Shining Force: Most leveling overkill you've done?

[Rogue]

Hi guys. :P

I've decided to play Shining Force again (vanilla version, no mods), and considering I never did much grinding in this game, this time I decided I would make my force as overpowered as I could.

So I've promoted at 20 (mostly done at Balbazak) then rushed to the Chaos battle and I'm still there, grinding. At the moment my highest level character is Anri at Level 30 (too easy to get kills with Freeze 4), and up til this level she was still getting 48XP per robot kill. Now at 30 she gets 32 XP per robot kill which is still decent so I think I can still get her more levels before it's too insanely slow and I'll need to move to a battle with higher level monsters (probably Chimaeras). Some of my highest level char stats:

Anri (LV 30): HP 54, MP 87, ATT 43 (Guardian Staff), DEF 44, AGI 61
Arthur (LV 26): HP 77, MP 33, ATT 81 (Valkyrie), DEF 62, AGI 72
Domingo (LV 26): HP 59, MP 50, ATT 36, DEF 50, AGI 42
Max (LV 25): HP 78, MP 13, ATT 81 (Sword of Light), DEF 70, AGI 53
Tao (LV 22): HP 60, MP 85, ATT 40 (Guardian Staff), DEF 42, AGI 68

Some observations:
- Everyone was promoted at 20;
- Did not use any stat booster consumable;
- Did not save/reload to get better stats up til level 20 promoted (I don't think it helps much), past 20 promoted I do some reloading to avoid 0 stat gain level ups so the character gets at least 1 stat;
- Past Level 20 hardly gain any stats, mostly 1 point in a single stat, if anything.

What is the stat/level cap? With proper griding I think the healers can get to Level 99 (I'm using Khris/Gong). Has anyone of you done this? I want to try to get Anri and Tao (maybe Alef) to 99 MP too, if that's possible. Cheers. I'll post updates.

[SaCred]

The healers probably could get to that level lol.
I managed to get my Max to level 33 just by delivering the finishing blow on Dark Dragon

[sonicx5040]

I've never done much grinding in Shining Force myself, but I have managed to get Peter and my Main Char. to the point where they had 100+ HP. (I loved to see ??? in their HP bar~)
But... Now that I think about it... That may have started at around level 40... ^_^" I'm not usually much of a grinder, but I guess I might have grinded a little bit...

[SaCred]

This is SF1, not SF2 Peter is imbalanced, i never use him... Eric also can get high HP too.

[rbahamut]

Yeah i do believe that the promoted stats climax at 20, although the do gain a stat or two all the way to 100 it is meant for them to be pretty much maxed out at level 20 promoted, whether or not you promoted at 10 or 20. You can look at the spreadsheet on the forums to see the stats of each character can be if promoted at 10, 15 and 20. They helped me out alot cause I only wanna max out certain stats for each character some playthroughs, so whatever level they reach that stat, i promote them, usually isn't 20 but sometimes it is.

[SaCred]

I also didn't know that using stat boosting items in SF1 before promotion makes you lose the stats when you promote...

[Lobo]

99 is the top level.
I once managed to get Max there.
It requires a lot of patience though as every monster gives you 1 XP (2 for a killing).

It's easier to do that with healers. Torasu got to lvl86 by then and I was not grinding him, but only healing Max.

[SaCred]

Max seriously got hurt a lot huh in order to get Torasu up to that level lol.
And wow you got max to level 99?!?!
How long did that take?
And what was the ending stats?

[Lobo]

It was like 20 years ago. I don't remember how long it took.

I recall positioning Max beside one of the holes that spawn Armed Skeletons, leaving a book pressing button C, and going to do something else while Max kept destroying those bones.

His stats were 99 in HP and Def, and something between 75 and 80 in attack (bare handed). Don't remember MP and Speed.

[SaCred]

oh haahh, turbo controller?
I thought those spawns were like 9 or 10 repeats and then empty?
I guess you probably Egressed over and over again haha.

[Lobo]

You can put a bunch more overs in there.

There were 15 skeletons in each hole.
If Max got to kill all of them that would be 60 XP.
Then I had to egress and so I had to play again the Darksol battle to get back to the skeletons' holes.

[SaCred]

Oh yeah i forgot about that lol...Having to go through Dark Sol again damn!
Well then again, its not very difficult on vanilla

[Lobo]

Not really.
Even less difficult for a party of 12 promoted people of level 30+.

I used to take the central path, straight to the boss.

[Balbazak]

The most grinding I ever did for LoGi was about level 40 for each member, not too bad, and COMPLETELY unnecessary. But it was great fun to walk through enemies like Colossus and Darksol with a few hits.
And I always wanted to grind Yogurt up, and get rid of his ridiculous stats of 1 across the board, but I never put any effort into him.

SF2 was much easier to grind out levels in, simply becuase of the bonus stage that went on until you either died or beat the Green Ooze at the north end of the stage. I remember all 12 of my Force getting to the green bar of HP, even if it was only 10 or 20 more HP for some of them, it looked awesome, and it felt great.

And then there's the ongoing grind that I constantly do in RotDD, but I dont need to talk about that here.

[SaCred]

Okay How is your 6 men army going?

Me dont like grind Ever since the solo Bowie grind at the secret battle...I got sick of it lol.
Hey Balbazak, how did you wonder in here?

[Balbazak]

I hop in from time to time. (last hop was about 4 years ago?)

But yea, I'm usually too busy working or playing the GBA remake. I haven't actually played LoGi in years, but it was my first Shining game. *sigh* good times...

[SaCred]

Im started playing it again, from vanilla, to Doomblade's mod, to Lobo's mod, to Rbahamut's mod which i didn't last long with, and now back to Doomblade's
Theres no mod for the GBA remake i guess?

[Shadow Angel]

Before I moved I was planing on getting my whole party up to 99 had about 9 characters already there. But never got a chance to finish it off.

[Earl]

I've gotten Lowe up to ~16 promoted at the battle in Alterone.

Just visually, that promoted sprite looks soo wrong at that point.

[Lucifer]

I recently raised my entire Force (Max, Starters, and Gong) to level 10 promoted (with level 20 promotions) before killing the Rune Knight in the first battle of Vanilla SF1. It was mind-numbing.