Has this ever happened to you? You’re playing Visions Of Mana, learning to swing your sword around, wondering why Val seems okay with sacrificing his girlfriend, and then BAM! Level 53 enemies!? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely outside of Tianeea village!? Where in Fa’diel did these high-level ruins come from?
If you’ve ever played an open-world RPG before, you probably guessed how to deal with these ruins: With patience. There are eight ruins located across the open field areas of Visions of Mana, and you don’t want to take these on the minute you see them. Instead, you’ll want to return to these places once you’ve leveled up and can defeat the monsters inside. Visions of Mana fortunately doesn’t have any missable content, so you can wait until you’re good and ready to hit these optional areas.
Of course, this presents more questions than answers. What is the purpose of these ruins? Why are so many strong monsters guarding them? Will my editor forgive me for not thinking of a third question? (You’re fired—Guides Ed.) Read on to unravel the secrets behind at least two of those questions below.
How to complete the Traces of the Ancients and Nemesis Takedown quests in Visions of Mana
As you progress through the game, you can mostly ignore the ruins you find until you accept the Traces of the Ancients quest in Illystana. This quest will task you with finding all eight ruins before you can report back to the quest giver. Note that this quest is not retroactive. Ruins you passed by before will need to be revisited, and you won’t be able to tell which specific ruins you have or haven’t visited. The quest will only tally how many ruins you’ve visited in total.
Fortunately, all you have to do is step foot near the ruins and watch the short cutscene play that gives you the name of the location. You don’t actually need to step inside after this point, especially if you don’t want to anger any dangerous enemies. You’ll keep uncovering new ruins after your stay in Illystana, so this isn’t a quest you can complete right away.
After you complete Traces of the Ancients, you’ll receive the Nemesis Takedown quest. This is where things get tricky. You’ll have to go back to each ruin and fight through all the groups of high-level enemies inside. For every group you defeat, a torch will light up, which will eventually unlock a secret area where a Nemesis monster lurks. These Nemeses will have a few lackeys by their side, so make sure you can deal strong single-target and AoE damage. Strategies for each Nemesis will change, but as long as you can exploit elemental weaknesses and use buffs and debuffs to bolster your defenses, you should fare well.
Defeating each nemesis will unlock one of eight powerful endgame weapons for you to use. These easily rank as some of the best equipment in the entire game, so the reward is well worth the effort. As an aside, Nemesis Takedown progress is retroactive. Any fights you happen to beat before accepting the quest will remain defeated and count towards your overall quest completion.
All ruin locations and rewards in Visions of Mana
If you’re looking to clean up either of the aforementioned quests, or you’re wondering if there’s a specific weapon you want to hunt down first, below you’ll find where you can find each ruin and the weapons they hide inside.
Charred Passage: Mortal Twiliance – Spear, Val
Aery Passage: Mystic Revelunge – Spear, Careena
Lefeya Drifts: Mystic Ragevise – Fist, Careena
Fallow Steppe: Etherial Shiftcane – Cane, Morrley
Pritta Ridge: Spirit Acriscythe – Scythe, Palamena
Ahrvet’s Pasture: Spirit Treadstep – Boot, Palamena
Khaswia Moors: Arboreal Paraquell – Umbrella, Julei
Zawhak Desert: Arborial Blossomer – Hammer, Julei
Additionally, the Traces of the Ancients quest will award you with 2,200 Lucre, 3 Parpoto Oils (heals the party for 250 HP each), and the Lucent Beam Ability Seed (a mid-level light magic spell). Nemesis Takedown will give the Respect for the Ancients Ability Seed, which increases the damage of normal attacks by 30 percent in exchange for 3 percent of your HP. “Normal attacks” refer to your basic attacks and not your heavy or special attacks, so make sure you only give this to a character who can make good use of it.
How to defeat the ruins early in Visions of Mana
Obviously, these ruins are designed to be completed near the end of the game (around chapter seven or eight). However, it’s absolutely possible to complete them as low as level 30, even on Hard Mode. If you’re up for the challenge and aren’t afraid to die a few times, here’s the party composition that worked for me.
Val
Edelfrei. Having a dedicated tank doesn’t seem like it’d help that much at first. However, armed with the Provoke Ability Seed, enemies will tend to get confused in their AI and won’t necessarily rush at the rest of your party and pick up quick kills. I like the Dryad-driven Edelfrei class because the healing from the wood elemental vessel gives Val some natural HP regen, assuming he can tank a hit or two. You may also consider the Paladin class if you can effectively keep Val shielded, especially if you get the Mortal Twiliance first.
Careena
Divine Fist. Class strikes are ridiculously powerful in Visions of Mana, and the Divine Fist class ignores a chunk of your enemies’ Defense stat whenever she uses one. This helps out a lot against these otherwise bulky enemies, since even a level 30 Careena with Ability Seeds that amplify class strike damage can take out a massive chunk of these level 50+ enemy health bars.
What’s more, the class strike gauge fills whenever your party takes damage, even if it’s from a killing blow. If the enemies are one-shotting your party, you’ll quickly have another class strike to use as a counter attack. Remember to bring lots of Cups of Wishes!
If you need more support, you may consider using Julei with the Hunter class as your class strike user instead. However, I have not tested the damage potential Julei has here, so your mileage may vary.
Morley
Nightblade. Just a ridiculously powerful class overall, and probably the best class to play throughout the majority of Visions of Mana. A 20 percent boost to Critical Hit damage and a 70 percent boost to Critical Hit rate is bonkers, especially since you can equip Ability Seeds to further strengthen that damage and make that Crit Rate effectively one hundred percent.
Morley attacks so fast that he can potentially stunlock enemies, and the Moon elemental vessel gives Morley yet another form of crowd control. Even if he starts out inflicting insignificant damage, the right combination of buffs and debuffs should let Morley inflict damage way above his pay grade.
From here, you don’t need to make any dramatic changes in terms of battle strategy. Each fight has similar mechanics to any other overworld fight you might encounter, albeit against high level monsters. Some enemies will resist Fire and other elements you may have been banking on, so you’ll either want to swap in different party members or save those fights for last.
Underleveled players can and will burn through their items during these fights, but Lucre is fortunately abundant enough that this shouldn’t be an issue. Otherwise, just make sure to charge your class strike gauge before each battle so you can inflict a lot of damage right out the gate. Elemental breaks also help a lot too!
If you are taking these fights on at low levels, note that you’ll get a lot of experience from each group you clear. I strongly suggest using any EXP-boosting items as you complete these battles to maximize your gains. Good luck battling these baddies!
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