EOU2: (not) Climbing a Tree, B2
Jan. 19th, 2019 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerror1F-5F | B1 | 6F | 7F | 8F | 9F | 10F
11F | B2 | 12F | 13F | 14F | 15F
B3 | B4 | 16F | 17F | 18F | 19F | 20F
21F | 22F | 23F | 24F | 25F | B5
26F | 27F | 28F | 29F | 30F (1) | 30F (2) | 31F
As was the plan, I Rested everyone to get back some ill-invested stat points. This reduced everyone from Lv32 to Lv30. After a bit of thinking, this is what I came up with for stats.
---
Varda had Ice Wall Lv4, Curb ATK Up Lv6, Weapon Free Lv10, and Ecstasy Lv8 since that's as high as it went. Really all self-explanatory except maybe Ice Wall, which was more for the shield equipping than anything. Her skills are unchanged. 7/7/7 on the Whip Mastery, 10 Ecstasy, and 1 in Sword Mastery. 2 points unspent.
Ichigo had Healing Rhythm Lv5, Self-Defense Lv9, Auto-Lick Lv5, and...had Front Guard Lv5, but after some luck with recycling, swapped to Shield Mastery Lv10. The second of those was a lucky spawn, and gave him the full Lv10. Couldn't think of anything better for this slot, for now. I had Self-Defense pumped way high, but had a bit of a different spread this time: notably, 5/5 in Beast Roar and Preemptive Roar. This gives a 50% chance of reducing the physical attack of any battle. If I land a Lv5 Grimoire, that's a 100% chance. Seemed cool enough to try. 7 points unspent. Wasn't sure if I wanted Tiger Blow/Wolf Fang like I had before. I also considered something I call Cat-ana with a Clear Stance Lv10, but this wasn`t much stronger than its claws, so I just threw it back into the trading pool.
Kei had Front Guard Lv7, Blood Fortune Lv5, Guard Slash Lv10, and...Refresh Lv6??? I had some Lv10s and Lv9s, but I went with this due to it making the skill reach Lv9, for multi-targetting while staying affordable. at 10TP. I wasn't sure how to spend her points, but ultimately it looked much the same as before. I thought about getting Scavenge Lv10, but that seems unnecessary. I did upgrade Salve to Lv5, as that might help. 3 left unspent.
Azura had Warrior Song Lv3, Speed Up Lv4, Curb ATK Up Lv7 (Volt1), and Cover Fire Lv10. Skillwise, she's a lot more balanced: all the elemental rounds were set to Lv5, none of the binds were pumped, and Cover Fire Lv10 was obtained as before. 4 left lying around
Finally, Devaki had Flank Shot Lv5, Link Order Lv8 (AutoHeal), Stigmata Lv10, Venom Curse Lv10. Her skill points pumped the usual. Also, it occured to me a bit too late that Chained Benefit Lv5 may not be that big a step up over Lv1, but eh. Something to fix in another rest, I suppose! 5 unspent.
---
Cover Fire Lv10+10 is really ridiculous. It's a full-heal at this point on anyone in the Front Row. Forgot to take a picture of it, will do so next time. Autoheal is also pretty good; most hits on Devaki just healed away. Gave me a really nice secondary healing option, and one that always triggered at a round's start due to the nature of it. Venom Curse Lv10+10, on the other hand, wasn't that much better than Lv10+6 or so as I was using, but was still a bit better. Not "needed", but nice to have.
With new areas comes new FOEs. You can go around them, burn their webs to instantly kill them, or fight them. So of course I was going to fight them. Right now? Right now!!
I got caught by the first spider, and wasn't expecting to start with everything bound - though it might just be legs. But there were some things that I could use even though that was the case. Namely, Cover Fire and Stigmata. So there was a point where everything on the field was horribly bound. Eventually I recovered and was able to work this thing down.
Subsequent fights, well...the strategy is the same as always. Nerve Bite also came in handy here due to their paralysis vulnerability. These things are resistant to binds, and yet Devaki could still inflict them all. Just completely bodied them. I also tried fighting one under more normal circumstances. This one ended up closer to the first fight - slow and annoying, but a stalemate that I'd eventually win. Also during one of these, I got a triple Grimoire Fever, leading to a quintuple Premium Chance. Ended up with another Venom Curse Lv10. Varda also got a natural one here. Still dick all. She may be a destroyer of worlds but she kinda sucks at making Grimoires.
There was a notable incident in the room with two. I handled them just by brutalizing the one before the other could reach me. Oddly, when the one that died respawned later (these things respawn very fast for some reason!!), when I got into a random near it, it tried to use its web. During this incident as you can see, the other spider just came in to try to join the fight. I was preparing to greet it, but had to Venom Curse the thing I was facing to death instead.
After my first trip in when fighting those things, I got the aforementioned Shield Mastery Lv10. A character who takes most of the hits having a chance to no-sell some is nice. I also got a Warrior Song Lv10 when recycling. It's cool on-paper, but you absolutely cannot use this. It costs way too much TP (40!!!), and isn't even that much better than the original. And a second Legendary Sovereign, with AutoHeals on Clearance and Link Order.
One of the more notable enemies here were the Red Haggis. Like their predecessors, these cute things do not take kindly to being woken up and will burn you. Dealing with them wasn't too bad, even without a Flame Wall Grimoire. I could just bind their heads, and if I wanted to be extra-safe, could do it with Devaki. The originals also showed up here, but were no threat - Fire Rounds plus Link Order took them from full to dead.
There was also that funny looking guy with-them and a somewhat bigger guy who apparently has six arms. Neither got a chance to do much with their arms good and bound, though that guy could use a debuff that makes healing less efficient, and the latter I'm assuming uses a general high-powered attack. Same goes for these white gorilla/tiger things.
There was an Unbind Grimoire on this floor. Probably maybe will come in handy. Most of the floor consisted of spider rooms, and that included the boss. Everyone was sitting at Lv30. Like I said, those spiders took up like half the floor, so leveling kinda stalled for a while.
---
17000HP is a lot to clear...and I think you're not even supposed to actually straight-up fight Arachne this way. Again, you're supposed to light the web on fire, this time to stun her and reduce that HP value by around half. But I thought this team could handle it! I was originally entering battle binded and so had everyone use Thracia As, but it turned out not to be necessary with the right positioning/movement.
Indeed, the math was no different against her. However, I can't Guard Slash her easily, and even at full power, I would have quite a lot left to clear. The solution was just waiting for Force to respawn and going again! I used my Amritas when doing the Grimoire grinding, which annoyingly limited me some. It really wasn't hard, I could deal with her attacks easily enough. Even when she used a Poisonous Swamp attack to deal damage at the end of each turn, I wasn't concerned. This fight looked to be in the bag...until her second cycle of toxic swamp. It was slightly stronger, which wasn't too big a deal. However, I died here when her Poison Fang attack suddenly became much more powerful. What the-!?
Hm. Maybe add a second Front Guard? Varda can carry that. I also thought it might be better to use Ecstasy at full-power every time instead of using some weaker ones, to converse on TP. This especially applied when it went down to a single binding. After all, if I'm waiting the whole fight anyway, may as well wait to unleash full power once more, right?
Well, I failed again after getting to this phase, but came up with the simple solution - Hit-Taker plus Force from the Beast means she can't do much. That seemed like it'd be enough to outlast her and get around to a second cycle of pain. There was also a small lack of synergy at work-here: Varda's new weapon would trigger Link Order. I was stuck on whether to just Defend with her or not mind. Didn't do the calculations to see which is truly best.
I also decided to try some reshuffling of less useful skills for the fight to better deal with her. Most importantly, Varda swapped out all but her high-level Ecstasy for Bull Charge Lv5, Whip Master Lv1 (Cut+), Pre-Initiative Lv3. A bunch of spare Grimoires I had lying around to try to buff her damage. Azura and Devaki got Fire Rounds Lv5 and Curb ATK Up Lv5 (Fire+) respectively, to boost that element. I wanted Kei to have Frailty Curse, but I'd thrown those all away. o.o She had to settle for just a bit of extra TP from War Edge Mastery Lv6. I already had Venom Rings and had switched to HP boosting food; nothing better and Venom Curse was useless.
Surely, the battle to come would be one of epic proportions!!
...or I'd just destroy her due to luck and the power of my reshuffling. The triple bind lasted all three rounds of Varda's Force Charge, plus one beyond. Bull Charge Ecstasy was ridiculous. The subsequent ones did a little over 4000. The fight went something like this.
- Turn 1: Attack/Beast Roar/Blood Fortune/Warrior Song/Chained Benefit, she attacks Varda,
- Turn 2: Bull Charge/Beast Roar/Cure (Varda)/Warrior Song/Stigmata (Force Boost), she attacks Varda
- Turn 3: Ecstasy (Force Boost)/Self-Defense/Attack/Warrior Song/Thracia A, she does nothing because bound
- Turn 4: Ecstasy/Self-Defense/Attack/Fire Rounds/Frailty Curse, she does something irrelevant
- Turn 5: Ecstasy/Hit-Taker/Attack/Fire Rounds (Force Boost?)/Link Order
- Turn 6: Ecstasy/Hit-Taker/Attack/Fire Rounds/Link Order, dead after the Ecstasy (which still did over 2000)
In summary...B-b-b-bodied. The experience put everyone back up to 31. I accepted this. I'm fairly sure the enduring strategy would've been able to win out, anyway, and even kept a save file to check for later. Already had what I felt really was the last piece of the puzzle. Onward and upward, then!!
Next | Index
11F | B2 | 12F | 13F | 14F | 15F
B3 | B4 | 16F | 17F | 18F | 19F | 20F
21F | 22F | 23F | 24F | 25F | B5
26F | 27F | 28F | 29F | 30F (1) | 30F (2) | 31F
As was the plan, I Rested everyone to get back some ill-invested stat points. This reduced everyone from Lv32 to Lv30. After a bit of thinking, this is what I came up with for stats.
---
Varda had Ice Wall Lv4, Curb ATK Up Lv6, Weapon Free Lv10, and Ecstasy Lv8 since that's as high as it went. Really all self-explanatory except maybe Ice Wall, which was more for the shield equipping than anything. Her skills are unchanged. 7/7/7 on the Whip Mastery, 10 Ecstasy, and 1 in Sword Mastery. 2 points unspent.
Ichigo had Healing Rhythm Lv5, Self-Defense Lv9, Auto-Lick Lv5, and...had Front Guard Lv5, but after some luck with recycling, swapped to Shield Mastery Lv10. The second of those was a lucky spawn, and gave him the full Lv10. Couldn't think of anything better for this slot, for now. I had Self-Defense pumped way high, but had a bit of a different spread this time: notably, 5/5 in Beast Roar and Preemptive Roar. This gives a 50% chance of reducing the physical attack of any battle. If I land a Lv5 Grimoire, that's a 100% chance. Seemed cool enough to try. 7 points unspent. Wasn't sure if I wanted Tiger Blow/Wolf Fang like I had before. I also considered something I call Cat-ana with a Clear Stance Lv10, but this wasn`t much stronger than its claws, so I just threw it back into the trading pool.
Kei had Front Guard Lv7, Blood Fortune Lv5, Guard Slash Lv10, and...Refresh Lv6??? I had some Lv10s and Lv9s, but I went with this due to it making the skill reach Lv9, for multi-targetting while staying affordable. at 10TP. I wasn't sure how to spend her points, but ultimately it looked much the same as before. I thought about getting Scavenge Lv10, but that seems unnecessary. I did upgrade Salve to Lv5, as that might help. 3 left unspent.
Azura had Warrior Song Lv3, Speed Up Lv4, Curb ATK Up Lv7 (Volt1), and Cover Fire Lv10. Skillwise, she's a lot more balanced: all the elemental rounds were set to Lv5, none of the binds were pumped, and Cover Fire Lv10 was obtained as before. 4 left lying around
Finally, Devaki had Flank Shot Lv5, Link Order Lv8 (AutoHeal), Stigmata Lv10, Venom Curse Lv10. Her skill points pumped the usual. Also, it occured to me a bit too late that Chained Benefit Lv5 may not be that big a step up over Lv1, but eh. Something to fix in another rest, I suppose! 5 unspent.
---
Cover Fire Lv10+10 is really ridiculous. It's a full-heal at this point on anyone in the Front Row. Forgot to take a picture of it, will do so next time. Autoheal is also pretty good; most hits on Devaki just healed away. Gave me a really nice secondary healing option, and one that always triggered at a round's start due to the nature of it. Venom Curse Lv10+10, on the other hand, wasn't that much better than Lv10+6 or so as I was using, but was still a bit better. Not "needed", but nice to have.
With new areas comes new FOEs. You can go around them, burn their webs to instantly kill them, or fight them. So of course I was going to fight them. Right now? Right now!!
I got caught by the first spider, and wasn't expecting to start with everything bound - though it might just be legs. But there were some things that I could use even though that was the case. Namely, Cover Fire and Stigmata. So there was a point where everything on the field was horribly bound. Eventually I recovered and was able to work this thing down.
Subsequent fights, well...the strategy is the same as always. Nerve Bite also came in handy here due to their paralysis vulnerability. These things are resistant to binds, and yet Devaki could still inflict them all. Just completely bodied them. I also tried fighting one under more normal circumstances. This one ended up closer to the first fight - slow and annoying, but a stalemate that I'd eventually win. Also during one of these, I got a triple Grimoire Fever, leading to a quintuple Premium Chance. Ended up with another Venom Curse Lv10. Varda also got a natural one here. Still dick all. She may be a destroyer of worlds but she kinda sucks at making Grimoires.
There was a notable incident in the room with two. I handled them just by brutalizing the one before the other could reach me. Oddly, when the one that died respawned later (these things respawn very fast for some reason!!), when I got into a random near it, it tried to use its web. During this incident as you can see, the other spider just came in to try to join the fight. I was preparing to greet it, but had to Venom Curse the thing I was facing to death instead.
After my first trip in when fighting those things, I got the aforementioned Shield Mastery Lv10. A character who takes most of the hits having a chance to no-sell some is nice. I also got a Warrior Song Lv10 when recycling. It's cool on-paper, but you absolutely cannot use this. It costs way too much TP (40!!!), and isn't even that much better than the original. And a second Legendary Sovereign, with AutoHeals on Clearance and Link Order.
One of the more notable enemies here were the Red Haggis. Like their predecessors, these cute things do not take kindly to being woken up and will burn you. Dealing with them wasn't too bad, even without a Flame Wall Grimoire. I could just bind their heads, and if I wanted to be extra-safe, could do it with Devaki. The originals also showed up here, but were no threat - Fire Rounds plus Link Order took them from full to dead.
There was also that funny looking guy with-them and a somewhat bigger guy who apparently has six arms. Neither got a chance to do much with their arms good and bound, though that guy could use a debuff that makes healing less efficient, and the latter I'm assuming uses a general high-powered attack. Same goes for these white gorilla/tiger things.
There was an Unbind Grimoire on this floor. Probably maybe will come in handy. Most of the floor consisted of spider rooms, and that included the boss. Everyone was sitting at Lv30. Like I said, those spiders took up like half the floor, so leveling kinda stalled for a while.
---
17000HP is a lot to clear...and I think you're not even supposed to actually straight-up fight Arachne this way. Again, you're supposed to light the web on fire, this time to stun her and reduce that HP value by around half. But I thought this team could handle it! I was originally entering battle binded and so had everyone use Thracia As, but it turned out not to be necessary with the right positioning/movement.
Indeed, the math was no different against her. However, I can't Guard Slash her easily, and even at full power, I would have quite a lot left to clear. The solution was just waiting for Force to respawn and going again! I used my Amritas when doing the Grimoire grinding, which annoyingly limited me some. It really wasn't hard, I could deal with her attacks easily enough. Even when she used a Poisonous Swamp attack to deal damage at the end of each turn, I wasn't concerned. This fight looked to be in the bag...until her second cycle of toxic swamp. It was slightly stronger, which wasn't too big a deal. However, I died here when her Poison Fang attack suddenly became much more powerful. What the-!?
Hm. Maybe add a second Front Guard? Varda can carry that. I also thought it might be better to use Ecstasy at full-power every time instead of using some weaker ones, to converse on TP. This especially applied when it went down to a single binding. After all, if I'm waiting the whole fight anyway, may as well wait to unleash full power once more, right?
Well, I failed again after getting to this phase, but came up with the simple solution - Hit-Taker plus Force from the Beast means she can't do much. That seemed like it'd be enough to outlast her and get around to a second cycle of pain. There was also a small lack of synergy at work-here: Varda's new weapon would trigger Link Order. I was stuck on whether to just Defend with her or not mind. Didn't do the calculations to see which is truly best.
I also decided to try some reshuffling of less useful skills for the fight to better deal with her. Most importantly, Varda swapped out all but her high-level Ecstasy for Bull Charge Lv5, Whip Master Lv1 (Cut+), Pre-Initiative Lv3. A bunch of spare Grimoires I had lying around to try to buff her damage. Azura and Devaki got Fire Rounds Lv5 and Curb ATK Up Lv5 (Fire+) respectively, to boost that element. I wanted Kei to have Frailty Curse, but I'd thrown those all away. o.o She had to settle for just a bit of extra TP from War Edge Mastery Lv6. I already had Venom Rings and had switched to HP boosting food; nothing better and Venom Curse was useless.
Surely, the battle to come would be one of epic proportions!!
...or I'd just destroy her due to luck and the power of my reshuffling. The triple bind lasted all three rounds of Varda's Force Charge, plus one beyond. Bull Charge Ecstasy was ridiculous. The subsequent ones did a little over 4000. The fight went something like this.
- Turn 1: Attack/Beast Roar/Blood Fortune/Warrior Song/Chained Benefit, she attacks Varda,
- Turn 2: Bull Charge/Beast Roar/Cure (Varda)/Warrior Song/Stigmata (Force Boost), she attacks Varda
- Turn 3: Ecstasy (Force Boost)/Self-Defense/Attack/Warrior Song/Thracia A, she does nothing because bound
- Turn 4: Ecstasy/Self-Defense/Attack/Fire Rounds/Frailty Curse, she does something irrelevant
- Turn 5: Ecstasy/Hit-Taker/Attack/Fire Rounds (Force Boost?)/Link Order
- Turn 6: Ecstasy/Hit-Taker/Attack/Fire Rounds/Link Order, dead after the Ecstasy (which still did over 2000)
In summary...B-b-b-bodied. The experience put everyone back up to 31. I accepted this. I'm fairly sure the enduring strategy would've been able to win out, anyway, and even kept a save file to check for later. Already had what I felt really was the last piece of the puzzle. Onward and upward, then!!
Next | Index
