Genius of Sappherios Zansyo/Weekend

[homing curvy laser]

Why do so many people flinch at the idea of using three different parties in stage 18? Even if you're somewhat underleveled it shouldn't be a problem at all, because of how the enemies are arranged in it, allowing you to exploit their weakness with basically any setup you want. As long as you have enough equipment, good enough skills and power points nothing should really pose a threat, especially not to force you to backtrack all the damn time. Unless you somehow derped HARD and everyone but Reimu/Marisa/Sanae/Aya is at level 1.
For example, the left path has status effects and flayers. Bring Sanae there. The right side has enemies weak to light and elec magic. Bring Reimu and some other spellcaster there. The middle path has a it of everything, so you bring your strongest attackers there.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the best thing about Anastasis is having Satori with Mad Thunder.

[Serela]

On a somewhat unrelated note, the best thing about Tenshi/Matsuba/Anastasis/FinalBoss is having Satori with Mad Thunder.

seriously, I cannot stress enough how fabulous that move is (Although on the final boss you can also have Medoroa for lol I just did 9k damage)

also hands down the best attack against Terminator, which is something you'll want to kill many times, ESPECIALLY if you want to grind out some exp in expansion- and you want Satori for that fight anyway because Collapse Art lands -very- reliably, as opposed to Debilitate which misses half the time.

[LeviLamprey]

@Serela: Those GoS monster sprites for Phantasmal Summoners are really, really jarring :/
The game's premise looks very interesting, but I do hope they do something about the pixelated sprites; they don't fit the graphics of DoD's backgrounds very well. I mean, graphics ARE secondary to gameplay, but all the same...

[Sakurei]

whoops I indeed have been playing easy mode all this time. no need to change that now, though. in the next playthrough :V

on another note, I managed to get through stage 18. also took a few shots at the bosses. first one is weak to fire, second to thunder, but I couldn't figure out the third yet. considering they're all water typed youkai, if it's either fire not thunder it's nothing, but that would suck.
I experiemented a bit with the boss-fights and can save 2 people in the first by using sakuya/mokou. strife world to stop the healing and fujiyama vulcano for 6000 damage per hit. takes me 4 turns or so to win :V that may actually be a little slow considering that she can instant kill me at any given time with 1000 needles. but there's nothing I can do :V

second fight has byakuren/youmu/alice/nitori wombo-combo. being weak to thunder makes the SoE with electrical attribute pretty damn obvious. I got a lucky hit once and did 25k overall :V like, all 5 hits were criticals. took me by surprise, to say the least.

the last fight seems by far the hardest. if she really doesn't have any weaknesses, I'm stuck with doing just around 1000 per hit and it feels like that would take forever. I can probably do a thing or two, but...eh...if i get countered with every hit due to not knowing she can actually do that, patchouli can't take shit for damage. so yeah, I'm actually thinking about maybe re-arranging the 2nd and 3rd fight to...something. though, from my very first attempts, which had nitori in the last fight, it seems like kagami has fucking high defense. so yeah, I actually need my magical attackers here. maybe I will put alice in this fight, though.
I might make this 5/5 instead of using aya as a commander in this last fight. that way, I can use shinigami formation to resist instant death in the 2nd fight. though, the question is who to put away from the last fight-team to fill the numbers.

I hate these kinda things. just let me use my standard party :V

[Serela]

Last fight has no weaknesses, and has very high p.def, and can use moves to counter all physical attacks or to nullify physical damage sometimes. However, most of her attacks shouldn't be very scary if you prepare a little. It's okay if it takes awhile.

Second fight people tend to give Nitori a gun to use Element Bullet to make up for an absence of Byakuren, although if you're using her, then there you go. Octopus Maelstrom tends to be the big thing you have to work around for that fight, as if Water land is neutral or active ,then it can cause instant death- and the chance gets higher with the land increasing. Even if you absorb it via Alice bombs, it'll still inflict Instant Death.

[Sungho]

The Instant Death in the second party can be shut off if the land is put to FIR. It still hurts a lot, though. Just use Patchouli.
The 'increases chances according to land' part is new to me. I never let her, so I can't verify anything. Might be true, might be not.

The third boss has a exclusive learnable attack (Hyper Fang Crush), so try to learn it here.
The other alternative is quite annoying. Just be glad that learning rate was boosted to 100%.
Quite reliable for a multi-hit attack. Might need them when you have to Control Dragons. Which is another story.
Defeating this boss after learning, then losing to another boss is acceptable.

I, myself, used Alice for the third party, and 'tried' to evade the second boss's attacks, back in the days of a no-synthesis run.
Satori+Sanae with Hydro Camouflage still won't let you evade everything, but it still is quite a lot.

[SpoonyGundam]

Yes and no. You could lower their defense, but not necessary. The thing is Sanae's Wind of Miracles is stackable. So, you can stack that as much as you like. So, doing stupid amounts of damage is not out of the question.

Oh, if you're using what's presumably a glitch to stack buffs in order to get huge numbers on Youmu, then that point is kind of moot. At that point, anyone could do big damage, so it kind of doesn't really matter. :V

If I actually did that with Mokou in the Biotopos fight, it would have easily been a oneshot. I didn't know the glitch existed back then, so I definitely didn't recast the spell for seemingly no reason. It was a crit, though. Youmu's not the only one who can do that, and it's not even all that hard for other characters to do if you're using Youmu as the commander. Might as well use her for something if she's not fighting the boss!

[Serela]

The third boss has a exclusive learnable attack (Hyper Fang Crush), so try to learn it here.

don't worry about this, it's not particularly great (It's nice if you're using a physical satori but it's not a reason you'd actually do that- it's only a slightly better Samidare Slash)

Spoony:It's not -that- powerful of a glitch to abuse :V (If it's unintended, which isn't clear) It does notably increase how much damage you do, but it's not like some kind of god mode button.

[SpoonyGundam]

If Youmu's punching through 1111 defense and still hitting for 40k with Slash of Eternity, yes, it definitely is that powerful.

I mean, you can do it endlessly until attack caps out, assuming there is a cap, by refreshing the buff with Byakuren before it wears off and continuing the WoM spam afterwards.

I find it really hard to believe it was actually intentional, considering how high you can push things with it.

[Serela]

It caps at 3 uses, and you can't refresh it because Sanae is the one who has it, meaning it will unavoidably end in 7 turns- which, if you don't have Sanae's ultimate snake on, means that you can only get the third cast up the turn it's wearing off- and that, most of the time, it won't be stacked enough to be significantly stronger then normal.

Now, after you get the ultimate snake is a little different in terms of how much you can have it up, but it still caps at 3 times and wears off a few turns later.

Besides, in order for Youmu to do that, you'd definitely be relying on the power of ultimate-grade weapons, enchantments (like hitting the elec weakness), and DEF debuffs. And I somehow doubt it'd be SoE hitting that much, but, if you got lucky with criticals, I suppose that's not too strange sounding. Satori can hit 30k+ with Mad Thunder and Patch does similarly with her strongest elec bomb, anyway.

[Sakurei]

didn't learn it due to never having it seen, really. after preparing properly, I have to say the 2nd fight was the hardest. while pretty short, she did a lot of damage and that quickly, so...uhm...yeah. I still outdamaged her with delicious youmu :V

third fight dragged on for a bit, due to not having any weaknesses  and stuff. currently plowing my way through stage 19. that COULD take a while. eh

[SpoonyGundam]

It caps at 3 uses, and you can't refresh it because Sanae is the one who has it, meaning it will unavoidably end in 7 turns- which, if you don't have Sanae's ultimate snake on, means that you can only get the third cast up the turn it's wearing off- and that, most of the time, it won't be stacked enough to be significantly stronger then normal.

Read this again.

The effect that boosts variety effects an ally uses after WoM is cast is capped at three.

The effect that boosts variety effects already in place can go on forever.

It's the latter that's going to make you do absurd amounts of damage, and Byakuren can refresh the buff so that it doesn't go away, and then Sanae can potentially boost it even further.

Definitely intentional. :V

[Serela]

wait whuh

oh wow

wowwww

I missed the final Acala Sword test the first few times I read that because I saw the x5 test doing the exact same damage and etc

[Starxsword]

Oh, if you're using what's presumably a glitch to stack buffs in order to get huge numbers on Youmu, then that point is kind of moot. At that point, anyone could do big damage, so it kind of doesn't really matter.

Seems like you misunderstand my post. Since the screen shot is of the party having both Byakuren and Sanae in it with Mokou, the glitch may have been used, whether intentional or not.
This is also why I wanted to do a real test with Youmu using the Turtle smasher vs Biotopos. Youmu's Slash of Eternity has defense ignoring properties and Turtle Smasher, being an axe, also has defense ignoring properties. I don't know if they stack or not, but that will matter.

If Youmu's punching through 1111 defense and still hitting for 40k with Slash of Eternity, yes, it definitely is that powerful.

A lot of Youmu's attacks ignore defense. It has defense ignore 35, which I assume to mean it ignores 65% of the enemies defense. You could correct me if I got this part wrong. 1111 defense goes down to 390 defense. I could be reading this wrong, but I am basing this off the other skills that completely ignore defense and they get labelled defense ignore 0. Hitting 40k against the Terminator is feasible.

@Mokou and Youmu's numbers: Now that I got their numbers clearly, I understand how the calculations work.

Mokou's Fujiyama Volcano: Power - 3.5, Multiplier - 1.01, Fire Element Damage added - 100%, Fire Element Strength - 150%.
If we assume Mokou to have 470 attack power, you get these numbers on enemies with no resistance to fire.
470 * 3.5 * 1.01 = 1295 + (1295 * 1.5) fire damage = 4154

This also means that against enemies resistant to Fire, Mokou's damage is greatly nerfed. Since more than half the damage comes from Fire. At least according to what is being said.

Youmu's Slash of Eternity: Power - 1.05, Multiplier - 1.5, defense ignore - 35, 3 to 5 hits, 100 critical (I think this means +100% to critical hit chance, but I don't know).
If we assume Youmu to have 440 attack power, you get these numbers.
440 * 1.05 = 462 * 1.5 = 693 * 4 = 2772. Criticals were not used for the math. Remember, Youmu's critical hit damage is x3 or so and other people's critical hit damage is x2 or so.

These numbers favor Youmu's damage output for most boss encounters when you include critical hits, which Youmu does a lot more than other characters. This includes Mokou with the Phoenix Hand, which has +20 critical hit.

I have also tested this against the Godeater who has 0 defense and 0 m defense, weak to fire 2x, and it looks about right.
Mokou's regular damage was about 1200. Mokou Big Fujiyama Volcano was about 25k. The numbers say it should be about 27k, but that's close enough.

@3 party split: Yeah, I would split to 3 parties of 4. I generally keep a caster in every party and Sanae goes with the party that has enemies with a bunch of status effects.

[Serela]

(I think this means +100% to critical hit chance, but I don't know).

she definitely doesn't hit criticals 100% of the time with SoE, so :V A 10% boost wouldn't seem too weird, but... DoD is the game that does x/1000 formulas, not GoS. I don't know how critical chance works though, apart from POT boosting it. I kind of recall it being POT/2=base crit rate, but, don't quote me on that- I mean, my characters with 50 pot don't feel like they get a critical 1/4th of the time >_>

Also, Reincarnation Slash has "150 critical", so, it can't just be a flat percent.

[Sakurei]

what is a good tactic against anasticia? you know, stage 19 boss.

from what I have seen, I can count out sakuya, mokou and youmu due to massive defense. so I have to go at it with magical attacks. she's weak to thunder (nothing else from what I have seen), so patchy and marisa probably need to be in. I could probably use nitori for 2x chaser attacks, but I'm actually not too sure about how well it works. I definitely need sanae for healing purposes and stuff, so I have 1 slot open. who do I put in there? Alice? I hevn't tested it yet, so I don't know how much damaged would be absorbed by alice's shields, but I presume not too much. I think patchy would still be one shotted.

oh yeah, for reference: patchouli does about 4000 per hit and marisa's around 3000, I believe it was. with buffs <.< so yeah, help?

[Serela]

Sakuya/Mokou/Youmu can still work, but a magical approach is still highly effective itself, so yeah. Chasers also work pretty well in conjunction (they ignore some def plus nitori has the massive weakness bonus damage)

Make sure to use Patchy's elec boost field.

And, Alice works fine. Just make sure to give her blunt resist.

Bring some of Sanae's elec noncards. When she has nothing else to do, it'll give Nitori another attack to chase.

[Barrakketh]

Use Byakuren to buff Anastatis with Elemental Weapon: Earth.  She can resist it, but if you're pushing the land toward elec that'll mitigate her damage.

[Serela]

An interesting strategy, although you should be able to take her attacks with Parrar and Sanae's defense buff, at least considering you're on Easy Mode. If you do decide to bring Byakuren though... no reason not to :3

[SpoonyGundam]

These numbers favor Youmu's damage output for most boss encounters when you include critical hits, which Youmu does a lot more than other characters. This includes Mokou with the Phoenix Hand, which has +20 critical hit.

Here's the thing you aren't considering: When you start to bring other multipliers into the picture (I.E. Slayers, hitting weaknesses, physical/elemental damage boosting equipment, land levels, etc) they increase the larger raw numbers by a much greater amount.

It's a simple test, but just try multiplying the numbers you gave by 1.5 to see what I mean.

Mokou goes to 6231, while Youmu goes to 4158. What used to be a 1382 point damage gap is now 2073 points. As you add in more and larger multipliers, the gap only increases. Mokou also has access to several other options to boost damage that Youmu doesn't. For example, throwing on a Vulcan Amulet and having Patchy lay down Hot Spot Vulcan should significantly boost her damage, though it will do nothing to help Youmu. IIRC, the Sword tree also gives a boost to elemental and slayer damage, which Youmu probably won't get due to the Katana's crit bonuses being more valuable to her damage.

And while Youmu does get higher crit damage, Mokou's crit damage is still very significant. Especially when the larger base damage value means Mokou is getting more bang for her crits to begin with. Youmu would have to get two crits every attack to match the damage bonus Mokou gets from one, without any additional damage multipliers. As the multipliers increase, the amount of crits Youmu would need to keep up will also increase. With that one 1.5 multiplier example earlier? Youmu needs all four hits to be crits in order to keep up, and there are a lot more multipliers involved in the actual calculation than that. Again, it isn't hard for her to crit with Youmu as the commander.

Being ineffective against fire resistant enemies hurts a bit, but honestly? There aren't very many of those anyway. Anastasis is the only boss that applies to in the main game after the point where you'd reasonably have FV (Which my Mokou was still outdamaging that Nicovideo guy's Youmu against, as a reminder.). There are a few more in the expansion, but FV is still effective more often than not.

And more importantly, Mokou is using FV literally. every. single. turn. She's not going to be getting a crit every turn, but she doesn't have to waste her time throwing out a lesser attack between nukes. This is huge, because it literally means that unless Youmu consistently does twice FV's damage with SoE, it is worse, barring the rare situations where you don't have opportunities to attack on consecutive turns (I.E. Final expansion boss, but you wouldn't be using FV or SoE there to begin with.). And I'm not getting the impression that she's capable of that.

what is a good tactic against anasticia? you know, stage 19 boss.

Weren't you going to beat that fight with Youmu? She's got lower defense than Genji. Man up. :V

[Sakurei]

uh, I said I'd fight the last boss with youmu. but the thought of doing every boss with youmu (uh, there're only 3 left) intrigues me. though, after trying once, I have to say that youmu doesn't do the average damage patchouli and marisa can bring :V on average. she very well may do a lot more, but not a basis I like to call consistent.
I AM TOO BIASED TO SAY NO TO THIS, BUT IT FEELS LIKE IT WILL MAKE THE FIGHT UNNECESSARILY HARDER.

if I choose to do it with youmu, I'll record it, in any case.

[SpoonyGundam]

uh, I said I'd fight the last boss with youmu.

but... what

anastasis was the boss i was always talking about in the comparisons

everyone always fights the final boss with youmu anyway

[Barrakketh]

everyone always fights the final boss with youmu anyway

Even on Man Mode?

[Sakurei]

oh, I didn't know that, duh. alright, challenge accepted?

I was thinking that maybe I'm just a little low-levelled. I mean, marisa get's 2.5x the base experience and with a few exceptions (sanae and reimu, to be exact, and youmu ofc) everyone gets 2x the exp. sanae and reimu get the exact base and youmu gets what, a third? or was it half? I forgot. so yeah, maybe levelling a tiny bit helps already.

so, I defeated my first stray yukkuri (they always, ALWAYS run away). 10k experience, really? that's bullshit.

[Sungho]

Elemental Weapons are NOT affected by land power, except for certain +[Element] attacks. Just so you know. Really common misconception.
CRITs are x/1000.

About Elemental Strength, It's just a modifier for the change in damage from enemy's resistance/weakness.
The damage will not change against neutral enemies, whatever the elemental strength is.

About Wind of Miracles, if the buff itself is overwritten, it is reset to whatever it would have been.

About Hyper Fang Crush and Controlling the Dragon,
Hyper Fang Crush is vastly superior compared to other multi-hit attacks Satori has. Useful for 'trying' to control the Dragon.
That said, I think Sakuya with Demon Tooth will do much better. Never thought about that. Although she'll need sky-high IND.

About Man Mode, 'My master never spoke of supernatural phenomenon'.

About Stray Yukkuri, what's the problem?
Trying to get the item drop is rather annoying, but Zera Beetles are even more annoying.
At least 'Insta-save anywhere' works on Yukkuri. (The plural rule for Japanese words really don't work with certain adverbs, do they.)

[SpoonyGundam]

Elemental Weapons are NOT affected by land power, except for certain +[Element] attacks. Just so you know. Really common misconception.
CRITs are x/1000.

But the fire part of Fujiyama Volcano is, right? So as you use it and raise the fire land level, that part will get more powerful?

About Elemental Strength, It's just a modifier for the change in damage from enemy's resistance/weakness.
The damage will not change against neutral enemies, whatever the elemental strength is.

Are the boosts from equipment and Patchy's fields considered Elemental Strength, or something else? They aren't described with the same kanji.

[Serela]

Hyper Fang Crush is vastly superior compared to other multi-hit attacks Satori has. Useful for 'trying' to control the Dragon.
That said, I think Sakuya with Demon Tooth will do much better. Never thought about that. Although she'll need sky-high IND.

The issue is, you can apply and then remove it in the same attack if you use a multiple-hit. Hyper Fang Crush has a better high-hit chance then Samidare Slash iirc, but their damage formula is the exact same, isn't it? Still, having a another Samidare Slash isn't bad.

With the Lolicon Eye in my first play of the game, I've seen many times where I use Samidare Slash and "Charm" appears twice because I inflicted and removed it at the same time.

Sakuya is a worse idea because it's hard to get the IND, and... Satori can still function fine with a dagger, but Sakuya is kind of crippled. Or Satori can use Es, which is already a great weapon for her anyway. (You don't get Dagger's success rate boost, but it has 17% more base chance on the Es anyway- so you don't really lose anything, and get IND out of the eye) Using Sakuya instead is just kind of... why not Satori? Using both is possible but risky, because the second attacker can accidentally remove a control hit...

(Granted, they won't really be dealing damage anyway, but if you're controlling the dragon you're gonna have Satori there, since why would you do it except for Learning? I guess if you really wanted Satori to be actively doing things you could give someone the demon tooth, and Sakuya is at least durable, unlike many other knife users. Sanae/Byakuren would have lots of free turns I suppose... and needs IND anyway.)

I don't know about Patchouli's fields, because I've never used them outside of a boss that's weak against the prescribed element :S

edit:I almost forgot. Part of the reason to use Satori is her POW tree for +50% activation. Ahaha base 100% hit rate and all her IND self-specific gear. I'm not sure how full star resist affects it though, so maybe the additional base rate doesn't matter? *Unsure*

[Sungho]

But the fire part of Fujiyama Volcano is, right? So as you use it and raise the fire land level, that part will get more powerful?

Ah, strange wording on my part. I believe not. It will be affected by land only if Mokou received attributes from Byakuren.

Fujiwara Volcano : about 5000 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + WTR Land extreme : about 5000 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + FIR Land extreme : about 5000 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + FIR attribute : about 5000 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + FIR attribute + WTR Land extreme  : about 1800 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + FIR attribute +FIR Land extreme : about 7500 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + WTR attribute : about 5000 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + WTR attribute + WTR Land extreme  : about 7500 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + WTR attribute + FIR Land extreme : about 1800 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + ELE attribute : about 5000 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + ELE attribute + ELE Land extreme  : about 7500 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + ETH attribute + ELE Land extreme : about 1800 damage.
Fujiwara Volcano + ETH attribute + FIR,ELE Land extreme : about 1800 damage.
Final Finger dealt about 3500 damage in the 9 conditions.
Sakuya's Final Tier Weapon(+WTR additional damage) dealt about 1250 in the 9 conditions.
Works similarly with Nitori's +FIR and +WTR skills, does not work on +MYS skills.

Er, the results are not what I expected. I guess the JPN wiki was wrong about only one attribute working.
You get the idea. The damage is boosted if the skill has [Add Element] and the 'newly given attribute' matches the land. Usually.
I'm not sure which part of the damage is affected by land, but I think it's both parts altogether.
By the way, why does Byakuren's Elemental Weapon increase FIR Land?

Are the boosts from equipment and Patchy's fields considered Elemental Strength, or something else? They aren't described with the same kanji.

Something else. It's just simple damage increase and decrease vs. exaggeration of resistance/weakness.

About star resistance and those kind of things for status, it's like '95% of perfectly evading', and you'll never surpass 5% of inflicting.

[SpoonyGundam]

That's really interesting! It explains why having max water level didn't seem to hurt Mokou's damage output against Biotopos.

I just did some testing a little bit ago, and it seems like the boosts to Fire damage will still work after Elemental Weapons are cast, even though the land damage bonus makes it seem kind of like the attack is converted entirely to the new element. So in other words, Hot Spot Vulcan will pretty significantly boost damage (Test FV went from 1000 to 1300 with Star Sword cast), which is actually pretty damn useful against things that have a weakness to light/dark (And thus no Patchyfield to take advantage of normally). Would have been useful knowledge to have the first time I fought Genji. Might have been able to drop him in one good crit. :V

Now I need to figure out if it's better to boost fire damage or a weakness. I'd assume focusing on boosting damage against the weakness is better, but the mechanics of this attack have surprised me enough already that I can't be sure. Maybe boost both? It wouldn't really surprise me if a Vulcan Amulet raised damage more than a Rage Choker. It'll be a while before I actually have the tools to test this fully, though. I ended up Cheat Engining characters' levels up in a backup early-game save to do the initial testing, and I don't know how to use the program well enough to make it give me items I don't already have.

[Sakurei]

so I heard you like youmu?

http://www.abload.de/img/unbenannt9lpo7.jpg

yes. yes I do.

stage 20 is awesome, btw. currently fighting my way through.