Niu: Interesting, thanks for the note.
Pyro: As another note, Kloe's Radiant Plash cures status as well.
Bosses! I randomly decided to write-up the bosses anyway.
SPOILERS below, you were warned, etc.
General boss notes: All bosses discussed Damage has some random variance. The ranges you see are from observation in-game, and are roughly listed as high defense -> low defense; so an attack listed as 250-350 damage would do ~300 damage to average defense, 250 to high Trails defense, and 350 to low Trails defense, but variance could see it do 350 to normal defense occasionally too, say. YRMV, Defense +15% / Shield Art Defense +30 Orbments exist and I used 'em, but you don't want them on everyone, so this is the main determinant of who's a tank and who isn't. In general once numbers get high enough I round to the nearest multiple of 50, don't want to give misleading precision when there isn't any and it makes the numbers easier. I've stuck the average damage in PCHP figures in as well.
Also, I can't be sure if it was just charge times messing with things, but speed didn't feel straight-linear to me; there's a fair amount of variance. I suspect there's some random component added a la FF6 speed, especially on turn 1 where who goes first clearly favors the faster characters, but is in no way guaranteed. Toss in charge-time abilities and things get even crazier. I suspect that a 120% speed person will take more turns than a 100% character on average, but when that double comes is in no way reliable; it might happen in 3 turns, it might happen in 10 turns.
Boss durability is somewhat clouded by the existence of S-Breaks. It's similar to the issue of being able to walk into most FFX boss fights with a full Overdrive gauge. You're definitely expected to use your CP meter, but food that recharges CP out of battle is quite rare so it's a gauge that just naturally fluxes up & down. Needless to say, if you hold walking into some of these battles with 200 CP and unloading against bosses, you aren't going to see the bosses as surviving long in the DL. Also, the more durable a boss is, the more CP the PCs will get and the more S-Crafts and good Crafts they can throw at the boss, so it's possible that 2x the HP doesn't mean 2x the durability in the DL, depending on interp.
While on the note of S-Breaks, it should be noted that boss S-Breaks (all two of them) don't take advantage of the "steal a turn" ability PCs can use. In other words, they don't get to accelerate their next turn to right now when using one.
Defense & Art Defense are a bit weird. There's some kind of subtractive-esque part to the formula. In other words, good defense can help totally wall basic physicals, but doesn't seem to do very much at all vs. a big damage S-Craft. Your call on if this means Defense is irrelevant, or if its usefulness against Agate / Zane / (Schera?) matters.
You'll see that most physicals have a 95% hit rate, which is admittedly a guess. This seems to be the default when you don't twink for evasion. I'd guess the hit rate drops to more like 60% if you do, but trying to twink for evasion is generally dumb in Trails since regular physicals aren't what you fear.
Anyway.
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Not listed: The Sky Bandits nor the Ravens (aka the Chapter 1 & 2 patsy villains). Sky Bandits are memorable enough and I have a save before the final fight with 'em if people are interested. The Ravens, meh, they're kind of unmemorable despite fighting them a bunch.
Captain Amalthea (1)
"Tut tut, Captain Amalthea. It looks like your renowned powers of persuasion are not as elegant as they once were."
Fights a fixed 3-person party of Estelle / Kloe / Schera. (The guys get to trudge through monster-infested sewers, while the girls get to ride around in a stolen airship then invade the Royal Keep. I see, Trails.)
PC Avg. HP: 1700 (1630/1603/1896)
PC Avg. EP: 420 (290/609/360). (Note that "EP Cut" Orbments exist (including an EP Cut 2 on Kloe) which don't technically impact this average, but affect the number of spells you can cast with that EP, which is all you care about, so slightly less Absorb hype.)
PC Avg. Spd: 15.3 (15/15/16) I didn't have Action 2 on any of the girls, but you easily could slap one on and watch your Speed increase 3 points, so can easily see using a higher figure.
HP: 2880
Defense: 150 (Averageish)
Art Defense: 0 (Bad)
Status Immunities: Petrify, Instant Death
Elemental Resistance: Neutral
Speed: 18 (mildly above average)
Attack: 200-350 ranged. ~95% hit rate.
Poison Spray [Craft]: 230-350 ranged area damage (~.17 PCHP), ~50% chance of Poison. Poison inflicts between 150-250 damage (~.12 PCHP) with big variance at the end of each turn, lasts for two (!) turns.
Aqua Bleed [Art]: 0 damage, charge time.
Shadow Spear [Art]: 0 damage, 20% chance of instant death, charge time.
Absorb [Craft]: 100 EP damage (~.23 PCEP).
Damage done to her:
Estelle's attack: ~250
Kloe's attack: ~300
Schera's attack: ~350
Estelle's Aero Storm: ~600, huge area
Kloe's Shadow Spear: ~650
Kloe's Blue Impact: ~700
Schera's Spiral Flare: ~750, medium area
S-Crafts:
Estelle's Barrage: ~1500 (100 CP), 1900 (200 CP).
Schera's Sadist Whip: ~1100 (100 CP), ~1400 (200 CP)
Fights with two special ops soldiers.
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Ahahahahahahahahahaha. Apparently at the military academy Amalthea & Schwarz were rivals, with Amalthea the smart one while Schwarz the better duelist. Amalthea is probably worse than her support, since the Special Ops support at least has a ~10% chance of instant death attached to their physical & crafts, while she's unlikely to kill anyone any time soon. And her HP is barely better than her mooks. To her mild credit, hers is the first in a 4 battle sequence, so you theoretically have an incentive not to just dump all your CP into killing her.
If you're curious why her arts are so scrubby, according to the Monster Guide she's got 0 Art Strength (!). Your average monster spellslinger will have 70-100 ATS, so uh. Yeah.
Anyway, this form is a horrible
Low Light. She goes down fast even with support credit and has a mighty 6HKO against the poison immune. If everything goes right, she can 4HKO with the poison kicking in!!1! Yeah, she wants her next form, which will be listed a little later since the damage figures up here are relevant for the next boss, that is...
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Duke Dunan
"My, my. I believe you've just gone from stupid to suicidal."
HP: 1010
Def: 110 (bad)
Art Def: 0 (bad)
Speed: 15 (slightly below average)
"Save me, Phillip!" [no effect]
"I... I'm the king!" [no effect]
"I'm not the one at fault here! It's you!" [no effect]
"A m-medal to whoever defeats them!" [Str up on all allies = double damage, lasts ~2-3 turns]
"H-how about... a reward! Hmm?!" [Str up on all allies = double damage, lasts ~2-3 turns]
Item Healing: Heals 500 HP to self, only used if below half health
"I... I.. I'm supposed to be next king..." [on defeat]
Fights with 2 Special Ops Soldiers and 1 Heavily Armed Soldier. The Soldiers are the usual gun dorks who hit for ~200, the Heavily Armed Soldier is a tank with decent defense and hits for a lot of damage (~700-900) and can also cause faint. Pretty good, actually.
Damage against Dunan: See Amalthea above, except crank up the regular physical damage by 100-200. Schera does 550-600 with a whip attack, for example.
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Dunan has some issues that keep him in
Puny, like lacking an attack and also instantly "losing" once he has no support. You get a BP bonus if you lay off him and don't stab him repeatedly, so you're not even supposed to attack him. Anyway, no matter how much support credit you give, he's 2HKOed by basic attacks in-game being a civilian and all, rendering him utter OHKO bait in the DL (~.15 PCHP, maybe?). He can theoretically get draws against the truly damageless by item-healing those who can't chip him to half health, then OHKO, except for the whole battle-ending-when-he's-the-only-one-left thing. So team match hype?! His allies can get medals! People love that.
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2nd Lieutenant LorenceYou fight Lorence at the big tournament. Maybe later, not included for now. On the bright side I'm pretty sure you must win that fight, so less legality issues, but his form is probably worse than his second form.
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Lorence
"Grand plans... but what will become of them?"
Estelle gained a level in the two fights between Amalthea & Lorence, but otherwise the same locked party.
PC Avg. HP: 1730
PC Avg. Spd: 15.3 (? See above, could be a bit higher.)
HP: 6000
Def: 200 (good)
Art Def: 30 (slightly above average)
Speed: 28 (!) (insane)
Status immunity: Blargh I loaded a new file after beating him again with Information Orbment equipped. I'm pretty sure he's just immune to everything.
Attack: 200-450 melee damage (.20 PCHP). 95% accuracy.
Draws Lorence in close for Demon Flames if opponent is using ranged attacks.
Zero Storm [Craft]: 100-200 damage (.09 PCHP). "Cancels" all charging arts in a line. See below.
Demon Flames [S-Craft]: 750-950 damage to all in area nearby Lorence (.49 PCHP). 20% chance of Faint (=skip 3 turns). Knocks people away from Lorence (usually irrelevant, if you want to melee him you can just walk back in, and it's not enough knockback to be out of range of the next Demon Flames if you were at melee range). Lorence doesn't start close enough to use this on turn 1 if you care. Could be my imagination, but Lorence seems to be a a fan of using this on critical turns, in which case the damage becomes more like 1200-1400 (!!).
Earth Guard Mk2 [Art]: Null the next 2 attacks. He won't recast it if the shield is still up (but nulled one attack already). See below.
Silver Thorn [Art]: 250-350 damage to a large area (.17 PCHP). Adds Confuse at 100% (lasts ~2 turns, more like berserk if no allies in range, sometimes pass, sometimes attack nearest enemy.).
Tearal [Art]: Heal 1800 HP (30% of Lorence's max). This is most definitely *not* OPB, Lorence cheerfully can spam it which will easily keep up with your damage when not using S-Crafts.
Anti-Sept Zero [Art]: 100% Mute to all. Lasts ~4-5 turns.
All of Lorence's Arts have a fast charge time; it's not common to get a turn in the middle to interrupt them.
Estelle's attack: 100-130
Kloe's attack: 60-110
Schera's attack: 200-230
Estelle's Blue Impact: 500-550
Kloe's Blue Impact: 650
Schera's Flare Arrow: 600-700
Schera's Sadist Whip: 850 (100 CP), 1200(200 CP)
Estelle's Barrage: 1200-1300 (100 CP), 1700-1800 (200 CP)
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Hey it's resident badass Lorence, aka the guy who gets Silver Will played for him 3 times in game, so you know he means business. As a comment, this fight is technically optional; you're supposed to win it, but if you don't, Lorence will be disappointed with you and you'll lose a BP bonus, but the game will continue. YRMV if that makes this form illegal.
Confuse is a bit wacky in a duel. I think if there is an ally in range, Confused characters prefer attacking the ally, but if there is no ally in range, they'll just attack whoever is nearest - including an enemy. (And if nothing is in range, they'll just pass the turn.) As a result, a strict interpretation would say that in the DL, Confusing an opponent just forces them to attack you with a basic physical. You can reflect that it's better in-game by making Confuse "attack phantom ally 66% of the time, attack enemy 33% of the time," but it's a bit of a hack. Still, being forced back to a basic physical is pretty punishing to some duelers, and if someone is confuse-vulnerable they're never getting a turn unconfused against DL Lorence.
Zero Storm is not actually very good in-game, and luring him into spamming it helps beat him. His AI really likes using Zero Storm as a skirmishing move if he sees anyone charging an art. However, the cancel isn't very good; it just means the character takes their next turn when the art normally would have finished casting. They don't lose the EP investment, either. Example: A character gets a turn every 30 clock ticks. At time 30, they get a turn and start charging a 10-tick art. Lorence goes at time 35 and Zero Storms. The character then gets a turn at tick 40 - their art was cancelled, but they can just try again now. In other words, Lorence traded his entire turn for the charge time of an art. This is a good trade for the PCs. (The best way to wear him down is to stand far away at 3 different angles so neither Zero Storm nor Demon Flames can hit 2 people, then spam Arts at him. He's fast, but not fast enough to lock everyone down, and the Zero Storm damage is negligible.) In the DL, I guess it's useful against abilities with absurdly long charge times... owns Emelious's Godslayer?!
Earth Guard Mk2.... meh. As noted, it's a way of perhaps wearing down your EP in-game (since having everyone close in with physicals to null it is asking to get Demon Flame'd), but it's basically waste-a-turn. However it is *made of broke* in the DL. It feels unfair to throw it out entirely, since this kind of strange-to-the-DL transition happens all the time with ST damage moves which are bad in-game vs. great MT moves in-game, and this is the defensive version of the ST / MT DL divide... but yeah, there's definitely soimething to be said for disallowing it, or saying it only shields 2/3 of the next hit (since Lorence faces 3 PCs). It's also worth noting that it's not clear how it interacts with multihit attacks; Joshua isn't in this fight, so I don't know what would happen if you Double-Slashed Lorence w/ Earth Guard Mk2. Probably knock off both shields. (EDIT: According to Glen below, Double-Slash knocks off just one shield. Sorry, Claude. This makes me more inclined to just scale Earth Guard rather than have it be obnoxiously unbeatable.)
Demon Flames, not much to say other than I'm slightly guessing on the faint proc rate (status seems to always be 20-50-80, and the status hit rate felt in the 20-30 range). I would definitely not let Lorence spam it in the DL, since PCs can't spam their S-Crafts, and I never saw him use it twice in a row. That said, he's not shy about using it either, so I'd probably let him use it every other turn in the DL.
Anyway. Lorence is a speed demon with the game-best speed by far; he'll double you a lot. Wearing Lorence down in-game with magic & physicals is difficult, what with his speed and relevant status you'll have to fix, and the occasional Tearals he tosses in. Doing the final bit of damage is especially tough, as he'll aggressively cast Tearal at low health (and will still cast it sometime at high health); yay for already having a decent AI? The main way to beat him is to have 2 200 CP Barrage / Sadist Whips ready to go, and use one of 'em on a critical hit turn. That can do a good 3500-4000 damage in a shot. Buffs help too; you have item healing in food, which can both heal you up and give a STR/DEF bonus for the S-Craft. Good luck figuring out Lorence's DL durability; theoretically it'd take 4 rounds of the entire party casting spells ignoring charge times to take him down, but S-Crafts do exist and this tends to be a long battle, so he probably ends up at around 1 PCHP, better against physicals with his good defense. Still feels weirdly low since at that range his healing doesn't keep up with average damage, and his durability gets worse if you hold the S-Crafts strongly against him.
Anyway, will full Earth Guard Mk2 hype,
unrankable Ubergodlike, you need some kind of multi-hit attack or chain to deal with it, and it may not matter considering Lorence's speed. If you disallow Earth Guard Mk2 or nerf it but have HP respect,
High Heavy - the damage is suspect, but 2 100% status options off great speed and decent durability deals with a fair number of PCs, the speedy healing game with decent defense comes up against characters with limited resources, and the rarely immuned Faint gives him an option for Silence-immune healers, though he fears silence-immune mages with good damage. If you don't respect the HP, then he's
Low Heavy, now he's a straight status-whore who can't slugfest since Attack-> Demon Flames-> Attack is unlikely to kill many duelers before he gets 2HKO'd.
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While the above 3 bosses were fought in a 4-battle sequence, the next bosses come during the final dungeon, which hands out level-ups and ultimate equipment and the like. PC averages are a bit wacky, since Estelle/Joshua are required, but everyone else is legal for the last 2 slots, and Orbments can vary their stats a bunch. I'm just going to list what I personally had, it can change. This was with Kloe & Agate as the optional slots. If you include all the PC cast, I don't think it matters; I looked at my figures and the average stats dropped a bit, but that was with Kloe / Agate getting the levels off the final dungeon and everyone else not, and there not being enough of the best stat booster orbments to go around. If I'd hypothetically swapped better Orbments to people not in my party and levelled them some but froze Joshua & Estelle's stats, the average would be about the same.
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Captain Amalthea (2)"Even controlling these Archaisms is easily within our grasp. I have also hacked the soundtrack to play Silver Will! This means I am as challenging a foe as Lorence, right? I outrank him!"
PC Avg. HP: 2200 (1986/2283/1935/2618)
PC Avg. EP: 375? (250/396/609/240) (Yes, it dropped from Amalthea1 since Kloe is a giant well of EP and she was 1/3 the average before. However EP Cut 3 is definitely attainable by now for -50% EP costs, so.)
PC Avg. Spd: 18.75 (16/23/16/20) (Agate has an Action 2, Joshua an Action 3)
HP: 6880
Def: 210 (slightly above average)
Art Defense: 30 (average)
Spd: 22 (above average)
Status immunity: Petrify, Instant Death
Attack: 200-300 ranged damage (.10 PCHP), 95% hit rate.
Poison Spray: 0-250 damage to an area (.05 PCHP), 50% chance of poison (150-250 damage for ~2 rounds)
Absorb [Craft]: 200 EP damage (.53 PCEP)
Aqua Bleed [Art]: 700-900 damage (.35 PCHP)
Shadow Spear [Art]: 800-1000 damage (.40 PCHP). 20% chance of instant death.
Estelle's attack: 100-200
Joshua's attack: 100-200
Agate's attack: 400-600
Estelle's Blue Impact: 700
Joshua's White Gehenna: 700
Kloe's Blue Impact: 750
Estelle's Barrage: 1400 (100 CP), 2000 (200 CP)
Joshua's Black Fang: 900 (100 CP), 1300 (200 CP), hits all
Agate's Final Break: 1300 (100 CP), 1700 (200 CP), hits a large area
Fights with two Gundoll robots. These are NOT the same as the Gundolls that can be encountered in the lower floors of the Sealed Area, but rather have been haXX0red to work with Amalthea. Sort of. They waste about half of their turns not actually working for her is the thing (not true of the random encounter versions).
Gundoll (x2)
HP: 3866
Def: 210
Art Defense: 25
Spd: 17
Status immunity: Everything except confuse
Attack: 150 ranged damage
Control Function Irregularity: Circuits Shorting! [350-400 damage to self, inflict confuse on self 50%]
Control Function Irregularity: Performing System Maintenance... [no effect]
Called for backup: Summons an M-Series Doom, a 2680 HP robot with several 500-600 full MT arts - actually decent offense! And will self-destruct for 700 damage nearby on death. Only used when low on health - I'll guess <50% HP? Not guaranteed to be used, he waited until he was at 15% HP or so to actually summon it.
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Right. Amalthea is better than her previous incarnation now that her magic stat exists (250 compared to 0 before! Was she hit on the head?), but still quite scrubby. Most notable is her status immunity - specifically, she doesn't have it. Okay, she gets the 2 Instant-Deathy statuses, but she can be paralyzed, she can be Faint'd, she can be sealed, the works. This is especially horrible in a game where you can easily attach status to your attacks / S-Breaks, and White Gehenna is Joshua's best area damage option that attaches 20% Faint, etc. Her Arts damage is at least sort of okay this time, for all that she doesn't use it often as she should, and MP drain comes in handy against, uh, duelers slower than her with below average MP that nevertheless rely on it? And her HP isn't entirely terrible if you give support credit. Except that her support is just plain bad, with the most dangerous thing it can possibly do being summon more support which actually has competent MT damage, and said summoning is easily chipped around, so she shouldn't get much support credit.
Anyway, sadly enough she ends up a decent
Light, which is probably better than she deserves. Still, average damage off good speed can collect victories in Light. She fears reliable status and magic tanks, but some of those magic tanks are themselves mages who might fall prey to her Absorb game. Maybe.
(As a curious fact, I'm not sure if this means Amalthea is weird or what, but when Sealed her AI doesn't change. In other words, she'll pass some turns where she was intending to use physical skills, and only take turns where she casts an Art, which isn't common. Your call on if this is an AI quirk to be dismissed or if it implies some special status weakness where Sealing basically adds turn-skip 75%, and Mute adds turn-skip 25%.)
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Colonel Richard
"It doesn't matter HOW I got here... just that I'm here now."
PC Avg. HP: 2360 (2178/2504/2022/2734)
PC Avg. Spd: 19 (16/23/17/20) (Agate has an Action 2, Joshua an Action 3)
HP: 11480
Def: 260 (good)
Art Def: 50 (good)
Spd: 26 (good)
Status immunity: Everything
Attack: 350-450 damage (.17 PCHP), ~95% accuracy
Luminous Wheel [Craft]: 200-300 damage to an area (.11 PCHP), "cancels" charging arts.
Luminous Ogre Slash [Craft]: 350-450 damage (.17 PCHP). 20% chance of Faint (= skip 3 turns).
Luminous Divider [Craft]: 350-600 damage (.20 PCHP?). Evadable (?% accuracy, I did see it miss once which is very rare for crafts). Seems to only use very rarely - perhaps only under half health? Seems to be large damage variance as well, could be some kind of "3 hits of 33% accuracy" under the hood.
Afterglow Smasher [S-Craft]: 1200-1400 damage (.55 PCHP).
White Gehenna [Art]: 350-450 damage to an area (.17 PCHP). 20% chance of Faint (= skip 3 turns). The area is fixed, so if the target gets an intervening turn, they can spend that turn on "Move" to just walk away if they want.
Fights with 2 Photon Judges. They aren't the same stats as random encounter Photon Judges, but unlike Amalthea's bots, these don't malfunction.
Photon Judge (x2)
HP: 6200
Def: 250
Art Def: 25
Spd: 19
Status immunity: Everything
Donkey Missile: 100-200 damage to an area
AA Canceler: 50-150 damage to one, cancels charging arts. Will use this move guaranteed if anyone is charging an art.
Atomic Missile: 200-300 damage to a large area
Damage done to them: See Amalthea 2 above. Richard & the Judges Defense / Art Defense are a bit higher, but you've gained ~two levels and gotten Joshua & Estelle's ultimate weapons, so it doesn't matter very much. Subtract 100 from Kloe & Agate's physical I guess and maybe 50 from the Arts damage. (This helps since Agate's best damage is spamming his physical.)
Colonel Richard isn't the final boss (although he is the final opponent with plot); there are 2 more real fights to go (and 1 show-fight) chained immediately after this battle, so preserving some CP and not going all-out has some use.
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Uh. Kind of a disappointment in-game, really. He & his support can actually take a hit from the S-Crafts you throw at him, and his support can sort of lock you out of using arts while the bots are alive, just Colonel Richard can't really take advantage of it with damage worth a damn. He's got one trick in Afterglow Smasher, and while he does use it aggressively enough in-game - perhaps once every 4-7 turns or so - I personally would be against letting him spam it in the DL. The flavor of PC S-Crafts are that they're charged up attacks, so meh, I personally would force him to use it every other turn at best (I screwed around for awhile, and 4 turns seemed to be the minimum duration between Smashers for the AI).
See the notes on Lorence for Luminous Wheel's "cancel," it's scrubbier than most cancels.
The Colonel is a
Middle off good speed and good durability (nearly twice Amalthea's HP! Much more relevant support if you give support credit! A reason to not empty all your CP!) but suspect damage; he doesn't 3:2 average or get particularly close, so he hands most opponents 2 turns before 3HKOing them with Afterglow Smasher-> Something-> Afterglow Smasher. His other options at least can add the rarely-immuned Faint, which is good for dealing with Middle's various damage-challenged healers he'd otherwise fear. And oh yes, Faint can be re-applied to someone already Faint'd, not that I expect the need to aim for that will come up too often. Not really a fan of physical defense tanks, though. If you let him spam Afterglow Smasher, he might even make Low Heavy on some kind of FF9 Lani-esque argument, but even then he's scrubby in Heavy, mostly preying on status whores while still losing slugfests.
