Grandia 3:
MWAHAHAHAHA! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHA!So Violetta decides to check out Emo's World and gets turned to glass. Obviously I need to avenge my fellow girl-kind. Actually, screw that, I'm not acknowledging Violetta as one my own.
Oh right, boss fight time.
Emeeeeelious~ (3 resets):
64000 HP. Fortunately, he has no special defences or anything, so while he's more durable than the previous bosses, it's not by any crazy amount. He gets killed in about 33 hits, compared to La-Ilim's 25 and Violetta's 20. His parts have way too much durability to be worth bothering with, is my kneejerk, though the Orb of Darkness has only 32k so this could be an incorrect assumption. Pretty sure the 48k HP sword isn't worth it, however.
Emelious himself hovers around 1.5x average speed. He either uses physical attacks, which hit twice and hit a fan instead of a single target (sword shockwaves), or Dimension Blade, which goes off quickly and does about 1100 (high 3HKO) and cancels.
The Demon Sword is slightly slower than Emelious, and again, has only one special move to go with his physicals. The sword's physicals resemble Criticals; they aren't super fast, but they do cancel, and do substantial damage. Spirit Wail, the special tech, isn't as fast, but it makes up for that by hurting a ridiculous amount; 2200, which is damage so high that most things combined with that will kill (Dahna has 2400 HP with maxed Life Up). It also does 20 hits and knocks the target down, so even a physical right after that is going to hurt a lot.
The Orb of Darkness is a bit below average speed, but has quite a few annoying tricks. Its common attack is a fairly quick spell called Shadow Ball, which does about 400 and cancels, but is evadable, so not too scary. Much more deadly is Dark Force, which does about 1100-1400 magic damage, 2HKO Dahna and 3HKO Alfina. It does 30 hits and airs, so it makes anything comboed after it very deadly, but on the other hand, defending prevents the airing and reduces its own damage to like 300, so obviously this is a Good Thing to do. The orb also has Shadow Wave, which does about 500 physical damage to everyone near Emelious, and puts him in a very long-lasting status which doubles his number of combo hits (to 4, which is about 600-700 damage) and gives him perfect evade (he already has 50%) which means virtually nothing since you shouldn't be hitting his evade anyway. Finally, it has Flash, which is used only when Emelious is below half HP (I think) and puts the main body in Speed Up status. This is very unpleasant.
Finally, there's the God Slayer, which is immune to everything, gets a turn near instantly, and spends about four rounds charging God Killer, which, if it gets off, kills you. So obviously it needs to be cancelled periodically. I tend to cancel it any time after it's half done charging if I have a free turn (i.e. one I'd otherwise use to attack); occasionally I have to cancel it in desperation if the fight has turned against me, too.
Although Emelious can use almost all of his moves at any HP, his AI changes rather notably as his HP falls. Initially, the big three (Dimension Blade, Dark Force, and Spirit Wail) are fairly uncommon, but once he's below half HP they start coming out to play a lot, which makes the battle much tougher.
***
Anyway, setup is similar to preivous bosses. The main difference is that I don't need to block elements or status, which is nice. So I give both girls dresses (Alfina having some MDef helps a fair bit, it takes about 300 off of Dark Force) and Magic Rings.
Otherwise... cancel the three most dangerous attacks whenever possible, as well as Flash. Defend-move when cancel-physicals and Shadow Ball are coming, defend through the big damage when it can't be avoided. Counter and Jolt Counter prove crucial attacks in this battle, since he uses a LOT of evadable stuff, and the body's physicals are multihit, so Jolt Counter even cancels them! Knocking him into the air also slows down his parade of attacks; often a lot will be waiting at the Com line. Trying to IP damage him works somewhat, but not too well; he seems to have a skill where he randomly isn't affected by any IP damage you do.
Umana's Orb is a nice little trump card for "get out of ridiculously hairy situation". The time I win, I use it when Emelious has 9000 HP left to just plain kill him, though.
Hellburner runs all of the offence that cancel techs and counters don't contribute. Nothing too unusual here. Hellburner is a really sweet spell for cost effective beatdowns.
First loss occurs rather quickly as I misjudge just how much damage Emelious can pile on. The other two come late in a fight where things turn against me, and I get in situations such as having to cancel the God Slayer at a bad time, or having to cancel a Spirit Wail to survive, hoping to dodge everything else because I have 1300 HP left and I should survive another round, then barely dying to Dark Force.
Hardest non-Melc Crystal boss so far? Probably. All his big damage being ST makes him dramatically better when there's only two PCs to absorb the punishment, and the punishment he starts dishing out below half HP or so keeps me paying constant attention to four dangerous opponents at once.
Afterwards, Alfina gets kidnapped (SHOCKINGLY). Actually the only shocking part is it's one of the more forgivable things Alfina does. Yuki trying to fly a plane close to Alfina to rescue her, though? Less smart. gj Yuki. Also XORRRNNN HAS BEEEN REBOOORRRNNNN. Up next, Dahna SCC and Sky Captain Schmidt's Sky Captain Drama! Stay tuned!
