Disgaea – Auto Grind Guide (Late Game)

Have you ever tried to grind all 186.000 levels required for max stats, or just to level 9999? Well, if you have, this guide will show you how to make that process a lot easier.

Guide to Auto Grind

All credit goes to laurilomas!

Introduction

First of all, this automatic grind only works if you can oneshot all enemies with 9X9 skills. If you’re not strong enough, I reccomend maxing out your mastery level in Jotunheim, Terrible Cold, where enemies are invincible.

If you’re still not strong enough, you can always go to the item world and get gladiators or teachers and putting them in your weapon.

If you still have trouble, you will have to level up your character a little before being able to use this automatic grind.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about how we’re gonna do it. We will be using a program called AutoHotkey, which allows us to input a series of keys that will be played whenever we activate it. By making a series of key inputs and then adding a loop, we will be able to have automatic grinding. And if you put a little effort yourself, you could alter it so it’s compatible with all Disgaea games!

• Here is the link to the page so you can download AutoHotkey.

If you plan to use this guide, please read the FAQ as really important information is written there, especially 5!

The Raw Thing & Cave of Ordeals

So, you downloaded AutoHotkey and want to grind already. Well, depending of who and where you want to grind, you will have to write different “.ahk” files. But first, what is an “.ahk” file? It’s the type of file that AutoHotkey uses to run, and can be created from your desktop with right click and new once you have installed AutoHotkey. If for some reason it doesn’t appear, you can always write a note and change the “.txt” to a “.ahk”

So, the following code is written with certain keys assigned to certain actions. If you don’t have the same keybinds in the game, you’ll have to replace the following letters with their corresponding equivalent in your game.

• WASD: up, left, down and right.
• J: confirm.
• Z: Execute action (it’s normally a combination of keys, so I reccomend assigning it to a key far away from the keys you normally use so you don’t press it by accident)
• 0: Nothing. It’s important that you assign a key that doesn’t do nothing to this.
• There’s a special case with “P” and “CTRL+K”, since these aren’t keys that correspond to the game, but how to activate and pause the automatic grinding. If you use one of these keys in the game for something, you may want to change them.
• “CTRL+K” is in line 5, it’s “$^k::”. Just change it for whatever you want to use to activate the program.
• “P” is in line 23, it’s “p::”. Just change it for whatever you want to use to pause the program.

Note: Also, don’t forget to turn off animations and put your grinding character in the top.

So, now that you have an understanding of what each letter means, here’s the base code for grinding in Cave of Ordeals with a sword user.

• #NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
• ; #Warn ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
• SendMode Event ; For science!
• SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

$^k::
loop{
SetKeyDelay, 65, 65
Send j
Sleep, 3600.0
SetKeyDelay, 65, 65
Send jjjdj
Sleep, 400.0
SetKeyDelay, 65, 65
Send jssjsssjdjz
Sleep, 3400.0
SetKeyDelay, 65, 65
Send jj
Sleep, 1700.0
SetKeyDelay, 65, 65
Send 0
Sleep, 1.0
}
p::
Pause
Return
Escape::
ExitApp
Return

Pretty heavy, right? Well, once you replace each key with your equivalent, you’ll be able to automatically grind with a sword user. The only thing left to do is to drag the “.ahk” file into the AutoHotkey folder, and then move it over AutoHotkey.exe. If this is your first time doing it, no prompt will appear. If you are doing it a second time, a prompt asking if you want to override the previous sequence will appear.

If you want to automatically grind with a fist user, you’ll have to alter the previous code. More details in the Customizing section.

Demonhall Mirror

So, you want to grind in Demonhall Mirror instead of the Cave of Ordeals? Well, with this nifty code, you can do it!

Take into account the movement of your character, as a character that can’t reach the monsters won’t be able to use this. Also, read The Raw Thing section for more instructions.

• #NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
• ; #Warn ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
• SendMode Event ; For science!
• SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

$^k::
loop{
SetKeyDelay, 65, 65
Send j
Sleep, 3800.0
SetKeyDelay, 95, 95
Send jjjwwwwwwwwj
Sleep, 2000.0
SetKeyDelay, 80, 80
Send jssjsssjwjz
Sleep, 3400.0
SetKeyDelay, 70, 70
Send jj
Sleep, 1700.0
SetKeyDelay, 65, 65
Send 0
Sleep, 1.0
}
p::
Pause
Return
Escape::
ExitApp
Return

Again, this is for sword users. For fist or magic users, follow the Customizing section.

Customizing

So, you have a fist or magic user and want to grind? Well, all your problems can be solved by altering one simple line! More specifically, you’ll have to modify line 14, or “Send jssjsssjdjz”.

What you want to do for fist users is simply add 2 “s” or “down commands” after the second “j” or “confirm”. If you do it correctly, it’ll look like this:

“Send jssjsssssjdjz”. This will look different depending of your equivalent keys. You won’t add 2 “s” if your “down command” is binded to another key.

If you want to grind magic users, who use multiple spells, you have different options depending on what spell you want to use. See, line 14 is a curious thing. In this section, you are selecting from your skill menu what action to perform and then executing it. Sword and fist users always have Winged Slayer and Big Bang in the 4th and 6th place respectively, and you always want to grind using those skills. However, with magic users, you can have a lot of varying placing depending of what class they are, if they learnt it through apprentice-mentor, etc. Thus, for magic users, a little more customization is required.

Going back to line 14, the “sss” section represents going down three times to select Winged Slayer, and then “sssss” to select Big Bang. What you have to do is choose a spell out of all the ones you have, and count down how many times you have to press “down” to reach it. Now, you have to put that same numbers of down in the code using your equivalent of “s” or “down command”. However, the thing keeps going, because now you have to select the spell zone. Right after your newly customized string of “down commands” and the “j” or “confirm command”, you’ll introduce 2 “d” or “right commands” so you select the big 9X9 option. You will now introduce a new “cofirm command” so it selects it. You would think that this thing is finally over, but now you have to select where your spell is casted. So you have to introduce “right commands” and another “confirm command”.

Finally, your automatic grinding for magic users is ready.

In my case, where my desired spell was the fifth, it looked like this:

“Send jssjssssjddjz”.

FAQ

Here are some things to take into account when using this automatic grind:

Pay close attention to 5!

• The program won’t stop even though I pressed “P” and now my computer won’t stop writing gibberish!
• This is a rare issue of previous versions, but may still happen from time to time. To solve it, just press “CTRL+ALT+Delete” and open the task manager to stop AutoHotkey. A thing to note is that AutoHotkey won’t be in the first list, but in the second.

• Everytime I press “P” once I’m finished makes the program start again and won’t stop writing gibberish/It won’t allow me to write the letter “P”!
• This is actually not an issue with the program, but with how the code is written. You see, I’m no code expert, in fact, I kinda stole the skeleton of this sequence from a guide of FFXIII-2 and altered it to suit my needs. Thus, I don’t know how to program an end to the program, only pause it. Thus, the unpause button is also “P”, and there’s no real way to close it but using the same solution in 1. However, resetting your computer should make it stop.

As for why it won’t allow you to write the letter “P”, it’s because it overrides the use of the letter. For example, if you make “ALT+P”, it would allow you to write the letter “P”, but won’t allow you to use the previous combination to make a capital “P”. The only solution is the same as the previous one.

• I (for some reason) want to use “CTRL+K” without activating this program by mistake!
• Again, the same solution to 1 and 2. Just “CTRL+ALT+Delete” and use the task manager to close it.

• There’s 2 AutoHotkey running when I open the task manager, is this normal?
• Perfectly normal. You see, one AutoHotkey represents the app with the code, and another represents that the code is active. Both should still be present even if you pause it because the second one must remember where it paused in the sequence so it can continue from the same spot once it’s unpaused.

• Everytime I pause and unpause the program it stops working as intended, and instead start doing whatever!
• You see, as explained in 4, when you pause it, it remembers where you pause it, and continues where it left off. There are 2 solutions to this. The first one is resetting it, which can be done with the task manager as previously explained, or you can drag the “.ahk” file over AutoHotkey.exe like how you did at the start and answering yes to the prompt.

The intended method is to pause in a especific moment of the sequence. This moment is when it has just closed all windows of rewards, but before it re-enters the map. This way, the next moment you unpause it, it will continue the sequence at the start.

• This program doesn’t work at all! Sometimes in the middle of battle it will stop working and will do whatever!
• This is not really an issue with the program but with the game. You see, the sequence is kinda pushing the boundaries of how fast you can input (or at least previous versions did), so sometimes it can miss a command and ruin the whole thing. If you have this problem, I reccomend increasing the time between keys and the sleep time between sections. To do this, replace the numbers after SetKeyDelay and Sleep with bigger numbers.

• It stopped when my inventory was full!
• There are two solutions to this. The simple one is to have a lot of empty space in your inventory. When you obtain an item but your bag is full, it will show a screen that can’t be exited but by pressing the back command, which is not implemented in this guide at all, so you’ll be stuck forever in it until you come back to play the game.

The programer option is to make it press the “cancel command” everytime after the 2 “j” in the sequence. However, this may make it exit the selection screen, so do it at your own risk.

• If I run out of SP, will my character die?
• If your character doesn’t have enough to perform a skill, it’ll be stuck forever in said map until you come back to play the game. However, you don’t have to worry about that character dying, as you are using the execute command instead of the end turn command, which prevents the enemies from ever having their turn.

• How much SP should I have?
• What I do when transmigrating for the 186K is that I do the promotions required to transmigrate and then go to grind. This way I have some levels and more SP. Depending on your character, you’ll have to go restore it once or twice before hitting the 2000 level. If you are going for 9999, a 2000 or 3000 character probably has enough SP to do it in one sitting, but really low SP characters may not. It all really depends on the character.

• Magic users don’t have to move one tile up to cast their spells, so isn’t that a waste of time?
• Yeah, the customizing section felt pretty heavy on that part so I neglected to mention it. It’s also kinda of a test to see who reads the FAQ. You can resolve that issue by deleting all inputs but one “j” in line 11. However, I haven’t tested it, so while it should work in theory, I’m not sure.

• Could I use this guide for other grinding spots, like Stellar Graveyard, Valgipus VI?
• Yeah, you could totally do it! You would have to customize it on your own a little, but the base it. Already there.