Okay, I beat the main game at Mino 126! I wasn't quite expecting to win, but this fight went pretty smoothly, all in all. Overall, I'd say I had some of best characters available to me for this fight as the battle gives you a ton of time to prepare for the coming onslaught that is her final form (and whatever minion that gets a chance to go berserk). I was planning to kill Igmaruji / Amnesieri first and save Toruastory for last, but spamming Blazing Wheel had the exact opposite effect :derp: However, I apparently did enough damage to the other two to kill them both soon after without getting Djinn Stormed or Scourged. Nobody died by the time I got to the final phase, although Mari had a habit of Magic Draining Tenshi / Rinno / Remi / Mino a lot. I got off Military Rule as soon as Rinno had enough SP to do so, and he managed to stay alive throughout most of her final phase. I did see a few deaths, but thanks to Ran being able to use Holy Boards more frequently I was able to keep people's defences boosted which helped immensely in stomaching her assault.
Anyways, here's how I thought of the team I used in this playthrough, and how eager I'd be to use each one again.
Marisa: Standard pure MAG build. She makes for a great early game trash cleaner, but is impeded in doing so later on due to MYS resistance becoming commonplace among lategame trash. Still, Master Spark is amazing on any boss that doesn't have over 200 MYS affinity or is flat-out immune to magic. I've used her before and I would use again, although most certainly with an offensive core as she can't kill everything by herself.
Remilia: Started with a balance between ATK and DEF, but went purely defensive with several levelup bonuses in her MYS and SPI affinities as my other attackers got their SP pool built up. Remilia is amazing at taking hits and dishing them back out when its unsafe to switch in your frailer attackers. Her drawbacks are her rather expensive MND, MYS and SPI skillpoint costs, as well as low PSN, PAR, and DBF resistances. Other than that she's quite solid. I've loved utility in my first playthrough and my opinion hasn't changed on her at all.
Cirno: Pure ATK build. I was a bit wary of using her, but with a team with few trashcleaners, pure ATK Cirno was quite helpful in providing a small source of physical multitarget damage as well as multitarget CLD damage, but her ability to inflict SPD debuffs and a weak PAR are both appreciated when they can work. As a progressed through the game, I couldn't help but feel a spark of glee if the next boss I was going to fight was vulnerable to debuffs. However, for bosses like Rinnousuke where the boss is immune to both debuffs and PAR, Cirno is a dead weight. I've come to appreciate both her and debuffing this playthrough and I wouldn't mind using her again.
Minoriko: Pure MND build, but with several early levelup bonuses used to patch up her subpar FIR and CLD affinities. I was wondering if I'd be able enough to keep my team alive without any party-wide healing, and indeed I did, thanks to Mino. Dirt cheap SP costs let her work her magic right from the get-go, which is great for both early game and post SP-draining skills. She's pretty damn bulky as well from the magic side, made even better by cheap skillpoint costs for both MND and DEF. Being backed up by both Sanae and Eirin for heal duty as well was pretty sweet too, although I would be comfortable with her as my sole medic on a future team.
Sanae: Had minor MAG investment at the beginning, but then I switched to pure MND since she was near overhealing with MAG investment. Even when going pure MND Sanae is frailer than Mino, which is unfortunate given the higher delays on both Sanae's buff and heal. Unlike Mino, however, Sane can cure ailments with her heal and boost offensive stats with her buff, which are two things she can take advantage of in certain boss fights. That said, she saw the field much less than Mino because she was frailer, usually being siwtched in to provide emergency healing. It wasn't until the final battle that she could make use of Miracle Fruit, even. Her skillpoint costs are a lot more expensive overall too. I'd use her again but definitely not as a primary medic.
Ran: Heavy DEF investment with mild MND investment. Even without any MAG Ran proved helpful in clearing out early to midgame floor trash, and her party wide buffs are the only ones I can use more than once in a fight. Because of this, she was invaluable for providing what my team lacked, altough she wasn't as tanky as I'd like for someone so useful to be, as well as the fact her SP costs are pretty high. Still, I'd definitely use her again in any sort of party.
Eirin: Started off with pure MAG, but slid towards defensive as the game progressed. She's kind of on and off for me, and definitely the least useful of my team. While a MAG build helped kill those early game bosses that laugh at elemental attacks, her offensive utility quickly fell out for me. She remained useless throughout most of the game right until I started investing solely into her defenses and got some real ailment gear to spread around. After that, she could do a job of a bulky healer willing to switch into attacks that neither Mino nor Sanae can stomach. Ultimately I guess that made her into a statistically inferior Meiling, but given how much of a defensive prodigy Meiling is that's still a good achievement. If I were to use her again, I'd definitely make her purely defensive, with someone like Ran as well to defences which aren't quite high enough without buffing, preferably with someone else tasked with the job of primary medic as Hourai Elixir is second-rate at best.
Tenshi: DEF / MND split. Tenshi is a pretty clear-cut character in her ability to take goose eggs from some of the fiercest of attacks from bosses. Unfortunately, attacks that ignore her wonderful defences quickly take her out, which prevents her from being invincible in boss fights. Sword of Rapture offers decent utility outside of her tanking role, but it is somewhat unreliable. I'd use her again but not as my only 1st-slot tank due to her low HP issues.
Orin: Pure ATK. Hands down the best trash cleaner in my group and a solid source of damage against bosses. As her SP pool builds up she gets better and better at dealing damage to both floor trash and bosses alike. She probably was one of my largest sources of damage in the final boss fight. Unfortunately, she doesn't shine without ATK / MAG buffs which is something my team didn't provide much of, although when she did have those buffs she did quite a number. Would use again, although with hopefully a more consistent offense buffer.
Rinnousuke: Light ATK investment, with the bulk of levelups split between DEF and MND. The third member of my 1st/2nd slot defensive core, Rinno provided for this team to rely on as well as a much-needed offensive buff in Military Rule, even if it is single-use. He started off the slowest of my 3 walls, he couldn't make full use of Military Rule until about floor 15 or so. That buff was an ace in the hole, so to speak, and complimented well with Ran's weaker party wide buffs. Against shorter boss fights like the Sigil Guardians, he's an amazing asset to have. I'd use him again, but with defensive support as he usually doesn't last in real boss fights.
Maribel: Pure MAG. Maribel was pretty all right in the end. Her selfbuff is swell, but her SP costs are ludicrous. Her lower stats made her not as impressive as others when she's got 100% buffs in everything, but given my team layout that is rarely the case anyway. Still, she provided some nice offensive support, with her quadruple border debuff SPI nuke thing, and HFO as a useful WND nuke given the surprising number bosses and enemies vulnerable to it. She's a bit of a dead weight early on, but gets better as her SP pool grows her into a self-sufficient attacker. I'd use her again, with a team that hopefully has a relatively good early game.
Kanako: Pure MAG. Simply put, Kanako surprised me, she exceeded my expectations of her by far. The offensive utility she brought to this team was incredible. Suiga had obvious applications as a CLD nuke but that wasn't all she was great for. Wind God proved itself to be a solid WND nuke against the handful of bosses weak to it. Even Misayama Hunting Ritual was handy, given how starved this team is for physical damage :V Unfortunately she suffers from massive SP costs and low base SP regeneration. There's also the fact her CLD and WND nukes factor in a large portion of the enemy's MND, which makes their damage peter off quickly against high MND bosses. Still, I'm more than willing to use her again in future playthroughs.
Overall, as odd as this team looks, it held up surprisingly well. Not sure if I'll go onto plus disk with this group at all.
EDIT: Went and beat up EVD. All hail Tenshi and her taking 0's from Light Wings, allowing her to switch Marisa in and out to Spark :V
