EOU2: Climbing a tree, 26F
Jan. 20th, 2019 02:36 am![[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
Before moving into 26F, I tackled the remaining quests. This was to find the "Foul Grail", the counterpart of the Grail of Kings that takes life away. It was pretty mindless, just needed to go to the room before the Overlord's - not the Juggernaut's room as I initially thought. But before that, I went and beat Chicken Kenshiro, Frost King, and Thunder Queen again...turning in all the quests with Yggdrasil Sprout tea!
The experience of these three quests tripled, plus a shiny Sky Metal Knight on the way there, was enough to get Ciara very close to 70. It felt like a productive use of one of my two. I decide to take her (and the triple experience) with me for the next few quests, just to see how the group functions without Kei. To this end, she got new equipment (including her rare accessory), skill point distribution, and Grimoires that mostly consisted of the stuff Kei generated: Lv10 Cure, Lv10 Revive, Lv5 Salve, and Lv10 Refresh. The other two went to a Flank Shot Lv10 (she could equip bows anyway) and Battle Instinct Lv9 TP+ for lack of anything better. Also, I'm not sure if I'm going to be using the others. Different screenshot by the way. Had another crash and lost some screenshots, although most of them were just of nothing anyway.
My group was crushing all comers, and while Ciara couldn't do much herself, was certainly helping the others do a lot with her huge wellspring of TP and Warrior Song. My initial impressions are that Kei might be superior for general travel (especially with Scavenge), but Ciara will be best for boss fights and stuff. She could also do tricks with auto-healing Ichigo.
Doing this unlocked another quest pertaining to the birdmen. I made my way to 20F to meet Canaan, and apparently he has no idea of quests despite the fact that he's technically sent one in before. Anyway, Storm Emperor (under an alias that I can't recall) apparently was damaging their vault, and they've been transfering it. I head up to 23F - walking up, since floor jump is for chumps - running over Harpuia along the way. Just need to fight some Gem Lizards after getting there, no big deal.
No more quests show up at this point, so all I can really do is to keep climbing the tree. Or at least step into 26F so I can get more new quests. Welcome to the...
...a place of peace...
...which is a false/artificial Eden. Peaceful on the outside, liquid murder on the inside (of battles). Seriously, this track is metal. Here's Gasser Tree (aka Sickwood) on the left, a foe that does not take kindly to dying and inflicts a deadly poison...unless head bound. On the right is Ancient Hermit, who has only 12HP, but is incredibly resistant to just about everything. That's right, multi-hit moves like Ichigo's Wolf Fang could actually come in handy here Naturally, Frailty Curse and Warrior Song also helped to kill this thing, and a Fantasia is just cheating. Why this way when you can just melt it with poison? Because it has a conditional to kill it with physical damage!
Also, when I failed to inflict head bind once, I found out the poison actually hurts its allies! Different from the original and EOU1.
Nothing to do here due to plot, except beating up a FOE called Asterius.
---
There's three of these things in the room to the south and they're all alerted at once, so a speed kill here was of utmost importance. Really need to get another Swap Step or something for Ciara. Had to just hammer on the Stigmata - no time to Frailty Curse (it provokes a murderous counter if not bound anyway). One good thing about Kei - I could go...
Turn 1: Limitless/Fire Prelude/Frailty Curse/Warrior Song/Stigmata (FB)
...and it'd be crippled, disabled, and Varda would be ready to kill it next turn. Here, it was something like..
Turn 1: Limitless/Fire Prelude/Point Blank/Stigmata (FB)/Warrior Song
Turn 2: Ecstasy (FB)/Hit-Taker/Burst Shot (FB)/Defend/Reverb (Varda->Azura)
Also despite it having a weakness to 2/3 elements, Burst Shot disappointed. Still, the combo left it at critical health. I ended up trying to fight all three at first, but got owned when they pulled out a move to nearly slaughter a Force Boosted Ichigo. This thing has 25039HP, hmm...and the conditional is to kill them with Bash damage! The big catch with these things are their replies to debuffs...like Ichigo's Beast Roar. They can purge them and unleash a party-wide attack which is stronger with more of them. They can even debuff themselves with Warhammer, which hurts anyway.
Also, as I found out, they can rudely be summoned by the Ancient Hermits if they're alone. I was up for beating one in this fashion. Had to pop a "fuck you too" when it decided to try to screw me at the last minute, but winning is what matters.
And as I thought it might be, this was much easier with Kei instead of Ciara. This party with its Grimoires is just a bit better at setting up and stunning something at the same time, and Kei even has Front Guard to help soften up their blows. With Ciara I have a bit more raw power thanks to being able to buff Azura, Reverb stuff, etc. I even get a second copy of the conditional - the first I get after a battle using Ciara since Burst Shot/Ecstasy takes them to critical HP...but this second time it wasn't as critical, so I had to fight a bit for this. It goes into two things, neither of which are relevant for me.
---
So it's settled. Sorry Ciara, you're a good and cute girl and will certainly be called upon to help against some bosses, but Kei just fits my mold better. I could work with either, but my playstyle - beating up all FOEs - just is much more condusive to Kei. Plus, she can deal respectable damage, which Ciara kind of lacks in.
Next quest is to investigate the secret area of Stratum 2. Get to see Marion without her helmet (and she's pretty good-looking!) and learn some lore about her: something in there took out her entire guild save for her. It generates a lot of heat. Sounds like a setup for a postgame boss to me! I find a plate of some kind and bring it back. I turn in the quest with secondary/tertiary members of the guild who are very unlikely to see action - I'm no Touya - but better than just wasting it on capped party members.
Last quest is from the birdmen again, and this time, it's to make a blood sacrifice to fill the Foul Grail, which will unseal the way to the Forbidden Woods. The Juggernaut is chosen as the target.
With Ciara AND Kei at my side, I one-shot the beast this time around.
The ritual is performed beyond where the Asterius FOEs were, up a flight of stairs on 27F. Canaan takes care of most of it, and talks about an(other) End-Bringer here. Only thing we need to do is to pull out a sword. The game for whatever reason says if you don't feel like pulling it, you can prepare to pull it. I take this to mean "go get Ciara".
And yes, that is a good idea.
---
Another boss, another victim of Ecstasy. I use the same strat as I did on Juggernaut, although switch Fire Prelude for Hit-Taker because I don't know what he does. And he does something that is better off blocked. Then gets healed off. This move also buffs his...a lot, although one of them is his offense which is canceled out because of Beast Roar..
Turn 1: Limitless/Hit-Taker/Frailty Curse/Warrior Song/Chained Benefit
Turn 2: Ecstasy/Defend/Swap Step (Devaki)/Crusaude/Stigmata
If I really wanted to with this strategy, I could have Devaki be the Frailty Curser and have Kei use a Prelude, although this reduces the rate of Stigmata landing. At any rate...
Hello? You are not allowed to do that. When I kill you, you stay dead. Still, it only recovered half of its very limited HP pool, so a follow-up for over 9000 ended this.
---
A few more enemies. King Shrooms weren't that threatening. These freaky three-headed dinosaurs have a conditional to kill them via petrification. I usually fought them by having Ichigo Self-Defense, Varda and Azura try to head bind it to prevent its attack, and Devaki using Weakening Curse. If the bind was successful, the others would just wait for her to use Petrifying Stare successfully. If not, Kei would Swap Step her and Ichigo would Hit-Taker. Though all these gave up was the Landshark's ultimate armor.
A new misty room gives way to another new FOE and intriguing mechanic. The map suddenly stops showing where I am! It's still possible to map it out, but you don't get anything properly revealed and have to do it fully manually. Doesn't help this game doesn't have a compass...to fix this, you need to do a pound-up.
---
Really, these things are roadkill. 4577HP. You're actually intended to hunt them down, because they prevent you from seeing where you are on the map. They try to flee from you while doing so, and you need to corner them. Even for FOEs you're supposed to be fighting, these things are pathetically weak.
The only interesting thing is their conditional. You need to kill them on the 11th turn or later, a bit of a difficult task considering their penchant for explosive suicide. The solution is to lock them down with things like sleep, fear (they're weak to both, though you'll need a control move to exploit the latter), panic, head bind (only stops them from exploding, not them trying to expode which takes a turn), stun, and so on. Devaki using Chained Benefit while we wait helps to nail it.
---
The Eternal Hide lets you make the ultimate armor for the Medic.
In later rooms, Astrius FOEs are thrown in with the Icy Bulbs. They can't see when the mist is up, but you can't preemptive them - they'll just only see you when you're right in front of them.. In any case, this one was guarding a chest with an "Echo" Grimoire (a mislabeled Reverb), so it had to die anyway. There's also instances where you need to take out multiple Icy Bulbs in a room.
The north side of the map has damage tiles!! And they hurt way more than the previous ones - 50 damage (5 with Scout Boots! Also I went and got more Scout Boots). The next room over throws them into the mix as well, the gimmick being the bulbs not being able to cross over the damage tiles (and how you can only really see them when they're one tile in front of you). An Astrius is also thrown into the mix in another room - had to carefully back away due to not having Devaki's Force Boost up, lest things get a bit hairy.
Not too much to this floor, so I'll end the report before I formally finish it because stupid battery life and stupid restaurant. The last room isn't too much different, just is big and with two Icy Bulbs.
Less screenshots than usual - especially at the back end - because the tool is the worst thing in the world and can randomly and arbitrarily decide it's not going to work. To wit I had to retake some of the Golem stuff because it was full, but then it bugged out and didn't give those (namely it dying) anyway. I'll end on some interesting points.
- Lick Wounds does indeed seem to not check for Grimoires, or at least is very bugged/inconsistent as to whether it does so or not, so I gave Ichigo a Legendary Grimoire to buff the healing instead. Shame, because if it worked and I combined the two, any triggering would be almost a full heal.
- Ichigo can't Fire Prelude before Varda moves with Ecstasy, but Ciara can.
- Even some of my other party members got a ton of experience due to the triple experience stuff, it has more of an effect on those in the guild than I thought.
- I had money to spare, so I got the Zamiel Bow for Devaki.
- Devaki's not packing Link Order at the moment because of needing to make room for Petrifying Stare, but it'll probably be back.
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
Before moving into 26F, I tackled the remaining quests. This was to find the "Foul Grail", the counterpart of the Grail of Kings that takes life away. It was pretty mindless, just needed to go to the room before the Overlord's - not the Juggernaut's room as I initially thought. But before that, I went and beat Chicken Kenshiro, Frost King, and Thunder Queen again...turning in all the quests with Yggdrasil Sprout tea!
The experience of these three quests tripled, plus a shiny Sky Metal Knight on the way there, was enough to get Ciara very close to 70. It felt like a productive use of one of my two. I decide to take her (and the triple experience) with me for the next few quests, just to see how the group functions without Kei. To this end, she got new equipment (including her rare accessory), skill point distribution, and Grimoires that mostly consisted of the stuff Kei generated: Lv10 Cure, Lv10 Revive, Lv5 Salve, and Lv10 Refresh. The other two went to a Flank Shot Lv10 (she could equip bows anyway) and Battle Instinct Lv9 TP+ for lack of anything better. Also, I'm not sure if I'm going to be using the others. Different screenshot by the way. Had another crash and lost some screenshots, although most of them were just of nothing anyway.
My group was crushing all comers, and while Ciara couldn't do much herself, was certainly helping the others do a lot with her huge wellspring of TP and Warrior Song. My initial impressions are that Kei might be superior for general travel (especially with Scavenge), but Ciara will be best for boss fights and stuff. She could also do tricks with auto-healing Ichigo.
Doing this unlocked another quest pertaining to the birdmen. I made my way to 20F to meet Canaan, and apparently he has no idea of quests despite the fact that he's technically sent one in before. Anyway, Storm Emperor (under an alias that I can't recall) apparently was damaging their vault, and they've been transfering it. I head up to 23F - walking up, since floor jump is for chumps - running over Harpuia along the way. Just need to fight some Gem Lizards after getting there, no big deal.
No more quests show up at this point, so all I can really do is to keep climbing the tree. Or at least step into 26F so I can get more new quests. Welcome to the...
...a place of peace...
...which is a false/artificial Eden. Peaceful on the outside, liquid murder on the inside (of battles). Seriously, this track is metal. Here's Gasser Tree (aka Sickwood) on the left, a foe that does not take kindly to dying and inflicts a deadly poison...unless head bound. On the right is Ancient Hermit, who has only 12HP, but is incredibly resistant to just about everything. That's right, multi-hit moves like Ichigo's Wolf Fang could actually come in handy here Naturally, Frailty Curse and Warrior Song also helped to kill this thing, and a Fantasia is just cheating. Why this way when you can just melt it with poison? Because it has a conditional to kill it with physical damage!
Also, when I failed to inflict head bind once, I found out the poison actually hurts its allies! Different from the original and EOU1.
Nothing to do here due to plot, except beating up a FOE called Asterius.
---
There's three of these things in the room to the south and they're all alerted at once, so a speed kill here was of utmost importance. Really need to get another Swap Step or something for Ciara. Had to just hammer on the Stigmata - no time to Frailty Curse (it provokes a murderous counter if not bound anyway). One good thing about Kei - I could go...
Turn 1: Limitless/Fire Prelude/Frailty Curse/Warrior Song/Stigmata (FB)
...and it'd be crippled, disabled, and Varda would be ready to kill it next turn. Here, it was something like..
Turn 1: Limitless/Fire Prelude/Point Blank/Stigmata (FB)/Warrior Song
Turn 2: Ecstasy (FB)/Hit-Taker/Burst Shot (FB)/Defend/Reverb (Varda->Azura)
Also despite it having a weakness to 2/3 elements, Burst Shot disappointed. Still, the combo left it at critical health. I ended up trying to fight all three at first, but got owned when they pulled out a move to nearly slaughter a Force Boosted Ichigo. This thing has 25039HP, hmm...and the conditional is to kill them with Bash damage! The big catch with these things are their replies to debuffs...like Ichigo's Beast Roar. They can purge them and unleash a party-wide attack which is stronger with more of them. They can even debuff themselves with Warhammer, which hurts anyway.
Also, as I found out, they can rudely be summoned by the Ancient Hermits if they're alone. I was up for beating one in this fashion. Had to pop a "fuck you too" when it decided to try to screw me at the last minute, but winning is what matters.
And as I thought it might be, this was much easier with Kei instead of Ciara. This party with its Grimoires is just a bit better at setting up and stunning something at the same time, and Kei even has Front Guard to help soften up their blows. With Ciara I have a bit more raw power thanks to being able to buff Azura, Reverb stuff, etc. I even get a second copy of the conditional - the first I get after a battle using Ciara since Burst Shot/Ecstasy takes them to critical HP...but this second time it wasn't as critical, so I had to fight a bit for this. It goes into two things, neither of which are relevant for me.
---
So it's settled. Sorry Ciara, you're a good and cute girl and will certainly be called upon to help against some bosses, but Kei just fits my mold better. I could work with either, but my playstyle - beating up all FOEs - just is much more condusive to Kei. Plus, she can deal respectable damage, which Ciara kind of lacks in.
Next quest is to investigate the secret area of Stratum 2. Get to see Marion without her helmet (and she's pretty good-looking!) and learn some lore about her: something in there took out her entire guild save for her. It generates a lot of heat. Sounds like a setup for a postgame boss to me! I find a plate of some kind and bring it back. I turn in the quest with secondary/tertiary members of the guild who are very unlikely to see action - I'm no Touya - but better than just wasting it on capped party members.
Last quest is from the birdmen again, and this time, it's to make a blood sacrifice to fill the Foul Grail, which will unseal the way to the Forbidden Woods. The Juggernaut is chosen as the target.
With Ciara AND Kei at my side, I one-shot the beast this time around.
The ritual is performed beyond where the Asterius FOEs were, up a flight of stairs on 27F. Canaan takes care of most of it, and talks about an(other) End-Bringer here. Only thing we need to do is to pull out a sword. The game for whatever reason says if you don't feel like pulling it, you can prepare to pull it. I take this to mean "go get Ciara".
And yes, that is a good idea.
---
Another boss, another victim of Ecstasy. I use the same strat as I did on Juggernaut, although switch Fire Prelude for Hit-Taker because I don't know what he does. And he does something that is better off blocked. Then gets healed off. This move also buffs his...a lot, although one of them is his offense which is canceled out because of Beast Roar..
Turn 1: Limitless/Hit-Taker/Frailty Curse/Warrior Song/Chained Benefit
Turn 2: Ecstasy/Defend/Swap Step (Devaki)/Crusaude/Stigmata
If I really wanted to with this strategy, I could have Devaki be the Frailty Curser and have Kei use a Prelude, although this reduces the rate of Stigmata landing. At any rate...
Hello? You are not allowed to do that. When I kill you, you stay dead. Still, it only recovered half of its very limited HP pool, so a follow-up for over 9000 ended this.
---
A few more enemies. King Shrooms weren't that threatening. These freaky three-headed dinosaurs have a conditional to kill them via petrification. I usually fought them by having Ichigo Self-Defense, Varda and Azura try to head bind it to prevent its attack, and Devaki using Weakening Curse. If the bind was successful, the others would just wait for her to use Petrifying Stare successfully. If not, Kei would Swap Step her and Ichigo would Hit-Taker. Though all these gave up was the Landshark's ultimate armor.
A new misty room gives way to another new FOE and intriguing mechanic. The map suddenly stops showing where I am! It's still possible to map it out, but you don't get anything properly revealed and have to do it fully manually. Doesn't help this game doesn't have a compass...to fix this, you need to do a pound-up.
---
Really, these things are roadkill. 4577HP. You're actually intended to hunt them down, because they prevent you from seeing where you are on the map. They try to flee from you while doing so, and you need to corner them. Even for FOEs you're supposed to be fighting, these things are pathetically weak.
The only interesting thing is their conditional. You need to kill them on the 11th turn or later, a bit of a difficult task considering their penchant for explosive suicide. The solution is to lock them down with things like sleep, fear (they're weak to both, though you'll need a control move to exploit the latter), panic, head bind (only stops them from exploding, not them trying to expode which takes a turn), stun, and so on. Devaki using Chained Benefit while we wait helps to nail it.
---
The Eternal Hide lets you make the ultimate armor for the Medic.
In later rooms, Astrius FOEs are thrown in with the Icy Bulbs. They can't see when the mist is up, but you can't preemptive them - they'll just only see you when you're right in front of them.. In any case, this one was guarding a chest with an "Echo" Grimoire (a mislabeled Reverb), so it had to die anyway. There's also instances where you need to take out multiple Icy Bulbs in a room.
The north side of the map has damage tiles!! And they hurt way more than the previous ones - 50 damage (5 with Scout Boots! Also I went and got more Scout Boots). The next room over throws them into the mix as well, the gimmick being the bulbs not being able to cross over the damage tiles (and how you can only really see them when they're one tile in front of you). An Astrius is also thrown into the mix in another room - had to carefully back away due to not having Devaki's Force Boost up, lest things get a bit hairy.
Not too much to this floor, so I'll end the report before I formally finish it because stupid battery life and stupid restaurant. The last room isn't too much different, just is big and with two Icy Bulbs.
Less screenshots than usual - especially at the back end - because the tool is the worst thing in the world and can randomly and arbitrarily decide it's not going to work. To wit I had to retake some of the Golem stuff because it was full, but then it bugged out and didn't give those (namely it dying) anyway. I'll end on some interesting points.
- Lick Wounds does indeed seem to not check for Grimoires, or at least is very bugged/inconsistent as to whether it does so or not, so I gave Ichigo a Legendary Grimoire to buff the healing instead. Shame, because if it worked and I combined the two, any triggering would be almost a full heal.
- Ichigo can't Fire Prelude before Varda moves with Ecstasy, but Ciara can.
- Even some of my other party members got a ton of experience due to the triple experience stuff, it has more of an effect on those in the guild than I thought.
- I had money to spare, so I got the Zamiel Bow for Devaki.
- Devaki's not packing Link Order at the moment because of needing to make room for Petrifying Stare, but it'll probably be back.
Next | Index
