2012-03-14, 03:13 PM
Sarah Wrote:What are soul orbs used for and do they have the 15 item limit like other items? Due to my completionist nature I know I will be racking them up so I want to make sure I don't waste any.
It's a black/purple orb key item right? They're used for ~3 Inn Request. Some monsters drop them, and you can get them from random treasure and chests occasionally. They also give grade at the end of the game for New Game+ if you obtain them from a monster. Monsters that can drop them are marked with a star in the monster book, and for each star, you get 1 grade or something like that, up to 194.
Some more tips:
In every town, there is a Stamp Card available to be filled out. As you interact (selling counts, though I believe selling doesn't give the same amount as buying) with the merchants of that town or with the turtle merchants who have their own card, their stamps will start to fill up. Every 10 stamps levels the card, and gives you a reward at their shops. For example, after spending 6000 Gald at the turtle merchants, you will have gotten 10 stamps (600 gald each at level 1), leveling up your Stamp Card to level 2. This unlocks Ground Beef (?) to be bought from any turtle merchant. Some rewards are 1 time only, such as Manuscripts and some rare use items, and others can be repurchased indefinitely. For the completionist, this can be important to remember to go to a different town when Dualizing, or selling things off to get the most out of stamps instead of wasting money at a level 10 store. Some equipment can only be obtained this way, and many ingredients for dualizing food as well.
The Ereth Pot (Mixer) uses Ereth for special effects. Foods can be put in for one time battle effects (i.e. won't activate again until next battle). For example, Rice Balls can be put in and it will consume 10 Ereth when a party member is below 60% HP to heal everyone 11% HP. It gives the Ereth Pot 11 EXP as well. Getting EXP for the Ereth Pot gradually increases the total Ereth capacity. This doesn't consume the food item either, so you can have indefinite use of your food! It also counts towards getting food-liking titles. Asbel likes Curry. Sophie likes some fried egg crab thing. Hubert likes Rice Omelet. Cheria likes grilled chicken bowl. Pascal likes Banana Pies. Malik likes Sea Bream Tea Rice (??). I don't think Richard has a title for this. Some foods give stat bonuses in battle, and when used outside of battle will provide that bonus for the next battle.
Manuscripts give special effects as well, that's in their description. One of the best Manuscripts increases your walking/running speed outside of battle. Other items such as consumables, materials/ingredients can be put in the Ereth Pot to have a chance at duplicating them. For example, an Apple Gummi has a 50% chance to be duplicated after a certain number of steps I believe, and consumes 24 Ereth. This comes in handy later if you're trying to get more of a certain item that can't be found easily, but rare items have really low creation rates (some are 0.01% for example). There are manuscripts that increase this chance though.
Some important titles are the mastery titles for artes. Every arte in the game except the 1 CC alpha style arte has two associated mastery titles which require use count to obtain. For example, Demon Fang's 1st title requires you to use it 100+ times. The 2nd title requires you to use it 800+ times. This scales down with the CC cost of the skill. The 1st and 5th skills learned from these titles are always (except for Demon Fang's 1st) bonuses to the skill itself. Demon Fang's 1st title 5th skill is for Demon Fist though. Some cases, this is the easiest way to get a title that lets you learn a certain arte, and other times it's the easiest way to get a new title so you're not stuck mastering something instead.