Community:Shiren 1 DS Fun with Gitan

If you've played Fay's Puzzles you know that Gitans can be stepped on and be thrown for 10% of their value in damage. While it might not sound much, note that Gitans come in stacks between 350 (very early) to 500 (mid game) to close to 750 (end game). So even the smallest stack of Gitans you find does 35 damage to any monster. This is constant damage not reduced by defense. Also note that up to floor 30 you will rarely find a monster with more than 50 hp, so basicly a bag of 500 Gitans one-hits almost everything here. Sounds nice enough to lose your valuable money as a throwing weapon? Then read on. Most of this is most useful in the early (first 30) levels of final puzzle, but it can be applied to all situations with limited equipment as well (Scroll Cave/Food Dungeon/Naked runs)

Picking up Gitans If you walk over Gitans without holding the B button they will be absorbed into your purse and can't be thrown. To actually move Bags of Gitans into your bag, move onto them while holding B, then put them into your inventory by selecting one of your items and chose "trade". Don't forget to pickup the other object afterwards. You can also "insert" them directly into jars. Now you can carry those bags around and throw them when you need to, not where they drop. In early final puzzle this makes the first ten floors a lot easier, especially if it is one of those runs that doesn't drop weapons or shields. Stop hunting those dead ghosts, just let them level up something else for some quick extra exp. Never lose items to Ricechangers or Birds anymore even without Arrows or Magic. Preserve those charges on your Staves for when they are really needed.

Note that sorting the inventory by "Y-Button" will move Gitans not in Jars to your purse.

Maximizing use Items thrown by Pitcher's Armbands will pierce enemies they hit and continue flying. Wake up a monster house, run into a long corridor and pitch a bag of Gitans at the masses of monsters following you. Each will take the same damage, which allows you to kill an entire monster house with one or two bags. Oh and you are sure to find even more bags of Gitans among the treasures. If you come across an early Staff of Happiness you can get a head-start by using it several times on the same monster. Prime candidates include Mamels, with the nice side effect of producing a big pile of 2000 Gitans for more throwing fun.

Creating a big bag of Gitans Bags with more Gitans do more damage. A bag of 1000 Gitans will one-hit almost all enemies in the game. To save your life you might be able to postpone that Ark Dragon in a Sky monster house on 32, but wouldn't it be cool to just kill it in one hit. You'll need a 1000 or more Gitan bag for that. Unless you killed a Gitan Mamel the only way to get one of those is by letting pickpockets lick some of your Gitans away. This is best done in a level with a dead end so you can corner the pickpocket and get your stolen Gitans back

More Gitans by throwing Gitans?!? While I'm mentioning pickpockets: Between F4 and F7 of Final Puzzle pickpockets are common. While low on hp, their defense is relatively high, so unless you find an early Mastersword, you won't be able to one-hit them. So you'll have to use Arrows/Magic or just risk getting your gitans stolen. On an open level you might never see the Pickpocket again, and hunting them will cost valuable food. Pickpockets cannot steal Gitans that are in your inventory or jars, so if you have put all money into your inventory, they'll just sit next to you and wait until you kill them. Killing a pickpocket will always drop Gitans. If it stole from you, those stolen Gitans will drop. Otherwise a new bag will get generated. This way instead of risking to get Gitans stolen, you can be sure to actually make more out of Pickpocket encounters

Getting a Big Riceball On runs with low or no food drops, using Ricechangers to create meat is a good idea. When other useless items are still rare early on, Gitans in inventory can be turned into Big Riceballs this way. Just make sure to drop your valuable other items first. Also later when you're no longer short on money, if you come across a Riceball Scroll, using it on the next Bag of Gitans on the floor will not force you to destroy something valuable.

Identify Jars using Gitans In Final Puzzle all Jars are unidentified at start, but it isn't actually important to id all of them. The ones you'll need to identify as soon as possible are Strengthening, Melding, Holding, Identity and Change. Strengthening is the most important one, what would make identified weapons/shields the best candidate for identifying Jars, immediately identifying 3 of the 5 jars while making best use of Strengthening Jars. However in an average Final Puzzle game, weapons are rare. Even worse, using them in one of the bad Jars can really hurt in the long run. Also to get an identified weapon, you have to equip it and risk getting stuck with a cursed one. You could wait for an unequip trap but that would waste valuable levels. All other types of items might be good to prevent those problems but will not allow to ID the Strengthening Jar. All but bags of Gitans. Gitans in Strengthening Jars will increase in quantity when leaving the level, which allows to id the jar. Also Gitans are very common so it doesn't hurt to lose a stack to a bad Jar. So if you have more than enough identified weapons/shields use those to test. In all other cases Gitans are your best bet.

Problem with throwing Gitans Even though you might gain extra Gitans from pickpockets you'll likely end up with less money than usual, especially early on. With that in mind, don't throw Gitans blindly. If you have early Arrows, consider using those instead. As long as the Gitans aren't thrown you can always drop them to buy items from shops. As with all throwing items, throwing them has a good chance to miss, so if missing would mean Shiren's death, consider a foolproof method instead. Inventory space is always a problem, and carrying 10 bags of Gitans won't help. I try to carry all of them until I'm out of pickpocket range and then just carry one or two depending on other items available.