Grandia 2 LLG -
Lots of progress today. Back in Cyrum Kingdom for the second time. Still no actual wipes so far (so either we've played really well or Grandia 2 difficulty is even more epic than we thought), although HEART came the closest.
Leck Guarder + 2x Snow Leopards -
This is basically the same fight as the one in Durham Caves at the very beginning of the cave. Except, of course, his support is better. He's still all ST, moves slowly but packs a wallop when he hits. Very simple; take out the Snow Leopards first. This is done with whoever has Burnflame (Ryudo) along with some GT item cast pickups from Cyrum. Meanwhile, the remaining two buff up, and Stram/Cold Leck Guarder to drop his damage and speed. The battle can be further controlled with Sleep (are you starting to notice a trend?) and the Leopards can be silenced. Once both Leopards are gone, Leck Guarder himself is easy.
Naga Queen x2 -
The queens resists ice, which makes my primary method of offense non-usable. Thankfully, we do have a plan B. After last battle, Mareg picks up the INFERNO BATTLEAX. Normally not very impressive, but being able to Item cast and hit weakness for about 1250 damage is a pretty big deal. Ryudo helps with Burnflame and Elena with Whirlwind staff, but ultimately, this is really just staying defensive and letting Mareg do the work. The Naga Queens have one very deadly attack called Freezing Eye, which does LT 2HKO damage and always adds -2 Move and -2 Act. Thankfully they were not smart enough to spam it repeatedly. Tio is item girl and shifts her turns to either Elena or Mareg depending on whoever gets the biggest turn advantage from Bonds of Trust. I also Cold the Naga Queens (one to -4 and the other just to -2) to keep their turns and damage in check. Spread out to avoid getting absolutely massacred by their Ice AoE
Tio Clone -
RICHARD advises me to go pick up some of the store bought mushrooms, which are insanely cheap (50G for one). They are GT stat boosts, but hit +2 instead of +1. This is a pretty huge deal. I grab 99 Speed, and 50 of everything else. Now, Tio Clone is dangerous. Probably the second most dangerous opponent on this update. The big move to watch out for is Tornado. This move deals around 70-80% MT Wind damage. Combined with her fast speed and LT Lotus Flower, she can pick off someone pretty easy in the opening rounds. However, she suffers the same problem as Melfice. When slowed and her move is crippled, she's a sitting duck everytime she tries to physical. At one point, I catch her with 11 consecutive Icefang stones for about 11332 damage and her turn still wasn't over. After a long battle (but one that was under control after slowing her down), she falls.
Body of Valmar -
Scrub boss. Only deadly if he pulls you in with Gravity. However, that gives your item experts time to buff up and then immediately spread out. The opening round is the deadliest and can cause about 1300 damage (enough to put someone into 5% HP range). However, once you move of the range (and slow down the main body), the tentacles can't do anything and the Body has absolutely nothing worthy of note. Strangulation adds -1 to all stats, but who cares. Also, it's vulnerable to POIZN and the tentacles are vulnerable to sleep. So you can sleep them, buff up and then run away. Actual damage was done via Burnflame (Millenia) and Burnstrike (Mareg). Ryudo chips in with GRANDIA 2 PHYSICALS and Flamberge's BURN. Extremely pathetic battle.
Granas Knights x4 -
They hit like a freight train (60% damage or so through HP plus) but have two big flaws. One: All physical and absolutely owned by Freeze x5. Two: Vulnerable to Sleep. One gets a turn and kills Elena. I'll let you figure out how successful they were after that opening round.
Heart of Valmar -
This one's tough. Like really tough. Possibly harder than Melfice because Heart doesn't really go for physicals, but either techs or magic, which means he brings on the pain. First, Avari Slash is extremely deadly. It's like Tornado, only Heart is slower. This alone wouldn't be too much trouble. But the Heart's support (the left and right eye) can cast offensive magic, which is no laughing matter either (anywhere from 600-1000 damage), which means it can seal the killing blow or put me into KO range. I don't want to take the eyes out because that would take way too long. On the other hand, leaving them alone is not an option and I spend the first quarter of fight scrounging around after it gains momentum and puts me in bad shape. At one point, I had 3 characters in critical and one dead. I then tried Snooze and saw that the eyes were vulnerable to Sleep. Guess what happens next.
Ryudo and Elena go on sleep lock duty. Their entire role in the fight is to lock down the eyes. Elena dies early on and I couldn't afford wasting time to rebuff her, so I spent a Hero's Elixir to fully buff her back up. On free turns, Elena also throws Icefang stones at the heart. Tio spends pretty much all her turns doing nothing but Icefang stones on the main body. Mareg does whatever he can to help (heal/Stram/Freeze and what not) to help. In this way, once my team is buffed to +5 Speed and the main heart to -5, I am able to never see the turns from the eyes, allowing me to ignore them (outside of the occasional sleep cast). The Heart eventually gets debuffed to -5 Move as well and has difficulty connecting with any attack other than Avari Slash (now MUCH harder for him to pull off) or Aorta Pummel. Without his support and the means to surmount an offense on me, I burn through another 30 stones or so to take it down for good.
Egg Guardian -
Pro RICHARD tactics at work here. Mareg gets spoilered at the end of this segment, so we blow enough SC coins to power up his Cancel tech and Power tech to max level. You get these coins back anyway, so there's no risk. This means, he is quite powerful for the next few fights. Ryudo and Tio are set up for support, with Tio being a turn shifter and Ryudo being an evade/offensive support whore. Battle begins with buffing with mushrooms since everyone is close together. The Egg Guardian is supported by 4 bits which it can repeatedly respawn. Since they also kamikaze at will, it is pointless to try and take them out. I do however, find out they are susceptible to Move Block, so I cast that with Ryudo to take out their kamikaze move out of the picture. This just leaves them with evadable physicals, which are much easier to deal with.
The Egg Guardian has some magic, and a nasty physical tech, but spent most of his time here to cast pointless stuff like Runner or Refresh to remove Move Block (which I then recast to waste his turn). I slow him down, and then power up Mareg by Def Downing the enemies and boosting his attack. He proceeds to start dealing around 2700 to 3000 damage, which is *massive*. Tio spends turns basically shifting either to Mareg or using the remaining attack items. Fairly good luck here, not seeing the deadlier attacks, but also quite simple.
Valmar Fly x4 -
They got perfect'd. Shameful
Valmar Fly x2 + Valmar Young -
Valmar Young is also sleep susceptible BUT he has a higher resist rate and not effected as long by it. Simple strategy of buffing up Mareg so he can take out Valmar Young quickly. Ryudo and Elena spend turns casting Sleep to incapacitate random enemies so they don't all gets turns together. Ryudo also has burn to use as finishing blows and additional damage, while Elena has the Whirlwind Staff. Tio spends time either turn shifting or finding additional junk to toss at enemies.
Valmar Young x2 -
See above. Similar strategy applies, except less use of Sleep and just more offensive attacks in general. Buff up, slow enemies down, then proceed to smash them in.
