FE10 Sothe certainly ends up worse than Seth (let alone Titania). He's honestly, probably closest to FE7 Marcus. Maybe a bit better? But not much. Though yes, awesome for a while due to Jeiganness and then Beast Killer, so it's not until Part 4 that the cracks really appear.
Grandia 3: LOVE IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END. ALL LOVE BRINGS PAIN. ONLY WHEN ALL LOVE IS DESTROYED CAN MY WORLD BE BORN.
This is the last arc. Increasingly, the gloves are coming off. Setup doesn't change too much from before, though... maybe switch in some Water Mastery here and there, since a new attack spell is about to dominate. Also, Hect picks up the Expert Book so she can now use Perception along with her Body+Mind setup.
Let's talk enemies. First off, some amendments to the previous post. Omega Vulcan does NOT cancel, which means Pico Omegas just suck. What happened, little verse realm dudes? You were scary bastards back in the Silver Stream/Eternal Corridor.
So, new folks:
Gigas Omega - I mentioned these guys being summoned by Omega Breed. They're pretty rare as randoms, existing only in the last gasp of the Xorn Shell (after killing the second Omega Breed) and in the final room. They have a respectable HP score, and lack the trademark fire weakness of Verse enemies. They mainly use cancelling physicals, which are pretty potent for wussy ol' physicals. They also have Morgenstern, which hits everyone around them for 4HKOish damage and cancels. Rarely they'll cast Wow. Not terrible, but not too impressive either.
Calibus (2 resets) - I hate these guys so much. 3000 HP isn't much, but they're fast, and their money attack, Buster Horn, is even moreso, and it does 2100 damage. Insanity. They also have Dynamic Dawn, which is about 900 GT damage and isn't quite as fast. Much less scary. Unfortunately they far prefer Buster Horn and ALWAYS use it first turn. The first time I fight two at once, and the first time I fight three, are good for resets. Absolute Zero'ing a group of them while Hect cancels is the way to go. Being caught without Hect SP is very bad news.
Demon Lord - Y'know, I'm not sure I ever see these guys get a turn. I don't have to, I know what they do: Ba-Boom for low 4-digit damage. Nobody wants to see that, especially given that elemental damage is almost non-existant here otherwise so I'm not actually guarding it. Fortunately, Absolute Zero overkills.
Lucky Mink - I actually manage to kill one this time! Turns out just nailing them with Galactic Bang and Heaven's Gate does it, with a lot of luck. It's also a waste of MP, but it's fun, the one time I do it.
Burnblaze, Hellburner, Boomor, and occasionally Ba-Boom still shine here at taking out the swarms, which generally are made up of the three enemies from earlier in the dungeon (Pico, Aton, Zeptol). Absolute Zero comes out against the stronger enemies. Absolute Zero + ambush = dead any party with less than 4000 HP (since they start bunched up) providing Hect cancels anyone particularly speedy. Nobody for much of this dungeon has more than 4000 HP!
Which brings us to...
the hallway of pain. Game calls it the Cursed Tower, but it's not especially tower-like. It's where La-Ilim got owned, and La-Ilim wishes he was half as competent as these guys.
There are three main fights here, represented by two Excises and a Gigas, on the field. There are also two Demon Lord fights that spawn eternally, one from each side. These fights are important enough to describe separately. Also, every single fight here MUST BE AMBUSHED AT ALL COSTS. Not because of the initiative boost, but because the enemies really need to start together (Astraea Zap just isn't good enough). I run away if I fail to do so. Fortunately the G3 run command is really good.
New skill setups: Hect loses Revenge, gets Verse Hunter and Berserker. Dahna gets the skill which blocks IP damage regardless of skill level.
Let's review the two new opponents, here. They're the two best randoms in the game, assuming you don't scale up the rest. Even if you do, they don't put up a bad fight.
Excise Sigma -
Damn right I'm bolding him. At 11500 HP it has less HP than its Excise Psi counterpart, unscaled, though it trades away the fire weakness. The damage is better unscaled, but not by much. Raw damage isn't this guy's job, not that he's bad at it. His job is to act with super speed (3x-ish), have minimal charge on almost all his actions, and be a general nuisance. What they do...
Attack: Cancels, 350 damage or so. Evadable! Quick hit.
Deadly Drive: The favourite attack, resembles Pluto Killer. Same massive IP damage, cancels because why the fuck not, 1200 damage or so.
Nail Crush: 650 or so damage to a fan. Their slowest attack. Not too scary.
Dark Mist: 800 or so GT non-elemental magic damage, decent IP damage.
Dark Force: 1400 ST non-elemental magic damage, high IP damage. Mercifully, this is low HP only.
Okay, that's pretty competent, but nothing toooo special by G3 standards. What makes him special is something else. You'll notice I mentioned he spends very little time charging in general. Unfortunately, whenever he ISN'T either charging, or being beaten around by attacks (he has ~50% evasion), i.e. whenever he can evade normally, he will respond to any attack which targets him with Auto-Cancel, which... does what it sounds like. It cancels the attack, and does the same ~350 damage as the physical. As if THAT isn't enough, any MP/SP you use on the attack is flushed down the drain (really sucks if you used Armageddon!). Basically, this makes him a cheap whore who can basically shrug off almost any attempt to competently damage him.
Auto-Cancel has three weaknesses, and exploiting these is essential. The first is that GT attacks aimed at someone BESIDES the Excise, he can't cancel, and he can still be hit by them. Absolute Zero is my friend. The second is that Auto-Cancel doesn't deal with the basic combos and criticals (although evade does), so you can lead with those to both do some damage AND tie him up, and while he is tied up in his flinch animation, he can't auto-cancel anything the other PC does. Third, if I can anticipate exactly when he'll be charging, I can unleash a spell that resolves in the middle of his charge time... he can't cancel those. Given the quick charge times, this is very tricky.
He is vulnerable to IP damage, and being stunned momentarily by Verse Hunter's weakness-hitting. Hence the above Hect setup. It's one of the only weapons I have against him.
Finally, there is multitarget damage. This... sometimes works. Near as I can tell, multitarget damage works for you like it does for the enemy: it technically takes a target, randomly chosen. If it's the Excise, he can cancel it. This makes MT damage very risky, and impossible once he's alone.
Side note, he can Auto-Cancel against a Revenge counter. That's just cheap.
Last Keeper -
In some ways, he's less obviously impressive than the Excise. None of that cancelling junk. HP is merely respectable at 7200. Speed is "only" about double average. But in his own way, he's at least as nasty.
I mentioned before that Excise Sigma's job isn't to do damage. That responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of this guy. His attacks...
Power Slam: Cancels, 1500 damage to one, quick to charge. Almost always uses this, except for the first turn, and right after you cancel him. That's a solid 2HKO against this party. If it comes comboed after a Dark Mist or Dark Force, we're talking 2000 damage instead, which means death.
Magic Immunity: This attack does exactly what it sounds like. He'll always use it first turn, and it grants him immunity to all magic for the rest of the battle. If it wears out it must take near forever like Hyudra's regenaration. It is extremely fast to charge, so much so that Hect, who goes second, can't cancel it.
Straightforward and deadly. No mucking around with nails or mists or gimpy physicals, he just slams you into the ground again and again until you die, while laughing at your inability to do big damage to him.
The only good news is he's weak to all elements before he puts up Magic Immunity. I imagine some of Ulf's/Yuki's special techs wreck him, although he does have nearly Gigas-level high Def so maybe not.
Anyway, the basic rule is this: A Last Keeper together with an Excise Omega will overwhelm two PCs. It's not a matter of if, it's when. There is no opportunity, nor effective method, of attacking them, with this party. This is problematic.
Onto how I handled the encounters themselves.
First Excise Omega fight (4 resets)
Excise Omega + Last Keeper + 2x Gigas OmegaThe winning strategy is simple enough I am embarressed I didn't realise it sooner. Dahna Galactic Bangs the Last Keeper, killing it.
No, seriously, that's it, more or less. I waste resets trying to kill the Gigases first, trying to mess with the Excise, or doing any sort of GT or cancel-related nonsense, not realising that I even HAVE this option. Once the Last Keeper is down, the rest can be mopped up. It's definitely tense while the Gigases still live, but two Absolute Zeroes leave both dead, and the Excise fairly badly beaten up. A solo Excise can't defeat me, although he can certainly annoy. Hect goes berserker on him and Dahna looks for opportunities to lob spells in, while healing is done.
Second Excise Omega fight (3 resets)
Excise Omega + Last Keeper x2Oh, rest assured, this is the harder fight of the two. Three of these guys at once? Geez. Taking out one Keeper doesn't help, the other two just kill me, and Hect is too slow to stop them.
OR IS SHE?
Yes, by the time Hect gets her turn, the Last Keeper is 90% done charging Magic Immunity. There is, I reason, one thing I can do. And that is to Freeze him.
I've never really gotten any mileage out of Hect's second tech before, but here, it proves the difference between winning and losing. I luck out, and Freeze, on its first use, goes up to Level 1 (this is hardly unlikely, to be fair, as at Special Level 10, an unused tech has a high probability of going up). This means it resolves instantly. The Keeper is paralysed, and Dahna is able to survive the ravages of the Excise (it mainly goes for Hect anyway) long enough to Galactic Bang the second Keeper. That's game.
Had I not had the move level up? I may still have won, since Freeze meant I would only face one enemy. I could conceivably have Absolute Zero'd the Keeper, watching it tink off him but kill the Excise. I'm not really sure.
Oh yeah, the other fights. Each features either a Keeper or an Excise, but not both. A single one can be managed easily enough, and the accompanying Demons or Gigases are easily dispatched with an Absolute Zero or two.
And that's it! Thanks mainly to the final room, the final dungeon ties Melc Ruins for inflicting the most mental trauma on me.
Alfina rejoins. Some monkeying with skills and magic follows. Emelious has a change of heart and goes to SLAY XORN IN THE NAME OF LOVE. But LOVE IS THE CAUSE OF ALL PAIN and Emelious gets owned. Sad day.
Only the power of girls can bring forth the love needed to own Xorn!
Let's talk final setup:
Alfina: Lv 48 / Magic 12 / Skill 11 / Special 10
Comet Strike: PSPRP
Stun Force: PSPRP
Ripple Shot: PSPRP
Holy Circle: P
Energy Drive:
Armageddon: PSP
Equipped for Magic, Knowledge Medal (mag+25) + Spirit Boots (halves all elements; armour gets status)
Expert Book: Guru's Way, Magic Up, Fire Mastery, Water Mastery, Perception, Quick Draw, Passive Defence, Life Up, Warrior's Way
Ether Egg: Galactic Bang, Alhealer, Resurrect... the rest is filler
Dahna: Lv 48 / Magic 12 / Skill 9 / Special 10
Homing Cards: PSPRP
Mana Capture: PSP
Dancing Cards: PSP
Mana Spring:
Equipped for Magic, Rainbow Heels (ini+24) + Spirit Ring (halves all elements and nulls all status)
General (body/mind) Book: Same skills as Alfina, minus Perception and Quick Draw
Same spells as Alfina, except for Heaven's Gate in place of Galactic Bang
(for reference, though she's left the party now)
Hect: Levels are the same as Alfina's
Crimson Shock: PSP
Freeze: P
Armageddon: PSP
XornShockingly simple and disappointing, really. If you're paying attention you'll already notice there are no resets here. Frankly, it's weird. Xorn is NOT an easy fight, but he doesn't get noticeably harder in this challenge, and I know him too well. I've seen far more of him, between my own playthrough and watching others, than I have any other boss; I have a good sense of exactly what he can do, how fast and he can do it, and so on. It doesn't help that Unama gets better with only two PCs, and the two most damaging PCs at that. It ALSO doesn't help that, for some reason, Xorn seems to occasionally get confused in this fight, waiting at the Com line to choose an action. I've never seen this before that I can recall; dunno if having only two PCs does it... doubt it, since I've been lowered to that number before. It's not a big deal, but it's a little edge that adds up.
128000 HP, good MDef, immune to IP damage/being aired/downed/stunned/etc. 2.5x average speed. He has:
Physicals: 400 to both PCs, or 800 to one if only one lives. Quick hit. He gets up to 5 turns in a row if he spams this. Perception to the rescue, Dahna not having it may be a mistake but I don't think so.
Dark Hymn: 1600 to one, cancels.
Erosion: Inflicts Disease. Yeah I am so blocking that.
My HP is nearing 3000, so periodic healing keeps up with this stage easily.
Below 75% HP, we add:
Death Knell: Move out of it. Yeaaah, knowing this makes this an easier fight.
Darkness: 1200 damage MT. His only noticeably slow move to charge. And it's not slow at all. I should say, "not fast".
Despair ("WARMTH AND COMPASSION HAVE NO PLACE IN MY WORLD"): Makes the target immune to stat boosts, including those from skills. Passives like Life Up and Guru's Way are disabled by this. Also dispels Diggin' and the like. Annoying.
Still not really too bad, knowing about Death Knell. Darkness is scary and makes me heal more.
Below 50% HP:
Dimension Gate ("ALL LOVE MUST PERISH!"): 2500 damage. Ouch! The threat of this makes me heal often, and it definitely kills people. It's especially dangerous coupled with Despair's nuking of Life Up, which makes it one-hit kill Dahna and just miss Alfina. Fortunately this never happens.
This phase, finally, is tough, and there are some scary moments, finally ending in what seems like an unwinnable situation. Unfortunately, I have two trump cards. The first is Armageddon, which is disgusting. We already saw what it did to the Omega Breeds, Xorn doesn't like it much better. Sure, he resists stat downs, so they wear off in about a round, but it's still an incredible boon for doing some extra damage and keeping him under control. And I can use it pretty often, since hey, Dahna can always toss SP boosters if need be.
Last, there's Unama. I mentioned before it's better in this challenge than normal. That's because it's based on the number of turns you get. So... it basically lasts twice as long. And both Dahna/Alfina have very painful damage, particularly Dahna's Heaven's Gate. I use the orb to escape a certain doom, and end up turning it into, in addition to reviving/healing, dealing some 35000 damage or so. This meant the low HP phase wasn't nearly as dangerous as I feared overall, and I was able to do the last hits I needed.
Nor much more to say about the fight. I was really hoping for something better. Again, it's not that I walked over this fight, but I was surprised that Xorn was easier than, say, Emelious.
So, done! Emelious' spirit smiles and ascends to heaven because he was such a swell guy. Yuki and Alfina grow up and have a cute little baby Yuki. Ending is short, hooray!
Final time was about 43 hours, a few hours longer than my first playthrough. No shock there, fights do take longer with only two PCs.
Overall, a pretty fun challenge. Made me learn the battle system much better and appreciate its subtlties, provided a suitable challenge level without ever forcing me to grind. Ended up as a great way to do a second playthrough.
Hardest dungeons: Melc Ruins and Surmania Ruins (final dungeon)
Honourable mentions: Silver Stream/Eternal Corridor and Vejas Jungle/Ruins
Hardest boss: Melc Crystals
Honourable mentions: Excise Sigma 2 and Emelious
Other decent fights: Kornell/Violetta, Mother Breed, Violetta, Xorn
SkillsIf there is one aspect of the game I learned a lot more about this playthrough, it is skills. They were simply much more important, and often made the difference between winning and losing. So, here are my caption reviews on the ones I used.
MindAbsorb Magic: It's an okay filler skill, as it extends your MP reserves. Unfortunately you don't really WANT to get hit by magic, so it's not the best choice.
Elemental Mastery: They reduce MP costs by 10/20/30/50% depending on skill level. This is a much better way to conserve MP, even though they cost 2 skill points. Fire is the most useful given the dominance of fire spells, followed closely by Water. Fire, unfortunately, is only available fairly late. So is Earth, which is baffling because Earth is a terrible element with incredibly slow spells almost nothing is weak to. Oh boy. At least it has Resurrect.
Guru's Way: If you're training Mind, no reason not to set this, 20% boost to Magic is sexy and it's cheap.
Magic Up: 20% boost to MP at max level. A solid choice, though it can be removed once you're no longer at full MP mid-dungeon.
Magica Esoterica: Making magic cancel is cool. However, it's hard to justify the cost of 5 skill points. Didn't use much.
Meditation: Defending restores 40 MP. Yet another MP increaser, but at 3 skill points, it's not a great choice unless you think you'll get lots of chances to defend. Probably better with a full party. There's an equivalent skill for HP, which is lulz.
Sharp Eyes: Quietly, the best damn skill in the magic side of the skill section. Oh, Guru's Way probably puts up a fight in its own understated way, but Sharp Eyes is a rather noticeable initiative boost. Ambushing enemies, and then using Sharp Eyes to get a turn more quickly, is the difference between hard randoms and painfully easy randoms, sometimes. Not a great skill for bosses. The initiative boost always kicks in if trained.
TechniquePerception: Is the best skill in the game. If you think otherwise, you are wrong. It grants near immunity to evadable attacks, and while those aren't quite a majority of enemy attacks (except in some dungeons early on), they're numerous enough that laughing them off is very valuable. I don't want to think about this challenge without that skill.
Counter: Hey, if Perception isn't good enough, you can stack it with this! Usually there are better ways to spend skill points, but hey, countering with a normal attack when you dodge isn't bad.
Jolt Counter: Goes with the former well, turns those counters into meaner criticals which do more damage, air the target, and cancel them if they're doing a multihit physical.
Beast/Lizard/Demon/Verse Hunter: Makes physical attacks hit weakness on certain species. Each species is pretty broad (most, though not all randoms fall under one of the above four headings, since lizard includes fish/amphibian and beast includes bird) though some randoms, such as golem-types and gilled enemies don't fall under any of them, same with most bosses. Weakness means 1.5x damage and the increased IP damage. Can be nice if you're planning to use physicals anyway. These skills would be better if magic didn't dominate to the degree it does, but still find plenty of use, especially when stunning an enemy is your goal.
Berserker: Adds 1-4 extra hits to your physical depending on skill level. It's pretty cool, especially paired with a Hunter skill to rack up big damage and stun time. Very pricy at 4 skill points, though, so it's not something I always use by any means.
Quick Draw: Items are faster. Awesome if you plan to use 'em. Good solid, cost-effective skill.
Item Mastery: Items do more. At 3 skill points, this one is hard to justify... you'd never use it without Quick Draw, and do you really want 4 of your valuable skill points sunk into item use? Probably for some situations, but they didn't come up much for me.
Way of Speed: 10% INI boost? Kinda wussy. I expected 20% like all the other stat boosts... and this one even costs more than the rest. G3 does realise how valuable speed is, but really, this is barely better than tossing on a First Ring.
BodyBrute Strength: Increases the IP damage from combos. Doesn't seem as effective at its job as the slayer skills in practice, so barely worth it.
Life Up: 20% more max HP? Sign me up. No reason not to set this if you're training Body.
Passive Defence: If Sharp Eyes is the reason you train Mind and Perception is the reason you train Tech, then on Disc 2 in particular, this skill is the reason you train Body. IP damage sucks. Being able to greatly reduce said IP damage at the cost of only 1 skill point is heaven.
Revenge: Chance (maybe 40%?) of countering with your basic cancel tech. On most PCs this isn't really worth the cost. On Hect, it is amazing, because Crimson Shock hits everyone instead of one person, and potentially cancels a bunch of enemies. On her, it's great for regaining control of the battle. On anyone else... definitely feels like mediocre filler.
Unshakeable Will: I thought this was IP damage immunity regardless of skill level, which would make it good if Body is untrained. However, I don't think it always kicks in. In which case, not very good, since it's 3 skill points.
Warrior's Way: Stock 20% boost to Atk and Def. Another one I usually set if it's applicable.
Big enough post? Big enough post. Not sure what's coming next. Likely LFT and/or a Super Mario Sunshine replay.
