Genius of Sappherios Zansyo/Weekend

[チソウ タイゼン]

Satori fight, recommended level/party please
Chireiden's proving to be pretty bullshit so far

[Sakurei]

for satori, I just went with level 10~ party, I believe. it consisted of Reimu, Sanae, Sakuya, Mokou and Byakuren with patchouli as commander.

satori's rather easy for a boss, I didn't apply any sort of strategy to beat her. if you feel like you aren't high enough, just try to get a level or two in her dungeon and fight her again. it worked for me with kaguya and eirin. make sure your characters have a set role, though. like using sanae for healing/buffing purposes only. don't do mixes, that will only drain bombs and MP where it shouldn't.

also, I'm on stage 13 now. I guessed momiji would be the boss of stage 11, after all. but I didn't expect cirno. the freeze/attack combo was unfair if you don't expect it to come. but I suppose later bosses will always have some sort of shenanigan. the fgith was fairly easy, though. buffing my resistance with sanae wasn't a sure-way to prevent freeze, but I can't remember any character making me immune to it, anyway. maybe byakuren had something, but I don't think so. eh, that's over with, anyway.

stage 12 was tough, actually easy layout and everything, but after a while, my MP just went down and I was in the middle of nowhere - turning back would let me face all the enemies I left out, continuing would let me face all that's in front of me. I just tried to avoid all in front of me and hoped for the best. somehow worked out.
Kanako and Suwako were fairly easy. once I figured out kanako can be instant death'd, at least. figured it out through youmu, whose sword has instant death effect. Suwako seemed immune to it, so I had to fight her properly. she did have pretty damn high magic resistance, so patchouli didn't help here at all. Sakuya and youmu worked wonders, though, since suwako is weak to all (?) kind of physical assaults. things like slash of eternity did over 2500 damage, with criticals over 4000. that was easy.

now, I think I'll have to fight iku and tenshi either together, or iku first then tenshi. I dunno what to expect from iku (i.e sheer power or some trick that has to be avoided by some strategy akin to cirno/momiji fight), but I think tenshi is going to come at me with sheer strength. I am assuming I need alice for that fight. just a hunch :V expect more to come in the next 2-3 days for that matter

[Serela]

Get Mad Thunder from Iku for Satoriiiiiii

Anyway, speaking of the Satori fight for the other person, she's really trivial except for her Charge attacks. Earth: She's gonna use Petro Cloud, so you need Reimu's border that prevents status effects for one turn. Water:Elixir=all her HP is recovered=sucks, so use Sakuya's field that prevents HP recovery. Elec is Thunderclap which isn't that bad, and I honestly don't know what Fire is but it probably isn't bad either.

The Earth/Water ones are basically instant resets if you don't use the countermeasure after she charges, so you want to bring them along.

[homing curvy laser]

Satori fight, recommended level/party please
Chireiden's proving to be pretty bullshit so far

Just hit her until she dies. After she changes elements, hit the element she's weak to until she dies.
I... never though about doing what Serela recommended. :V

And Sakurei, you know that you can change your party at any time you want, right? So if your "main" party is running out of MP, you could put someone who fullfills a similar role in their place and move on with the dungeon. That's what I did in my latest stage 20 run where I didn't want to spam that healing circle too much, juggling Marisa/Patchouli/Satori in the back row.

[Sakurei]

I fought iku. she was bullshit. I also didn't get thunderclap. well, I did. but died, so satori didn't get to keep it. fuck that fight. it was so much bullshit I looked up how to effectively defeat her. went with youmu + byakuren's dark sword. 1 slash of eternity dealt at least 3000 damage. up to 8000; she just kept bullshitting me that whore. I tried using youmu, byakuren, reimu, alice, sanae. didn't work because she kept not using that death combo until turn 5 or 6 where neither little legion nor reimu's border were active, killing like 3 character. obviously sanae couldn't keep up. I'd have used mokou as a commander, but that wouldn't have worked because I needed aya's first turn thing. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF this fight pissed me off way too much. aven't had this much trouble against any boss yet. I needed like 4 youmu attack at most, but NO, she just wanted to keep being a cunt. really, fuck that fight.

I hope tenshi won't be as rage inducing. but she'll probably have less bullshit going on than iku. I mean instant death is pretty dickmovery. especially when it's as arbitrary as it was.

I never thought of changing the party within a dungeon. god I'm stupid :V yeah, you're right. I can do that. will probably in the future, too. derp.

[Starxsword]

@Satori fight: Just hit her regularly and then hit elemental weakness when she transforms and you are good to go.

@Iku fight: I think having good resistance will work. If you can prevent the shock effect, you won't get hit by instant death. If you have items that prevent shock, that will also stop that instant death combo. That is pretty much it for that fight, as long as you can prevent shock, you are good to go.

[Sakurei]

I did put 30+ resistance on everyone except byakuren. it will shocked me most of the time. though, when I changed out sanae for patchy (for tiny extra damage) I managed because youmu pulled a 5-hit slash of eternity with all being criticals over over 2k damage. like what the fuck. she is just so god tier in this game.

OKAY LITTLE QUIZ: DO YOU KNOW WHY I LIKE LABYRINTH OF TOUHOU SO MUCH?!

there are basically no bullshit puzzles (safe for f10-12). stage 14 is the biggest pile of shit ever. I liked the straightforwardness of stage 10 and 11. but  no, they had to put a ridiculous puzzle (which I haven't solved yet, really) in a stage with fucking difficult encounters. I don't know if it's apparent yet, but I hate puzzles with a passion. fuck the recent shit that's happening in this game, seriously.

I hate this game, but I just can't stop ;_;

[homing curvy laser]

Iku isn't that hard, the first time you go unprepared against her she'll do the shock+instant kill combo, you lose and you realize Reimu can protect everyone with her barriers. If Iku's pattern gets too erratic, just reset and try again, that was most likely just bad luck. In fact, the last time I fought her she decided to only use her combo on the turns Reimu had her barriers up, so it was about as easy as you think. :V!

As for stage 14... I assume you're having trouble with the upgraded Mind Flayers? Just like their younger versions, Sanae shuts them up amazingly. Then you stab them to death with Nitori's transcendent-slaying gun and they die. The only really annoying part about that dungeon are the Shisas and their reflect/barrier spells. The puzzle is a bit annoying because you're going to get stuck on it until you realize there's a shortcut to the beginning of stage 13, and that a very specific switch configuration is needed to unlock the gate forward. From then on, all you need to do is kill groups of 5 Mind Flayers, and enjoy Tenshi being Tenshi!

[Serela]

Iku isn't that hard, the first time you go unprepared against her she'll do the shock+instant kill combo, you lose and you realize Reimu can protect everyone with her barriers. If Iku's pattern gets too erratic, just reset and try again, that was most likely just bad luck. In fact, the last time I fought her she decided to only use her combo on the turns Reimu had her barriers up, so it was about as easy as you think. :V!

Alice has Little Legion to counter it too- either give her high resistance or a star resist to shock item, which I -think- exists.

Both skills cast super fast, so Aya isn't needed.

As for mindflayers, there's a lot of ways to deal. Just setting up your entire team to resist it (Partially by using characters who can get nice resist without items, like Reimu/Satori/Youmu) is one, or Sanae's RES buff, or just quickly Instant Death them, or use a formation like Sonic Stream (obtain from using Aya's enemy-examining skill on 15 enemies and then go to Hakurei Healing Circle) for insane movement speed so you can beat them all up with stuff like spears (They have a pierce weakness) before they move.

I think on my first playthrough I did the all-resist method, and on this play I did the Sonic Stream method. Sonic Stream worked out better IMO, but you have to be able to take out enemies fast since you have a significant DEF penalty, so the other ones can be safer.

[Sakurei]

bad luck like what, in 5 fights?`well, actually sounds like me. RNG hates me in every game I've ever played.

I would use sanae's res buff if she was fast enough. she gets outsped every time, so that doesn't help.  haven't used aya's enemy examing skill even once :V I would probably use neo-hakurei formation, too. it ups res, as far as I know.

BUT ALL THE RES IN THE WORLD DOESN'T HELP ME BECAUSE RNG SHENANIGANS CAUSE ME TO GET PARALYZED ANYWAY :V yeah. youmu has like what, close to 40 res? reimu, too. they still get paralyzed every_goddamn_time_

also, figured out the puzzle. the solution is retarded. and I have to reset everything for every wipe I have. that's horrible game dsign, imo.

[Serela]

40 resistance isn't a whooole lot (Although it is pretty good); what you have to do is stagger out really high RES on one or two characters, and then have some characters use direct status resist instead off of small armors or accessories. Star resist to paralysis accessory, Restrict resist accessories/small armors, a permanent resist accessory for someone with intermediate RES since you don't have any really strong ones at this point, etc. That way you can make most of your team resist it pretty well.

Youmu's main appeal in resisting statuses is each of her stance trees gives a resistance bonus to a certain kind of status group when you put 3 points in. One degree of resistance isn't much, but it adds up when you put in other bonuses from equipment.

[Sungho]

The puzzle in Stage 14 is quite the annoyance.

If Sanae is being outsped, you're putting the Skill Points in the wrong place.
Give 13 points to Wind Priestess, then you'll outspeed everything except for the predictable high-priority attacks.
Sanae's RES buff gives +35 RES even without any bonuses(+52 RES with 20 skill points in Wind Priestess), so use it. It helps almost everywhere.

About Elite Mind Flayer's Mind Blast, you need 60 RES to be able to stop to completely.
40 RES will still give about 30% chance of hitting.

Use Sanae's RES buff with the Wind Priestess skill tree, it's awesome.

[SpoonyGundam]

Yeah, I was about to say.

That's probably Sanae's most important skill tree for random battles, and her time is best spent buffing even outside of Mindflayer encounters. The only other thing I'd consider really important is the MP drain in the Snakes tree, but the Faith tree is a useful place to dump points after that. Youkai Extermination and Miracles are pretty useless, IMO. She's never really going to be dealing good enough damage by herself, and autohealing to full after fights make the healing bonuses kind of a waste. Keep a healing spell around for emergencies, but you shouldn't need to use it very often if you focus on ending fights quickly.

[Serela]

Youkai Extermination's 1 turn cooldown reduction becomes important once you get her final buffing skill that stacks on itself awkwardly, but... yeah, not for a long time. Using Sanae to actually attack goes out of style as soon as you can manage her MP while buffing in randoms. (Although she's actually pretty fabulous as an attacker on some of the early bosses...)

Well, apart from trying to land poison/paralysis with a snake and drain mp, once you've buffed up. Maybe some limited use to trigger elec chasers.

Okay. So there's many good ways to use characters depending on what you're trying out. :V But you get the point.

[Sakurei]

duh, tenshi was easy! after seeing what se can do, anyway. upon assuming that all her attacks are earth typed, I used alice's color spectrum thing.

actually, why the fuck is alice so important in EVERY boss fight recently :V also, it took me like 3 or 4 fights to notice that she can dispel youmu's stance :V I was thinking that since iku was weak to dark, tenshi might be weak to light. NOPE. dark again; so I used byakuren again. this time with my other strong physical attacker - sakuya. she didn't nearly do as much damage as youmu, though. still, with negating her only actual powerful attack, she was easy to survive. the bit of damage drill did was quickly healed with sanae. not some bullshit boss for a change. I'm pleased with that.

I also started to look into stage 15. so...super mario? hell, even the sound effect is similar. the encounters I've had weren't too bad, but nothing to sneeze at, either. I might wanna use someone else for sakuya/youmu for this dungeon, since a couple encounters (the skeletons and lizards, from what I have seen) are pretty darn strong against anything physical. so magic it is. I think I'll try elemental physical to see if it's the physical aspect or the non-elemental aspect, however. I can imagine mokou being used as something that is not the commander for once :V

and lastly: is that genji the genji? you know, the one reimu flies on in the pc-98 era?

[RegalStar]

The job of a tank is boring. It's hard to split that kind of boring job over multiple characters. Yet it's as important as it is boring.

[Sakurei]

tanks are arguiably the 2nd most important characters after healers and buffers. attack only comes in third, imo. I mean, you can often slowly take the enemy boss down if you can survive via tanks and supports, but having a team full of nukers, who are often easily taken out, doesn't help you. especially against trick bosses like iku or yuuka/medicine.

I don't dislike using alice, I just find her use to be very...limited outside of bosses - normally. so she's only around 35, while most others have passed the 40s by now. I should probably go to a lower stage for a bit to grind up the last few character. those I'm never using. because eientei taught me I have to split up my party sometimes. my guess is it comes at least one more. eientei as an introduction thing, while the next time(s) are going to be some hard challenges.

[Validon98]

I remember using Alice a lot outside of boss battles. Mainly because her spamming Marionette Pariar actually allowed me to survive most encounters.

And yes, the party splitting comes back. And it gets worse. Far worse. Oh the painful memories...

Finally, yes, that is the Genji. Reimu sucks at taking care of animals.

[SpoonyGundam]

Outside of a handful of the superpowered rare encounters in the final stages, I never really felt like Alice was very useful for random battles either. She's really good at tanking, but not much else, and that level of tanking is pretty unnecessary for random encounters.

I always went with status effects and debuffs for damage mitigation, since characters  with those can still contribute when that job's over. You don't really need a tank when nothing can manage to do more than double-digit damage.

[Cor]

Alice was my mainstay in all battles ever. If I wasn't using her I was dying all over the place.

[Starxsword]

BUT ALL THE RES IN THE WORLD DOESN'T HELP ME BECAUSE RNG SHENANIGANS CAUSE ME TO GET PARALYZED ANYWAY yeah. youmu has like what, close to 40 res? reimu, too. they still get paralyzed every_goddamn_time_

Yeah, as others have said, 40 RES is good, but you need higher numbers than that.

@Sanae's buff speed: Her buff is pretty fast, you should not be getting outsped. Maybe you are using a very slow formation or not putting points into her buffing tree?

@Tenshi fight: Alice is pretty good here. I used her to beat this fight, this is the only fight I used Alice to win with, so she isn't necessary in the party against bosses. You just have to think of other strategies. Enervation and Power Down are very good debuffs that can shut down bosses.

[homing curvy laser]

I would use sanae's res buff if she was fast enough. she gets outsped every time, so that doesn't help.

Go to the growth menu, choose Sanae, reset any points you have allocated and pump them all into the first option. Voil?! Sanae's buffs no go before anything in the game and they're quite a lot stronger! In fact, they're only really useful like this!
By the way, her damaging options are actually pretty good in a few stages (Eientei and Great Temple come to mind) where he can easily hit weaknesses. Hitting a weakness with snakes/frog bombs also means she's going to recover a ton of MP if she has enough points in snakes, which is always a plus.

As for Alice, you're going to enjoy her (and the Poison Shield formation, which is tailor-made for her) in dungeons where enemies like to target your entire party -- like, guess what! Stage 16.
In case you haven't gotten that already (and you most likely will on your first playthrough), just kill an enemy via Toxic and step on the healing circle in the Garden of the Sun. The easiest way to do that is with Satori, using Poison Art/Poison Hand in the first few stages, wearing the poison boost armor you get somewhere, as well as the Poison Lily (Netherworld, first map IIRC), and The Green Eyes (one of her first personal weapons), after an IND buff from Byakuren.

[Sakurei]

I tried it, it didn't work. a number of enemies fell to venom (I.e satori's poison hand), and walked unto the healing circle, but nothing happened. not when I put alice as commander, either. what am I doing wrong?

am I not allowed to use any attacks on the enemy or what?

[Cor]

Venom's not enough. The poison needs to be stronger.

[Sungho]

Dagger's Poison Raid + 80 IND might get you somewhere, if my calculations are correct.
Byakuren's Hyper Trigger will give +60 IND even without any boosts.

I did manage to get Poison Shield BEFORE the Yuuka and Medicine fight, just so you know.

[Sakurei]

hey, I didn't even know it existed, so shhh. but alright, I'll try to rep up some of my poison attacks to get whatever comes after venom :V

[Serela]

Don't forget your launch earrings

Also, it's possible you used it on an enemy that was somewhat resistant to poison. The sunflowers and fairies in the first screen of the Garden of the Sun should be fine, while the earth-elementals and snakes and weird things probably resist it.

[Sakurei]

managed to get the formation. just dumped 25 skills on the appropriate tree and buffed IND with byakuren and I was good to go.

I also cleared stage 15 and 16 today. 15 was fairly annoying because I somehow kept running in circles and i didn't exactly see what to do. somehow I got through, though.

genji was probably the easiest boss in quite a while. though, tenshi was very similar. I don't think he dealt any damage to me aside from the breath attacks - Alice wasn't killed, still. he was annoying to take down, though. he had like what? 30k HP? that was awful. weakness to light didn't help considering I didn't bring byakuren with me (I mean, how am I supposed to know :V) reimu was there, but...yeah.

stage 16 was straightforward and simple. can't say I was a fan of the encounters, but that's alright, still. kurenai was easy, too. mainly due to low HP. I went into that fight with the wrong party :V didn't have sanae with me, instead I had sakuya who didn't do nearly as much damage as youmu or patchouli (as usual, for the former).

oh yeah, where the hell is the silver box in stage 15 xD I got the key, but cannot find the appropriate box for it. I know I saw it somewhere but I cannot remember which room it was. DERP.

also, orihalcum and adamantide: which weapon/armor/shield level do I need those for. I mean, they seem pretty important :V

[GuyYouMetOnline]

Ultimates, pre-expansion (and I think post-expansion, too). Also stuff like Kusanagi.

[Hanzo K.]

I actually have a funny story about the Yuuka-Meddy bossfight.
My team was Reimu, Alice, Mokou, Sakuya, and Satori. Sanae was the Commander.
Mokou, being my headbusting tank(paladin? Well, she's got a revive and buffs I guess..) was equipped with the Crowbar.

Eventually, I ran out of bombs for Sanae. And Reimu, Sakuya, and Alice had fallen.
Mokou, being as stubborn as she is, would often revive. By then Yuuka had already dropped as well. leaving just the durable and toxic Meddy.
Satori, being geared for Poison Arts(Which was a big key to defeating Yuuka.), was functionally immune to poison. And was in fact, able to tank meddy's attacks and regenerate due to land effects or somesuch.
Basically, it came down to Mokou being stubborn as usual, reviving, smacking meddy a few times, dying again, rinse and repeat.
Satori, sadly, due to needing The Green Eyes for the poison bonus, wasn't doing much. So it was all Mokou.
fast-forward an hour or so, and mokou finally knocked down Meddy(Everyone was completely out of MP., thus earning the win..