a higher level each time until you capture an
Lv9999.
Along the way you may run out of money if you did not go to Dark World.  The
easiest way to gain money is to clear high level Nekos on the same stage.
Instead of wiping out all of them but one early on, duplicate the process
but let them ALL level up.  If you have a Lv1000 neko you should be able to
clear out of map of 800s even without gear (ie, 80% of level).  Just move
very slowly across the bottom bridge so that you do not pull more than one
neko at a time because you don’t want them killing each other with Cat
Blast.  Remember to move the geo at the top so they stop gaining levels once
you are happy with their difficulty.  Clearing a map of level 800 nekos
should net you around 6 million HL.
After you capture a Lv9,999 neko you need to capture several more, if you
can get 7-8 that would be very good.  You can repeat what you have already
been doing or you can combine the money method with the capture method.  Let
everything level up to Lv9,999 and kill them off with the Lv9,999 neko.
Move slowly across the bridge and have your throwing guys ready to run ahead
and chain throw one back to the panel when you have a chance.  Once you have
a Lv9,999 inside your base panel, you can capture 4-5 per attempt if you are
really aggressive.
The main reason for doing this is for money.  Clearing 4-3 with all Lv9999s
will get you approximately 300 million HL.  You want to clear the level a
couple times to make a billion HL, then use the money to max your Customer
Rank (12).  That allows you to buy some armor (Majin Armor) and weapons
(Phoenix Feather or Dante’s Inferno) for your Nekos.  You don’t need to
equip them all, but you probably want a couple to have some gear.  Also buy
a bunch of Falcon shoes to stick on some Nekos and Heavy Knights.  They
improve movement and will help out.  So in around two hours you have a bunch
of Lv9999 monsters geared in some rank 38 gear, the next step is to get some
legendaries.
2.5 Armsmasters and Legendaries                                      [LMG205]
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There are many things you need to do to ‘max out’ and you can do it in
basically any order that you want. This FAQ is ordered in such a way that it
will try to concurrently try to do as many of the levelling objectives
concurrently as possible so that you don’t need to ‘grind’ later on.  To
best suit you, I suggest reading the next couple sections to see if you want
to do it in my preferred order.
If you decided to stick with my order the next step is to mass collect
legendaries and Mr. Gency Exits.  The former is important because they
contain rare specialists and Lovers, while the latter is important because
exits are essentially the currency for levelling.  The more exits you have
the faster you can level because you can skip stuff or reload more to get
what you want.  As a brief description to how to steal you want to go to the
general store and buy ‘Hands’ which are way at the bottom of the list.  The
most important statistic is Hit so buy ones with high Hit though it only
matters if you are using your main characters because level 9999 nekos can
steal from virtually any enemy with any hand at 50% (max for monsters).
Before you start heading into items, there are five things you need to keep
in mind when doing them, consider these your objectives.  You may not
understand what they all are at the moment, but it’ll all become clear later.
1. Collect legendaries – The list below lists all of the rank 39 and rank 38
items (in that order) for all the major item types.  Your primary goal is to
get as many Legendary rank 39 items as possible.  You should generally avoid
Rare items unless you are actually going to use it, since they are next to
worthless overall.  A secondary goal is to collect random legendary items
because you need them later on to spawn Lovers.  Lovers do not spawn on low
level items so as a general rule, do not steal legendaries from enemies
under level 50.  You will only need around 100 legendary items to get all
the lovers you could possibly want, so after you reach that threshold don’t
bother with crappy items and only steal rank 39 (or rank 38 if you don’t
have the rank 39).  If you see a legendary Excalibur you must do everything
in your power to get it. Refer to the ‘Item World Strategies’ section in the
Appendix if you are not too familiar with the game.
Swords – Excalibur, Infernal Sword
Fists – God’s Hand, Star Shatter
Spears – Holy Longinus, Beam Javelin
Bows – Artemis, Seraphic Bow
Guns – Megiddo Cannon, Dead Whisper
Axes – Beam Axe, Diabolic Axe
Staff – Infernal Staff, Sage’s Staff
Monster (melee) – Satan’s Motor, Phoenix Feather
Monster (magic) – The King, Dante’s Inferno
Armor – Infernal Armor, Majin Armor
Emblem – Exodus (rank 38)
Belt – Orion’s Belt (rank 39)
Shoes – Angel’s Sandals (rank 32)
Orbs – Universal Orb (rank 39)
Glasses – Providence (rank 39)
Muscle – Cosmos Muscle (rank 39)
2. Mr. Gency Exits – As mentioned before, you want to have as many of these
as possible.  Make sure you kill all of them enemies on the floors with Item
Generals/Kings/God so that you get a gency.  If an enemy Geomancer blows it
up, just change the bonus list with your own Geomancer (Bonus Charge) before
the map ends to get it back.  Also try to not use any gencies while
levelling trash items.
3. Pirates – Try to spend at least 1-2 turns on a level before beating it to
give pirates a chance to come to attack you.  When pirates appear, kill them
up for their Treasure Maps and equip them on someone.  They have no innate
stats so just throw them on some random character; it doesn’t matter if you
use the character.  Equipping them after you get them is important, so make
sure you do it.
4. Mystery Rooms – There are many benefits of going into mystery rooms.  If
you see the Cell Phone vendor you can buy EDP/Prism/Dark Hero phones which
will aid you in getting felonies later in the game.  The shop vendor will
let you buy legendary items, sometimes even rank 39 ones or items that you
cannot steal/buy otherwise.  If you are really lucky you might even run into
the Convict, who will sell you weapon scrolls.  If you don’t buy the
mentioned items it isn’t a major issue since you can get them elsewhere
later, but you will waste time doing so.  Note that it is quite a bit faster
to whip through item worlds ignoring all mystery rooms, but you give up the
chance of finding chests and buying items, so the choice is up to you.
5. Specialists – Make sure you capture any specialist that appears while in
an item.  While sometimes you will be entering an item specifically for
specialists, they are usually ‘nice to have’ for various reasons after.  You
can tell a specialist is on a stage because there will be a neutral enemy
which flashes ‘Check’ before your first turn.  If possible, try to kill the
specialist even if it takes throwing on the first turn.  Lastly, unless you
know what you are doing, don’t combine stat gain specialists as you need
them to level items later.  Generally combining specialists who do not
directly raise stats, such as Armsmasters, Teachers, Professionals,
Hypnotists, etc, are ok.  Be sure to store subdued specialists somewhere
safe so you don’t delete them by accident.  Personally, I put them on my
Treasure Maps because I never delete those.
That’s a fair bit to remember but it’s not really that bad.  Operationally
it means you pick an item and go inside of it, once a stage starts, subdue
any specialists if they exist, check enemies and the bonus list for
legendary items you want, and if there are none then work your way over to
the exit taking 2-3 turns if possible.  If pirates with Treasure Maps appear
kill them, and if you want mystery rooms go inside of them.  Every 10 levels
make sure to clear everything so you score a Gency Exit.
You first priority should be to collect Armsmasters specialists.  Buy a
bunch of ‘100 Fists’ from the Weapon Store because they have the highest
level specialists out of the available items.  It would probably be best if
the Armsmaster was the only specialist in there to speed things up, but
since 100 Fists doesn’t show up all the time you can’t be too picky.
Afterwards, go into them to subdue and combine the specialists them until
you have 1900, which is the cap.  Try to steal some Angel Sandals while you
are in the Item World even if they are normal because you cannot buy them
and they give you +2 movement, which is very handy.
After you get your 1900 Armsmasters you should have a good number of
legendary items and hopefully a couple of rank 39 legendaries.  Note that
Armsamasters allow you to raise weapon mastery faster so be sure to put it
on the weapon of one of your characters if you use human classes (monsters
do not have weapon mastery).
2.6 Item World Exploration                                           [LMG206]
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This next phase of levelling has the primary objective of securing a
legendary Excalibur.  Swords are the preferred levelling weapon because you
can do Winged Slayer with them, which coincidentally has the largest area
effect special move in the game.  An alternative is to do Big Bang with
Fists, but it requires higher weapon mastery and is elementally aligned, so
it takes longer before you can level with it.  Hopefully through your
travels in the Item World you have found an Excalibur, or maybe a God’s
hand, but if you haven’t this section is to help you get one.
The common belief is that higher level items have a higher chance of
containing other high level items to steal or win from Bonus Gauges.  Thus
we set out to get some really high level Legendaries.  The first one we will
be getting is the Arcadia which we will be stealing from the Zombie King in
Cave of Ordeals 5.  If you have killed him already then you are out of luck,
but otherwise this is a sure thing.  Clear up to CoO5 with your Nekomatas
quickly, and save before going to CoO5 (just in case you screw it up).
Before you go inside, make sure that you have at least 8 Heavy Knights, and
also equip one of your Nekomatas with 3 pairs of shoes to have an additional
+3 movement.  Lastly, have 2 Heavy Knights also equipped with shoes so they
can walk farther and make sure you have at least 1 bandit hand in your
inventory.  There are several ways of doing CoO5 and I’m just going to
explain one specific method.
When you enter CoO5, you’ll notice that this map is quite massive, there is
a long ramp with lots of enemies, then a long snake path leading to some
platforms then another snake path.  The trick with this map is that if you
cannot kill the Geo Symbol (which moves) in 3 turns, it will turn all the
Yellow Geo Panels as ‘No Entry’ thus making it impossible to beat the map.
To solve this puzzle you want to make a huge tower and throw your Neko on
the second snake path on the first turn so you have time to run up to the
Geo and kill it.  The way you want to construct your tower is shown in the
next diagram.  All the numbers represent Heavy Knights and the number is the
order that you will pick people up in.  That is, number ‘1’ picks up the
neko from the base panel, then number ‘2’ picks up number ‘1’ and so forth.
| 2 | 3 | 8
| 1 | 4 | 7
| N | 5 | 6
If you did it correctly, your #8 Heavy Knight should be against the ledge of
the platform to the right of the base panel and should have a straight line
to the two solo platforms between the snake paths.  The trick here is that
you must throw over the big hand and not follow the first snake path.  Once
you make sure it’s all lined up, do a big chain throw and your Neko should
land on the second snake path with one other Heavy Knight.  Start moving
your neko towards the Geo Symbol, and by the next turn you should be able to
destroy it with Cat Blast due to your enhanced movement range.  When your
pair on the snake path reaches the end have the knight throw the Neko down;
after the cat lands move it to one of the corners of the platform so you
don’t counterattack the boss by accident and kill it.  Use your Bandit Hand
and steal the Arcadia, this may take a couple turns if you are unlucky.
Meanwhile, pop out another neko from your base Panel to clean up the Sinners.
Next we will go get the Legendary Accelerator.  If you had previously
accumulated 3 Cell Phones that summon the EDF then you are good to go,
otherwise, you may have to do level 1-1 a bunch of times until you get
enough.  When you have 3 EDF phones use them on any level you want (you can
only use 1 per level though) which will unlock the bill ‘Rescue the
Defender!!’ in the Dark Assembly.  Once you pass that you will need to beat
the stage ‘Defenders of Earth’.  Upon completion you will be awarded a
legendary Accelerator.  Note that Adell needs to be a Senator and you need
to use him to pass the bill through the ‘Attend Dark Assembly’ option.  Like
all story rewards, if you skip the cut scene after the fight you will
automatically get a rarity zero item (which you should probably do).
Note that if you already have a legendary Excalibur you don’t need to get
these two items, but they are pretty simple to obtain and will help out if
you want to grab them anyway.  If you don’t have a legendary Excalibur then
the next step is to enter the item world in search of one.  You have a
choice of what to level up, and the Arcadia and Accelerator are both high
level options.  However, I would recommend that you enter a legendary
Satan’s Motor (if you are using nekos) or a legendary Infernal Armor if you
have found them.  While the Arcadia and Accelerator are pretty good, you do
not gain a ton from going through them while weapons and armor make a
massive difference.  Note that if you are levelling your Accelerator make
sure you take some time to pass +movement bills since that is essentially
the only reason why you would equip it.  Refer to the ‘Making Perfect Items’
section if you are unfamiliar with how the Item World Dark Assembly works.
Note that you should gency out at floor 99 in any of these items and not go
to the floor 100.
I stress that the point is to find legendaries, pirates, and especially an
Excalibur, not to get a buffed Arcadia or Accelerator.  Both are items
you’ll probably end up using a fair bit in the short term so you don’t want
them to be super bad, but do not waste too much time resetting for mystery
portals or chicken assemblies.  You’ll be wasting more than your share of
time resetting later.
If you go through the Arcadia, Accelerator, Infernal Armor, Satan’s Motor,
etc, and you still do not have a legendary Excalibur you can start
collecting other useful specialists that you would have to gather later
anyway.  The first are Mentors which will let you gain skills faster, they
are capped at 300, and you can find them in pretty large denominations in
Seraphic Bows and Heroic Guns.  There are also Professionals, which will
guarantee you a Critical Hit (not the type that insta-kills) for your
attacks once you max that out at 100.  You can find professionals on the
fist weapon 7 Year Kill and Hell Strike, though they come in low numbers.
Another option are Teachers, who only spawn on legendary items, but will
raise the level of other specialists; teachers are capped at 100.  Teachers
are rare and you probably won’t have enough to cap.  Mediators are much the
same in that you will use them later to make dual-specialists and are also
capped at 100, but they spawn in rares in addition to legendaries.
After you max out Mentors, Professionals (maybe Teachers too), and have gone
through a couple rank 39 items, I can almost guarantee you will have a
legendary Excalibur.  If you have not been sticking around on levels for a
turn or two, and also equipping treasure maps, you should start immediately
so you complete the Pirate aspect at the same time.  In the very remote
chance you still do not have an Excalibur then you have no other option but
to go into more rank 39 legendaries until you find one.  Sorry that I cannot
provide better advice, but welcome to the randomness that is inherent in
stealing and bonus lists.
2.7 Legendary Rank 39 Levelling                                      [LMG207]
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At this point you should have your Excalibur (or at least a God’s Hand but
it is less preferable).   If you do not have one, go back to the previous
section.
The next step after getting your Excalibur (or your God’s Hand if you are
super desperate) is to level it up.  I am going to introduce some item
levelling techniques both as a primer to perfect item creation and also
because we don’t want the Excalibur to be crappy.  The process is fairly
simple at this point.  First go into the Excalibur and clear normally until
floor 9 then gency out and save, if the item still has unsubdued specialists
then go back into the item to subdue them.  If the specialist is not on
floor 9, then reset your game (go to Quit and reload) until you subdue all
of your specialists.  Gency out and reload until the item has no more
unsubdued specialists.  Afterwards, remove all of the specialists and put in
6 subdued gladiators in there place, the level of the gladiators does not
matter.  Now when you kill the level 10 Item General you will get the full
specialist bonus.  When you kill Item Kings more POP slots will open up to a
maximum of 8, so make sure you gency out afterwards to put in more
gladiators.
The second thing we will do is to make sure we get maximum attack growth
from the Item World Dark Assembly.  In a legendary item you can get a
maximum of three boosts, so we will reset until we get them.  When you reach
level 10, 20 and 30, gency out and save.  Go back in, kill the boss and then
go to the portal; note that it is not recommended that you clear the map
because it takes some time and you will most likely be resetting.  Basically
you reset your game unless you both get transported to Innocent Town *and*
the chicken is there to take you to the Dark Assembly.  When inside, pass
the ‘More ATK growth’ bill.  You will pass this bill 3 times, at levels 10,
20 and 30 respectively.  Afterwards you can fully kill boss levels for your
gencies if you wish.  As a final note, if you reset a lot of times and the
damn chicken won’t show up just move on, this is merely an exercise to get
you familiar with the process more so than to get a perfect weapon.  I would
recommend *not* talking to the old man in the mystery gates because getting
horrible luck is really bad.  Again, your call though.
Lastly, it is very important that you *do not* go to floor 100.  Make very
sure you gency out on floor 99 and save.  You can go back and explore after
you save of course, but make sure you reset. Your completed Excalibur should
be somewhere in the ballpark of 55-70k ATK depending on how much effort you
spent levelling it up.  If you have someone who can use Swords decently,
this may be a good time to knock off Baal or other bonus bosses if you want,
refer to the ‘Optional Bosses’ section in the Appendix for that.
2.8 Creating a Character Structure                                   [LMG208]
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At this point you must pick up to nine (9) characters that you want to max
out.  If you decide later on that you want to max out someone you didn’t
choose right now it is not the end of the world, it just means you are going
to have to spend a couple hours to individually duplicate what we are going
to do for everyone else at once.  This however, only really matters for
story characters because they cannot reincarnate to another class.  All your
other characters can reincarnate at their leisure into other classes if you
change your mind later.
Once you decide upon the characters you want, you need to decide on a
master/student structure.  For example, if you go to the Dark Assembly with
Adell and create a warrior and a skull, Adell will be the master, and the
new warrior and skull will be students.  The main benefit here is the master
will gain approximately 10% of the stats from the pupil (raw stat growth,
not equipped stats).  For example, say the warrior gains 200 ATK, it means
that Adell will gain 20 extra ATK.  Considering that a maxed out character
will have something around 3-4 million stats, 10% of that ends up to be
quite substantial.  To avoid rampant exploitation of the system, the master
will only have a bonus based on the pupil with the highest correspondent
stat.  For example, if the warrior had 200 ATK and 50 INT, and the skull had
25 ATK and 250 INT, Adell would gain a bonus based on the 200 ATK from the
warrior and the 250 INT from the skull.
The caveat is that maxing out students is not exactly an easy process, so
you need to choose which ones you want to level.  To capitalize on this
bonus, you need to create a structure based on who you want as a student of
whom, this also means that you may need to delete and recreate a number of
characters so that it matches your desired structure.  As a side note, you
will be levelling up your new characters will very rapidly (within minutes)
and will likely surpass your old characters (assuming they are relatively
low level) so it is not a big deal to delete.  Mages with extremely high
magic skills may be the exception because while Armsmasters can build up
weapon levels very fast they have no effect on the rate that you can raise
spell casting ability.  However, if you are going to truly max a mage,
you’ll be reincarnating him a ton of times later losing more or less all of
his spells anyway.  You should try to make students at Genius if possible
though.
Last of all keep in mind that these are only the characters you are going to
level. You can create tons of other characters for purposes for spells
learning so do not let that factor into your decision.  The key decision
here is the structure and what story characters you want to use.  I’ll give
a sample of my structure for reference, you do not (and probably should not)
choose the same thing I did.  It is totally based on who you like to play as.
Master                     Adell         Rozalin       Laharl    Yukimaru
/     \           |            |
Students        Magic Knight   Thief   Heavy Knight   Valkyrie
|
GrandStudents   Magic Knight
With a finished character structure you can use the opportunity to level up
some of your lower levelled characters if you want.  Doing so will allow you