Grandia 3: Raven is a worthless character by G3 standards Edition
Oh, Surmania. Surmania is such a large step down from Vejas and Melc, you have to wonder what they were thinking; it has to be deliberate. I guess the logic is that it has three bosses, so the focus is on them rather than the randoms. Wait, did I say three bosses? Funny, only two are worth remembering.
The dungeon is in two parts. The first is filled with Verse Realm enemies, so Verse Slayer is a pretty cool skill here (on paper at least) as is fire magic, and I can finally make one copy of Fire Mastery. The second has a wider array of enemies so this sort of specialisation doesn't work.
I start using Level 8 magic in this dungeon, but it's not too useful overall. It's a heavy hit to the MP pocketbook and slow, and not really much more damaging than the stuff I've been using all Disc 2. The exception is Ba-Boom and Crackle Fang against specific battles.
Skill setup for randoms: Magic/Tech; key skills are Sharp Eyes, element Masteries (Dahna gets fire), Magic Up, Guru's Way, and Perception. After some monkeying, Alfina ends up with Berserker/Verse Slayer, even though her physicals are worse than Dahna's, because Dahna going mage here is too valuable.
Aton Lambda - These guys are the main reason. Strengthened, Fire Mastery Sun Cards Ba-Boom knocks them out in one hit (Alfina can't do this), and they come in large enough swarms to make this worth it. They're the most dangerous enemy in the dungeon, probably, as Javelin Shot is a shockingly damaging (3HKO) cancel tech for an enemy that frequently shows up in groups of 5 or 6. Otherwise, they cast utility magic like Def-Loss (no big) and Snooze (Dahna equips a sleep blocker).
Zeptol Phi - Holy crap that's a lot of MDef, even twinked Burn tinks off them! Stronger spells can manage okay. Alfina's Berserker physicals rape them though, as their Def is awful. Or... they do once I get rid of that damn Thunder Staff, as apparently these guys half Wind. Fortunately they're really not very dangerous. All they can do besides attack is a cancel tech, Wheelspin, that is about half as damaging as Javelin Shot.
Gigas Pi - They like to cancel, and are tough against physicals while being bad against magic. They never show up in large numbers and their damage is nothing special. Whatever.
The second half of the dungeon, after the first boss, does a complete clean slate and only features the following enemies:
Mimic - Actually there was one of these in Melc too, I forgot about it (it had 1000 less HP and no Kamikaze, though). Mimics have great speed and good defences (halving all magic, in particular) but their turns are questionable. They have Erebos but both my PCs block Death (Golden Ring and Angel Dress), Howlslash (lulz), and Howlnado (can confuse, at least). They also have Kamikaze. This does OHKO damage (defending makes it survivable), but has a charge time of doom and only hits a relatively small circle around the Mimic. Can you guess the stretegy here? Yes, it's to bait them into using Kamikaze and move away from him. Yes, he still drops Exp/money/items. Pathetic.
King Lycanthrope - They use Boomor and Hellburner, but it's weaker than the stuff used by Liches and Melc Crystals, so whatever. They act as support for more competent enemies and aren't much by themselves.
Duamutef - They have Diamond Dust and Crackle Fang, though it's a bit weaker than the stuff used by the Hyudra. They're modestly durable, but it tends not to save them much in the long term. Only dangerous when paired with...
King's Drake - Where Aton Lambda was the saving grace of the first half, these guys are the saving grace of the second. They're still not amazing, but they boast a high 3-digit damage fan cancel attack which they love to use and really disrupts my offence, especially when their friends are slowing me down with stray Diamond Dusts and physicals. It's extremely damaging, except that fire halving takes it down to a mere 400 or so. Oddly that's still enough to be dangerous, since that's all they do besides occasional physicals. I do come close to losing one fight against them.
But yeah, easiest Disc dungeon aside from Nautica, at least in terms of randoms. So, bosses...
First of all, boss skill setup is more like that for Melc Crystals. Body/Tech, features Perception, Passive Defence, Life Up, Warrior's Way, and a bunch of filler. Also, both PCs halve all elements for this battle (Ebony Armour and Divine Charm) and Alfina blocks all status while Dahna blocks Death (Golden Ring and Angel Dress).
Violetta (1 reset):
I imagine most people here have some sort of sense of her due to the DL. Anyway, she has 6400 HP, but she takes less than 400 damage from most anything I throw at her (unless it's comboed or I catch her in an attack stance). Her scythe can also be killed, but since it has comparable durability to her (no damage reduction, but over 5x the HP) there's little point. Violetta has over double my speed, the scythe a little below. This means about four enemy turns a round, of course, assuming they don't use their quick hit physicals (yeah, you knew any lategame boss would have these).
Of the two, the scythe is notably less dangerous. It has one really scary move, and that's Dance of Death, which very solidly 2HKOs. Otherwise, it has Erebos, which as mentioned, my current setup blocks, and Howlslash, which is lol (about 500 damage, but I halve Wind). When Violetta or, I assume, the scythe itself drops below half HP, it gains Howlnado, which does 1000/2 damage and confuses sometimes. I get lucky and it never does.
Violetta herself has three dangerous moves: Chant of Despair, which does high 3-digit MT damage and inflicts Defence Down, Freeshooter, which does about 1000 damage to a fan and cancels, and Burnblaze, which does solidly 2HKOing fire magic damage to a fan (this is nasty even when halved). Above half HP that Burnblaze is instead Hellburner, but it's an unusually damaging Hellburner, about 1200/2. Still, the battle is considerably easier when that's all she has for fire magic. Oh, and she has Burn Wall, which she likes to use far too often. It spoils melee physicals, which means Alfina can't cancel her with Critical; I wouldn't want to physical her anyway since she has 50% evasion. Perhaps more significant is that it adds damage to Dance of Death, since using that move brings her into melee range and guarantees a Burn Wall hit. Annoying since Dance already hurts.
There's not too much to say about how the fight plays out. Violetta is tough, but not as tough as Melc Crystals overall; elemental resistance keeps the worst of her damage under control, and while her good moves are very good, she wastes time with the not so good (Howlslash in particular, but Burn Wall also applies). If she gets on a good run it's easy to get in trouble; on my winning run, I was definitely in situations of "one PC dead, the other at about 100 HP" pretty often. I make a point of trying to cancel Dance of Death and Chant of Despair in particular, but I'll also get Burnblaze and Freeshooter in some situations. I end up using Hellburner for most of my offence; the stronger spells only barely do more damage (like, 25% at most) and since I'm using Body/Tech I don't have mastery skills and the upper end spells are just too expensive for a long boss fight. Oh yeah, and Diggin' is a good counter to the status of Chant of Despair, so I use that.
La-Ilim:
There are exactly two bosses in Disc 2 who have failed to get a reset out of me. Both of them are this guy.
He's back, and he's a bit different. In some ways he's worse than before; in the entire battle, there are only two scary attacks, and that's a battle against three enemies with a lot of different moves to choose from. Not a good sign!
La-Ilim has the same big thing going for him as the first fight, and that's high defences, so he's a durable chap. This time he actually sticks around and makes you deplete all his HP, too! He fights with a Crystal Skull that is basically invincible and an Undead Dragon who is anything but (9000 HP) but it's not worth the trouble to kill him since he just gets revived. The Dragon is as fast as Violetta, but La-Ilim himself is much slower (though still faster than the PCs) and the Crystal Skull is a slug, about 75% PC speed. So overall the number of turns the enemies get is similar to the last battle, and as mentioned, they aren't used as well. Here's what they do:
La-Ilim himself uses Crackle, which is 4HKO damage before being halved, as well as Comet Cannon, a 4HKO GT physical (oh no), Energy Drain, which does laughable (6HKO!) GT damage but heals him for half that amount (oh no), and POIZN, which is okay against Dahna but laughable against Alfina. Nothing he does is especially scary; I sometimes cancel him for the lulz when he uses the sluggish Comet Cannon, but not usually. Oh, and he has a horrible "get up" animation time. From what I could tell, if he didn't have any friends, and I could bait him into casting Comet Cannon (impossible, sadly, it requires the dragon), I could keep him from ever getting an action by locking him with two castings of HELLBURNER a round. Awesome!
The skull mainly uses useless utility magic: STRAM, which lowers physical attack (note my method of offence), Def-Loss, which lowers Def (guess it helps the Dragon a bit; Diggin' counters this), and Dark Blitz, which literally never even hits, but based on what other enemies do it'd be a weak cancel physical. He has one saving grace, and that's Dark Mist, which does a moderate amount of GT magic damage (borderline 3HKO!) and racks up a lot of hits. Easily the second most dangerous attack I face in this battle, and one I'll cancel when I see coming.
The Undead Dragon was the powerhouse in the first battle, and largely remains so. Unfortunately for him, one of his big moves, Chaos Flare, is now much less dangerous because it's fire elemental and I half that. It also hasn't scaled up very well, it's only barely better than Comet Cannon before halving. I barely even am concerned when I see it. Hell Fang is the only thing this battle has going for it, really; it's only a bit weaker than Dance of Death, and it's used by the fastest enemy. Obviously, I keep my eye out for him using it at all costs, because if I somehow were to lose this fight, it'd be because of this.
The Dragon's regular physicals remain somewhat damaging and can cancel, but aren't quick hits. Neither are La-Ilim's, I don't think, and the damage on his are just horrible.
I should note, at this point, that the stat topic lists a few attacks I never saw: Cold, Craze, Fiora, Diamond Dust, and Crackle Fang. Cold would have been very dangerous, that counterable by Runner, at least. I find it odd I never saw the rest, since it was not a short fight and I saw every other attack many times, and wonder if they have a trigger I didn't meet, like getting the skull below half HP or killing it outright.
Anyway, as for the fight itself... the big thing to note is I took off nearly a third of La-Ilim's HP before I even had to heal. That's pathetic, given that my damage was something on the order of 25HKO, and highlights how worthless this boss is when it's not using Dark Mist and Hell Fang. Later in the fight they wised up and started using those more, and things got more interesting; Dark Mist chained into Hell Fang is enough to kill outright due to the combo bonus. I did in fact have to do my share of reviving. But overall, though a slow fight, and not entirely trivial, it's... about as easy as I could expect a boss to be on this challenge. Poor La-Ilim. No plot, no battle competence. Bit of a waste of a neat battle design with the dragon and all.
Oh, and somewhere in the dungeon, horrible plot happened, where Raven randomly possesses himself with Xorn's power so he can fight Emelious, loses anyway and dies, and Dahna says "RAVEN AND I ARE FINALLY ONE". What. He just died, girlfriend. God, Raven is impressively useless.
Next time, A HARDER BOSS THAN LA-ILIM! In which Emelious tries to make up for his small penis by impaling two women with his mighty sword, and ultimately gets owned (I hope).
