Hello-wello to my guide for Pankration. I hope you have fun with that barbaric game of slaughter and bloodshed.
How to participate in Pankration
1. The Start
Pankration (Allfight) is done in the Pit in Al Zahbi. If you want to participate go to it (it is under the Shararat Tea House) and search a Hume guy named Zandjarl.
He will trade you some imperial money for Jettons you need here:
1 Bronze Piece = 1 Jettons
1 Silver Piece = 10 Jettons
1 Mythril Piece = 30 Jettons
1 Gold Piece = 200 Jettons
(Seeing that the price relation of these coins is 50:10:5:1 normally, a Gold Coin is the ‘cheapest’ way to get Jettons)
You can now buy various things with your Jettons:
Soultrapper (Rare/Ex)
A portable device capable of quickly creating soul plates via the complex “feral drain” process. A blank soul plate must be set before use.
Enchantment: Feral Drain (12/12 <1:00, 0:10>)
Blank Soul Plate (Ex)
A glass plate used in conjunction with a soultrapper to collect data on monsters and other wildlife.
(You get a stack of 12 Soul Plates for every 2 Jettons.)
Soultrapper 2000 (Rare/Ex)
A portable device capable of quickly creating soul plates via the complex “feral drain” process. A blank soul plate must be set before use.
Enchantment: Feral Drain (48/48 <0:30, 0:10>)
Blank high-speed Soul Plate (Ex)
A glass plate used in conjunction with a soultrapper to quickly collect data on monsters and other wildlife.
(You get a stack of 12 high-speed Soul Plates for every 2 Jettons.)
Zoraal Ja’s Helm (Rare/Ex)
Dartorgor’s Coif (Rare/Ex)
No.3’s Garland (Rare/Ex)
Cacaroon’s Hood (Rare/Ex)
Lv.65, Def 21
vs. Lizards: Increases feral drain success rate
vs. Vermin: Increases feral drain success rate
vs. Undead: Increases feral drain success rate
vs. Beasts: Increases feral drain success rate
2. The Hunt
Now go out in the wild and hunt monsters. Your goal is to do a 'feral drain', which is basically taking a photo of the soul of the chosen monster.
Equip your soultrapper as ranged weapon and your soul plates as ammo and wait until the trapper is ready to be used. Use the enchantment of the soultrapper on the monster you want to feral drain - this will use up one charge of the trapper and also one blank soul plate.
The chance for a successful feral drain goes up if you are closer to the monster and if there are no obstacles between you and the target. You can feral drain the same monster multiple times and this action will not be seen as aggressive behaviour be the enemy, so don't fear that a non-aggroing mob will suddenly attack you when you try to get the picture.
If the feral drain is successfull, your empty soul plate will be now a filled soulplate which has a description like this one:
That means the following: You have a soul plate with the picture of a Variable Hare (one of the white versions of the Rabbit-family) and in this picture you have gathered the 'essence' or feral skill of "Attack Bonus", which is worth 30 FP - feral points.
You can feral drain the same monster multiple times and you may get the same feral skill again or you might get different ones. For the Variable Hare you might for example also get the feral skill "LIzard Killer" which is worth 8 FP.
Hunt different monster to get different feral skills. There are certain monsters which cannot be feral drain. Most of the time humanoid monsters like Zilart or the endbosses of mission-storylines.
3. The Prepatarion
If you have enough soul plates filled with the pictures of monsters and feral skills, go back to the Pit.
There are four fighting cages (Annihilation, Bloodlust, Carnage, Diablo), but we will come to the differences later. There are five employees at every cage, which will provide different services.
Official Screener: Abhrem, Idjham, Biwhal, Whashai
These guys are your first stop.
They can turn your filled soul plates into a soul reflector, which is necessary to use the monster for fighting. Be careful, because this process is not reversable.
To get a soul reflector, trade a filled soul plate with an ice crystal to the screener, pay one Jetton and a moment later you have a soul reflector.
When you now trade the reflector to the Screener he will tell you name, family, job-combination and level of the monster. For the Variable Hare from Uleguerand range that would be:
"NimbleDancer, Rabbit, WAR/--, Lv.7"
Then the converter gives you a list of the following options:
Change the name of your monster: the default name for any monster is PitMonster, but you can chose a first and last name for it.
Check the feral skills: You have the option to check the skills commented or uncommented, i.e. watch just the name of the feral skill or watch the name and an explanation. In this list you will find both 'racial' feral skills and feral skills which obtained the monster through your teaching.
A monster can be born with 0-2 randomly chosen feral skills of its own race, so it is not necessarily the skill on its soul plate. Every monster is also born with a main job (depending on family), while a support job may be there or not.
Unlearn Feral Skills: when you have taught some feral skills to your monster you can also unlearn them again, to get the feral points back.
Note that you cannot unlearn a 'racial' feral skill or forget a job which is there from the start.
Check Feral Points: feral points are the 'learning capacity' of monsters. Every feral skill you teach takes up a certain amount of these points and if your points are too low for a certain skill, the monster will not be able to learn the skill.
Racial feral skills, which are present from the start don't take up any feral points. Note that 'stronger' monsters often have lesser feral points, so weaker enemies can make up for their disadvantages with more abilities.
(Top on the list seem to be detectors, while corses have the least amount of feral points.)
Check the level: the converter will tell you the level of your monster and how many exp it needs to lvl up. The starting level of a monster seems to be (level of the wild monster you feral drained)/10, rounded up.
Check discipline and temperament: if your monster has a high discipline, it will more likely follow your commands during the fight. The temperament (wild/tame and aggressive/defensive) decides what abilities your monster will use on its own during a fight.
To teach your monster a new feral skill, you have to trade your soul reflector and a soul plate with the according feral skill to the Screener. If the monster has enough feral points to learn the feral skill, it will cost you one Jetton and then your monster has the new feral skill.
You cannot stack the same skill two times at the same monster, but it is able to overwrite a mainjob with another mainjob. Not every monster can learn every feral skill, check the tables below for compatibility.
Soul Reflector Certification: Kadjayhal, Ghalizham, Wharoub, Zhashd
These four guys will certificate your soul reflector and make an official soul reflector out of it (for the cost 1 Jetton) when you trade the soul reflector to them. You can just have one official soul reflector at a time and this one is the soul reflector you use in Pankration.
You cannot teach feral skills to the monster of an official soul reflector, but you can de-officialize it as often as you want.
Monster Registration: Kaheema, Rayeewa, Tadeewa, Salyadh
These ladies will register your monster for Pankration matches in the according cage. Trade them your official soul reflector and your match will be scheduled (if you pay the fee of 1 Jetton).
Normally up to 30 monster can be in the reservation-list for every cage and the monster on the first two spots in the lists will be the participants for the next fight. At the end of a fight all monster in the list go two steps forward and spot #29 and #30 become free again for new participants. The lady will not accept registrations when the list is full.
During the time you apply for the Pankration and the actual fight, you can ask the ladies for the stats (name, family, job-combination, level) of your opponent.
After the fight is over, you have to confirm the results of the fight. Trade your official soul reflector to the lady and you will get your reward in form of exp and Jetton. Both numbers seem to be the same amount always and if you have scheduled more fights, you will get the rewards of all fights together.
Do the confirmation regulary because without it, your monster will not level up and you will not get Jettons. The results of a fight are saved for 3 real time days and you cannot get more than 2000 exp/Jettons in whole (so everything above this will be lost).
Cage Adjudant: Kanawawa, Kumumu, Nalpupu, Niwawa
Shortly before your fight starts you will be paged. Talk to the adjudants and they will bring you to the platforms above the cages. There cou can give your monster advices for the fight via the speaking tube.
Note that it is not necessary to participate in that way. You can schedule your fight and then leave the Pit (or log off) and your monster will fight on its own and his temperament will decide what it will use.
Commentator: Doel-Demiel, Flapping Gums, Pihk Khalatikal, Juvenal
During the Pankration these guys will comment the fight.
How to raise a successful monster for Pankration
This is the complicated part of the guide and not finished yet.
I am writing the complete guide under the following premise (which I think is correct):
All monsters of the same family have the same feral skills regardless of the actual mob. This means that a Lv.1 Savanna Rarab can give the same feral skills as a Lv. 65 Variable Hare. The only difference in feral draining these two mobs is the level of the monster used in Pankration and the colour of its fur.
In the same way all monster with the same job (mainly beastmen) will give the same job-related feral skills regardless of the actual mob-family. So a Yagudo Votary and an Orcish Champion will provide the same feral skills.
Here seems to be the problem, that beastmen give not just job-related but also family-related feral skills, so it will take some time until I have organized that part of the tables. You will see alot of red writing, which mean 'unsure'.
Notorious Monster seem to not give any special feral skills, but because pit-monster have the same look as the monster they are made from (my NimbleDance has white fur like the Variable Hare I feral drained) it might be possible that special-coloured notorious monster like Genbo or Kirin may create special-coloured pit-monster.
Monster-Restriction
There are certain monsters you cannot use in Pankration as fighting monsters. Excluded from participation are
- Beastmen (excluding Orcish Warmachines?)
- Cardians, Fomor, Kindred (beastmen-alike monster with a 'real' job except skeletons)
- Lumorians, Empty, Hippogryphs (all monster which are restricted to a CoP-area)
- giantic monster (Adamantoise, Behemoth, Cerberus, Hydra, Wyrm)
These monsters will still create feral skills, when feral drained.
Feral Points
Each monster has a certain number of feral points. The exact number is based on the monster-family and it increases by +1 for every even level the monster gets (so the maximum Lv. of 50 will give +25 feral points). It seems that a monster can have slightly more or less feral points when it is 'born' (i.e. the soul reflector is created).
Monster Jobs
Every family comes with a main job, which is innate to every member of that family.
Main Job: It is not really sure what a main job does.
- it may give a certain kind of damage type (blunt, piercing, slashing) depending on the main weapopn type of that job
- it may give the ability to cast spells
- it may give the ability to use jobabilities
- it may change the stats of the monster like a job does for players
Support Job: No clue here also ...
- it may give the ability to use some spells
- it may give the ability to use some jobabilities
Jobtraits: These passive boni are NOT activated by default when equipped with a certain main or support job. You need a special feral skill to activate these - which in turn means also, that you can put the jobtraits of one job on a different main/support job-combo.
These three aspects of a job are teachable as feral skills. It is possible to overwrite the innate main job with a new one, but this one will use up feral points. Not all combinations of job aspects are possible on every family. (As soon as research is further done, I will list the possible combos per family.)
Feral Skills
There are four ways how feral skills are handled:
a) Numerical Bonus
This is something like STR +25 or Defense +15. The bonus is set and will not change over the course of the game. These skills are very powerful early in the game, but can get (in relation to other types of boni) weaker later.
b) Percentual Bonus
This is something like Attack +15%. The relative bonus is set and is tied on the basic stat it modifies. Which means at lower levels the actual bonus is relatively small but it will increase with higher levels.
c) Variable Bonus
This is a bonus like Attack Bonus which will get stronger with more fights (it always has the word 'bonus' in its description). Every time your monster fights in a Pankration the level of the trait will increase by +1. Not sure if there is a cap.
These boni can be very weak at first, but if you use the monster more and more, they will get stronger. The problem is with unlearning these feral skills: If you unlearn them and decide to relearn them later, the level will be set to 1 again. They are also more expensive (feral point-wise) than numerical boni.
d) Instant Bonus
These are all other kinds of bonus. Of course the largest group.
Here are all classes of skills:
Job-Aspects: these exist as Main Job, Support Job and Jobtraits. BLU, COR and PUP do not exist
Primary Stats: these are HP/MP (+50, +15%, Bonus) and STR/DEX/VIT/AGI/INT/MND/CHR (+25, Bonus)
Supportive Stats: these are Regen (Auto, +5), Refresh (Auto, +?) and Regain (Auto, +3) and Store TP (Bonus, +10)
Secondary Stats: these are Accuracy, Attack, Defense, Evasion, Magic Accuracy, Magic Attack and Magic Defense (+15%, Bonus)
Melee Traits: these are Attack Speed (+50, Bonus), Critical Hit Rate (+10%, Bonus), Double Attack (+15%, Bonus), Subtle Blow (+15%, Bonus), Triple Attack (+15%, Bonus)
Elemental Attacks: these are Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Thunder, Water, Light, Dark and Neutral (+15%, Bonus)
Elemental Damage Increase: these are Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Thunder, Water, Light and Dark (+25, Bonus)
Status Attacks: these are Amnesia, Aspir, Bind, Bio, Blind, Curse, Dia, Drain, Gravity, Paralyze, Poison, Silence, Sleep, Slow, Stun, Terror, TP Drain and Virus Attack
Magic Traits: these are Casting Speed (+15%, Bonus) and Spell Interruption Rate (-25%, Bonus)
Magic Skills: these are Divine, Healing, Enhancing, Enfeebling, Elemental, Dark and Ninjutsu Skill (Bonus)
Magic Scrolls: these are Bard, Black, Dark, Ninjutsu and White Scrolls (teach more spells of that type?); there is also Ninja Tool + (which increases the amount of tools the monster uses)
Killer Traits: there are Amorph, Aquan, Arcana, Beast, Bird, Demon, Dragon, Lizard, Plantoid, Undead and Vermin Killer
Defensive Traits: there are Physical, Magical and Breath Damage Resistance (+15%, Bonus), Elemental Resistance (+2, Bonus) and Elemental Resistance/Opposite Weakness (+/-2, Bonus/Penalty)
Enspells: these are Additional Elemental Damage (+25, Bonus)
Instant spells: these effects count as a spell which is cast before the fight, so it can be used instantly. They include Instant Barspell (all elements), Instant Barstatus (Virus, Paralyze, Petrify, Stone, Poison, Sleep, Blind), Instant Protect and Shell and Instant Elemental Wall (Blaze Spikes, Frost Spikes, Blink, Stoneskin, Shock Spikes, Aquaveil, Dread Spikes). Instant spells count as "Bonus", so they get stronger with an increasing feral skill level
Resist Status: these traits can just be gotten as innate abilities or with a Jobtrait-feral skill
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Ara's almostly-wostly complete guide to Pankration - 
