Early part 3 update.
3-1-A (Zortroa on the river)Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Stri/Grap OC
The section of the game from late part 2 to early part 3 is generally one of the easiest arcs of the game, and I'm in full abuse of this, homing in on Class Level 7 for a few PCs, but particularly Clarissa (and Levin, not that you see him here; he's also sitting in Sacred Slayer).
This map itself has one new threat to deal with, and that's the vicious canine, an improved gremalkin, who has 50% resistance to all elements and a brutally powerful melee counter (which has a vertical range of at least 4, something I discover to my displeasure). Other than those two, who dislike Devastate and Drop Kick a good deal, the map is mainly Zortroa and Fairylights, nothing too bad now that Magic Down can be dispelled. There's also a tarrasque, hence Grappler OC getting some time to play; Ground Slam ignores the Hard attribute.
3-1-B (Forsaken Mutants)Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Gadg/Grap OC
Much dicier than the last map, since mutants pretty much combine the best attributes of monsters and their Zortroa masters in one package, with the exception that they still have elemental weaknesses. Still, 9 of the 12 enemies here have some sort of annoying physical resistance, and half of them have one of the three deadly statuses in the game: petrify and misery, in this case.
I take out the enemies up to first, since they're less dangerous; three tarrasque mutants and three gremalkin mutants. Ground Slam again sees use to deal with the tarrasque types, but mostly it's Elayne doing the heavy lifting blasting and Devastating everything in sight. Once they're all dead, I clean off the statuses.
Second stage of the battle is trickier, despite the Zortroa's tendency to move towards me. Misery is a pain, so I keep my dispeller in the back (reaaally should have brought multiple dispellers, Gadgeteer OC doesn't really let me carry enough status healers). Petrify is similarly a pain, usual problems with it apply. Fortunately I have excellent luck with the 50% accurate statuses missing. This helps a lot. What also helps is the fact that they don't have too much MP. Widespread Feeble Mind would actually likely be an excellent tactic here, since they're quite happy to speed the process along with their expensive spells.
Regardless, no resets, although they certainly seemed possible..
3-2-A (Clarissa and Alexia in town)Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Alexia: Secutor; Royal Fencer/Strider OC, Royal Fencer EQ, Strong Heart
Normal playthrough, see 2-16-A more or less. Same general strategies apply. Alexia has enough oomph to one-shot everything here with Revolver Sweep, Clarissa just continues mosying along and damnit Widespread will be MINE.
3-2-B (Myconids and Chelle 2)Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Stri/Grap OC
Myconids kinda suck, so even though this battle has me face off against eight of them (and eight of their zortroa trainers), it's really not too bad. Sure, confusion is pretty dangerous when they decide to use that and not their FOUR-TURN COUNTDOWN ON FRAGILE ENEMY OH NO, but I get lucky with its duration/effects. Only real note is this battle is of course a resource drag.
And then at the end there's the two bosses, who actually -are- competent. I screw up and don't realise Chelle is about to doubleturn me, she walks down twice and overkills Elayne. Lame, loss of Exp bonuses.
Mesmerise stops her from doing that again, and also controls Tarrasque. Slow Down helps too, but even more significant is the fact that Chelle just doesn't have amazing durability - 600-odd HP is getting less and less impressive for a boss. Her speed and power are excellent but yeah, if she can't hit that goes away and she's easy enough to kill. Tarrasque as always is more durable, but far more easily controlled, and he doesn't have his regen in this fight. Devastations for all.
3-3-A (Chelle 3 and HOLY CRAP I GET HOW MUCH CSP?)Condition for victory here is defeat Chelle. Labby suggests ignoring the enemies to get to her. Labby is a foolish fool.
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Stri/Gadg OC
Standard setup applies here. There are three Zortroa trainers, three Mystic Kappas, and one Chelle, and as mentioned, Chelle is the only one who must be killed. But with each kappa death popping as much CSP into my hands as 15 surly Martial Guardsmen, there's no way I'm ignoring them. Sure, they've got good defences (Fragile nukes everything but the evade, which magic gets around) and resistances (50 or better to everything) but we have Devastate and Sacrifice, don't we? Yes we do. They have around 550 HP which is competent but not really slowing me down much, especially with only 7 enemies to spread the resources around. I do lose a PC because their damage/speed isn't bad, but even that would have been easily avoidable if I'd been more careful.
Chelle herself is the same as before. Actually she's a bit worse because she gives up her Atk+25% support, but Predator Barrage probably still one-shots most anyway. Not that I'm going to find out! Mesmerise and Slow Down and Devastate to death. I make sure to Mystic a Potential Egg. This proves mostly unnecessary as both Clarissa and Vin proceed to overkill the requirements for Sacred Slayer and Secutor L7, giving me my first L7 skills! Hooray! And Elayne's close on Elementalist now. She's also hit Level 40, yay for how this challenge focusses Exp.
3-3-B (Sinspawn Ammes Augst Weisheit 1)Hey guys I use nothing but gravity attacks and give you 1 CSP. I'd complain but the battle music is frickin' sweet.
