Disgaea DS Secrets

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Disgaea secrets FAQ v0.1 (C)2003 alamone.
May not be reprinted without author's written consent.
Disgaea is (C)2003 Nippon Ichi Software.
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After playing for 150 some hours and finally defeating Super Demon King
Pearl, I've decided to stop playing Disgaea and write up this little FAQ:
random hints and tips in no particular order that may or may not be useful.
Enjoy.

----------------Killing the NPCs in your castle
- The NPCs in the castle may show up in a Black Congress fight.
If you kill them, a tombstone will appear in their place in the castle.
This is not permanent and will be reset on the next game load.

----------------Getting enemies to join
- If you chuck an enemy onto the base panel, one of two things happens:
1) Enemy joins your party
2) Enemy kills ALL of your remaining party members,
and the base panel disappears

Boss characters will not join your party.
The probability that a monster will join your party depends on
the relative level of the monster and its remaining HP(?)

----------------Removing friends from the map
- If you chuck a friend onto the base panel, it will be safely removed
from combat. The unit cannot be taken out for that turn again.
Use this to protect weak units from getting killed.

----------------Free movement
- The free movement trick from La Pucelle also works here, but is a bit
less effective since you have a limited inventory. Simply equip shoes,
make your movement, and then change your equipment back.

----------------Increasing the LV of enemies
- Chuck an enemy onto another one. As long as it's not a penguin,
they will merge together into a monster with the LV added together.

----------------Etna's diary
- There are two hidden switches in the castle. One behind the throne,
and another near the skull on the counter of the Rosenqueen shops.
Flip both of them to enable access to Etna's diary, which is in
the middle corner of the intermediate hallway between the throne
room and the shops. If you visit this area consistently for each
chapter, you will be rewarded with a Testament item in the final
chapter.

----------------Space + Time engine
- To get the space + time engine, defeat "Item God 2" at floor 100 of
a Legend item that has inhabitants that are LV255 on floor 1.
The item will be put into your inventory automatically.
Like in La Pucelle it allows teleportation anywhere in the map.
However you cannot proceed to the warps in the Item world with
it equipped - it must be taken off first.

----------------Maou Prier (LV2000)
- To get Maou Prier to join your party, you must defeat her
in the alternative hell (you must petition the Black Congress
to open the gate). She has the very useful Arcadia item.
Her skills are Omega-heal, Dragon Fist and Great Miracle.
Great Miracle does magic damage.

----------------Legendary Witch Marjoly (LV2500)
- To get Legendary Witch Marjoly to join your party, defeat her
in the Beauty Castle (again, petition the Black Congress).
She has 4 strong Legend items and the skills:
Terafire, Terawind, Teracool, Terastar, Dark Force.
Dark Force does magic damage.

----------------Become Chou Maou
- To become Chou Maou, you must defeat Chou Maou Pearl (LV4000)
(Super Demon King Pearl) in Pearl's Tower, which is unlocked
after beating alternate Hell and Beauty Castle.
After defeating Pearl he reincarnates into a penguin
and has even higher stats (LV6000). I have not defeated
the penguin version - and don't know if anything
special happens if you do.

----------------Easy EXP
- To get easy EXP, use the Cave of Trials 3. There is a 3x3
grid of enemies there that you can take out with 1 attack.
Any attack that can target a 3x3 square is good, but
physical ones are better since they don't have so much
variability in enemy resistance. You can also petition
the Black Congress to increase the strength of enemies
to make this tactic more effective.

----------------Leveling weak friends
- To level up weak friends, have them included in combo
attacks. Even if they do 0 damage or miss, as long as the
enemy is killed they will get some shared EXP.
Units that use the same weapon have a higher
percentage of joining a combo, so keep that in mind.

----------------Tactics for killing strong enemies
- For killing very strong enemies such as Maou Prier etc,
the following is what I recommend:

Rahal is your primary attacker. Give him the strongest
sword you can (e.g. Galaxy blade). Equip items on him
only for the purpose of increasing his ATK and maybe HIT.
Have nine other units with the ability to cast Braveheart.

For each turn in battle, send out Rahal and one of the
support units. The support unit's only purpose is to cast
Braveheart on Rahal once, and serve as a decoy. The
enemy will always target the decoy because it is weaker,
leaving Rahal free to attack the enemy. Just make sure
there is enough space between Rahal and your support unit
so that the enemy does not use an area skill that hits
both of them. With this tactic, you have 10 turns with
Rahal's strongest special to kill any unit. If this is
not enough, you have to improve the strength of your
items or increase Rahal's LV (or perhaps try reincarnation
to aim for better base stats).

----------------The "impossible fight" in Ch. 6
You don't get anything special from beating the impossible
fight in Ch. 6, so just lose it if you don't feel like
leveling up.

----------------Item World tactics
Take advantage of the "muteki" (invincible) attribute if it
exists in the item world you are fighting in.
You can defeat enemies much stronger than yourself with it.
The enemy AI does not take into consideration the color
attributes at all. Also be wary of the duplication
attribute - it may duplicate your characters if you
step on it and that can cause you much grief. If this
happens, I recommend just going to the next floor.
Also, take note that the geo-triangles can be chucked
onto enemies and will self-destruct and begin a chain.
Chains cannot start if the triangle is the same color
as the panel. If the chain finishes with the holy (transparent)
element and removes all panels, there will be a explosion and
all enemies will be damaged.

----------------Counter-counter-counter-counter attack
Sometimes a regular attack will do more damage than
using a special, depending on the number of Counters
you and your enemy have. If you have 5 counters and
the enemy also has 5 counters, you have the potential
to do that many physical attacks, which could very
well add up to do more than a special attack. However,
you must eat the enemy's physical attack damage as well.
You can petition the Black Congress to increase
your Counter by 1.