Labyrinth of Touhou 2 -13F

[ZXNova]

Maybe it would be a good idea to have Nazrin and Rinnosuke in your party when you're searching for Byakuren's fourth scroll, I'm not sure how the the dropping of Byakuren's scroll works, does it drop after a certain amount of battles, or is it completely random like any other item? Or a mix of both?

[Yookie]

I got it pretty much when I was just traveling through the area, trying to get to the end in two runs and in another one I had to go back and wait for it to drop.
So I'd say it drops like any other item. Kourin and Nazrin should be able to increase the chance.

[Kirin no Sora]

The deformed bosses are all Maribel's final boss fight v1 summons from Touhou Labyrinth 1. It's pretty cool. And there's significant incentive to beat them, since then you unlock Renko and Maribel.

But jeez, the first is way harder than the second and third, and they have to be fought in order.

I'm guessing that the only reason that they are in the order that they are in is because the final boss from LoT1 summoned them in that order. Personally, I would put them in reverse order just as a means to maintain proper difficulty. After all, unless I'm mistaken, the third boss's HP regen weakens overtime, right(even though it really shouldn't, for the sake of difficulty)?

[Serela]

I wouldn't know, I creamed the second and third bosses since I had to get so OP to deal with the first one.

I imagine the dev didn't think the first to be overwhelmingly harder than the next two- he probably intended them to be in ascending difficulty. But, uh, then again, it's hard to imagine that really happening unless there was little playtesting...

[Thata no Guykoro]

After all, unless I'm mistaken, the third boss's HP regen weakens overtime, right(even though it really shouldn't, for the sake of difficulty)?

You're thinking of the second boss, which starts with ~170,000 HP regen that gradually weakens to ~25,000 iirc. The third Deformed Boss doesn't actually have any HP regen at all.

[Garlyle]

speaking of HP regen fuck the Goddess of Fertility

Spoiler:

(hurr hurr)

oh well at least I got Byakuren who really is fucking broken as fuck holy shit.  I'm also back to being underlevelled, so I'm pretty sure I can put that boss off until later and just come back when most of my damage dealers have a few extra levels backing them.  (also why is the 'Goddess of Fertility' a huge tentacle monster--wait I just figured it out)

[Kirin no Sora]

You're thinking of the second boss, which starts with ~170,000 HP regen that gradually weakens to ~25,000 iirc. The third Deformed Boss doesn't actually have any HP regen at all.

Well, even more reason for the three bosses to be in reverse order, to be honest.

Heck, the game designers could of made a fight where you would have to fight all three of them at the same time once again, for the sake of the ultimate challenge(by which I mean that it'll seriously hurt like mad)...

[Garlyle]

Well, even more reason for the three bosses to be in reverse order, to be honest.

Heck, the game designers could of made a fight where you would have to fight all three of them at the same time once again, for the sake of the ultimate challenge(by which I mean that it'll seriously hurt like mad)...

The expansion pack is on its way eventually~

[ZXNova]

I wouldn't say Byakuren is broken. Strong, yes. Broken is Nitori. Her abilities to give buff to people are superb, but as far as damage is concerned, it isn't that high. She's just a really good offensive support buffer thing.

And I just realized Nazrin has a passive that allows her to copy Byakuren's current buffs. Time for Nazrin-Byakuren shenanigans?

[Garlyle]

I wouldn't say Byakuren is broken. Strong, yes. Broken is Nitori. Her abilities to give buff to people are superb, but as far as damage is concerned, it isn't that high. She's just a really good offensive support buffer thing.

And I just realized Nazrin has a passive that allows her to copy Byakuren's current buffs. Time for Nazrin-Byakuren shenanigans?

Maybe not completely, but I'm pretty sure Byakuren completely outstrips every other buff-based character in the game except maybe Ran.  Once she has all the stat amps she pretty much straight up obsoletes Sanae and all the multi-target buffers (Ran, Keine, Iku) don't exactly sit around keeping themselves at 60%+ on all stats naturally, have far more MP problems, etc.  I think the only drawback is that she is hella skill point reliant but you get her so late that you can get the majority of valuable allocations immediately; and to be fair, Nitori's in a similar boat where she doesn't start obsoleting the rest of her class until Maintenance can really start to kick in as well.

Point is I almost want to switch back to Sanae because, much like Nitori, it almost feels too easy to use Byakuren right now.  ...But, she helps everyone else do their shit really well and lets everyone else shine so I don't mind it as much.

For the record, my party approaching the end of the game: Momiji, Yuugi, Sakuya, Reisen, Komachi, Wriggle, Reimu, Byakuren, Cirno, Parsee, Patchouli, Yuka.  When I stream the game tonight from work I'm going to be fighting Eiki (my last recruitment; I had to farm for achievements) and then exploring the 19th floor.  ADVENTURE HO~

Oh and yeah Nazrin just sorta passively borrowing all Byakuren's buffs probably makes her super silly if not for the fact I doubt Byakuren has any problem with having the turns to manually buff Nazrin anyway, but hell yeah tiny tiny buffed-as-hell commander.

[jaxter0987]

For the record, my party approaching the end of the game: Momiji, Yuugi, Sakuya, Reisen, Komachi, Wriggle, Reimu, Byakuren, Cirno, Parsee, Patchouli, Yuka.  When I stream the game tonight from work I'm going to be fighting Eiki (my last recruitment; I had to farm for achievements) and then exploring the 19th floor.  ADVENTURE HO~

Oh and yeah Nazrin just sorta passively borrowing all Byakuren's buffs probably makes her super silly if not for the fact I doubt Byakuren has any problem with having the turns to manually buff Nazrin anyway, but hell yeah tiny tiny buffed-as-hell commander.

Stream? Mind telling me what time and where you're streaming? I like watching others play Labyrinth for some reason.

I'd imagine Nazrin's passive buff borrowing can be crazy with Rinnosuke's Efficient Formation Change. You don't need to risk Nazrin dying when you're trying to buff her, since she'd come to the frontline in top form.

[Garlyle]

Stream? Mind telling me what time and where you're streaming? I like watching others play Labyrinth for some reason.

I'd imagine Nazrin's passive buff borrowing can be crazy with Rinnosuke's Efficient Formation Change. You don't need to risk Nazrin dying when you're trying to buff her, since she'd come to the frontline in top form.

True; there's inevitably aspects I'm too tired to consider.

I'll be streaming from work in about... twelve hours from now.  I'll make a point to stop by and post when the time comes (or just follow me on twitch; hell there should be a recording of the game from last night there too and I think the night before if you're hella bored.  Last night was basically both bosses and the FOE in the sixth stratum so there's some interesting parts at least).

[ZXNova]

Yeah, Byakuren kind of does (ok not kind of) outclasses pretty much every buffer. I like to do Sanae+ Bykauren, Sanae speeds up Byakuren's buffing process, then Byakuren is at 100%. Kind of dumb. Tweaking her buffing abilities would be a good idea. Though, I would have to say as far as buffing a specific stat, no one buffs speed better than Aya.

Maybe make Byakuren only give half of her current buffs at level 1 or something. Then as you level up this skill, she can buff more of her current buffs. Seeing as how skillpoint reliant she is, it seems like a nice way to balance things out.

12 hours from now? That's at midnight for me!

[jaxter0987]

True; there's inevitably aspects I'm too tired to consider.

I'll be streaming from work in about... twelve hours from now.  I'll make a point to stop by and post when the time comes (or just follow me on twitch; hell there should be a recording of the game from last night there too and I think the night before if you're hella bored.  Last night was basically both bosses and the FOE in the sixth stratum so there's some interesting parts at least).

Watching your 16F Boss fight was interesting. I was surprised you didn't buff everyone up first before starting your assault on it.

Edit: I see you've gotten through the bs that is the 18F boss fight. Before you brought Nitori into the fight, I still had my doubts on just how broken everyone was claiming Nitori to be (since I still haven't used her myself) but after seeing her output that kind of damage with modest equipment, that's just stupid. And considering its Hardmode, I know that she also had modest library levels...

I'm hoping you get to 20F tonight. You got through 1.5 floors with other obligations in the way, so its possible.

Yeah, Byakuren kind of does (ok not kind of) outclasses pretty much every buffer. I like to do Sanae+ Bykauren, Sanae speeds up Byakuren's buffing process, then Byakuren is at 100%. Kind of dumb. Tweaking her buffing abilities would be a good idea. Though, I would have to say as far as buffing a specific stat, no one buffs speed better than Aya.

Maybe make Byakuren only give half of her current buffs at level 1 or something. Then as you level up this skill, she can buff more of her current buffs. Seeing as how skillpoint reliant she is, it seems like a nice way to balance things out.

12 hours from now? That's at midnight for me!

We happen to be in the same timezone then. Midnight works great for me however, as my internet is the fastest when I'm the only one in the house using it.

Edit: I like Renko + Byakuren more. Then you throw in Aya into the mix and its just silly. Byakuren basically starts the fight with 100% buffs, ready to share that buff with the rest of your party.

[Serela]

Maybe make Byakuren only give half of her current buffs at level 1 or something. Then as you level up this skill, she can buff more of her current buffs. Seeing as how skillpoint reliant she is, it seems like a nice way to balance things out.

That just makes it take slightly longer to get Byakuren up to speed, and make it more tempting to dump all your training manuals on her to get there faster. It doesn't really change much about the situation.

Also, about Nazrin... she's really meh apart from use as a farming character, the fact that her damage boost passive works on most late bosses and that she can piggyback Byakuren is all that keeps her from total obscurity.

But, speeding up grinds can be useful, so. Issue is probably just that 20f depths grinding is probably faster with Nitori or Flan roflstomping the place. A whooole lot of those enemies are weak to PHYS, for super scope or gambler flan normal attacking...

[Yookie]

It's really easy to get Nazrin's stats/damageoutput to a level that enables her to one-shot most things on that floor.
In the beginning you have to have someone else soften some of the enemies up first though.

I strongly believe that the devs intended her to be used for grinding for money in that spot, given that most enemies are in the "Divine" category and also weak to Gold Rush.
Give her Gambler, dump some money into her magic (getting just that up to 300 isn't all that expensive and pays for itself very quickly) stat and all is well.
After a while you can even take off gambler and equip her to do 30+ battle streaks.

[Garlyle]

I'm hoping you get to 20F tonight. You got through 1.5 floors with other obligations in the way, so its possible.We happen to be in the same timezone then. Midnight works great for me however, as my internet is the fastest when I'm the only one in the house using it.

Yeah, I really didn't want to bring out Nitori, but it was like... "Yeah, really, I just need an assload of damage and unfortunately my normal physical attackers aren't quite going to cut it".  ...Also I'm impatient even with regenerating bosses oops.  Bringing out Nitori was a "I don't really want to do this, but hell with it this fight's enough of a pain in the ass already".  She still did less damage than Parsee did though ahaha

The level cap from Hard Mode doesn't seem to have caused too many problems, to be honest; at most it made the 12F bosses kind of irritating.  I don't think I've hit the library cap on stats since like 3F either, even though I've totally got the money to burn now.

Anyway, I'll look forward to seeing you there!

EDIT: All done!  Next time I stream will be the Magatama, Mirror, and final boss, so... yeah 8D

[Axel Ryman]

Decided to mess around with a few Death Shenanigans. Using Cheat Engine to power up Komachi and Reisen, then using it again to lower their damage stats so they can't deal damage, and some other things, I was able to get a Death Proc on the 7F and 8F FOEs. I think the 2F FOE also got a Death Proc as well, but it took a little while longer. 3F on the other hand....I just can't get a proc off no matter how much I try.  Considering the 7F and 8F FOEs have a Star resistances to Death and got inflicted by it easily, I'm going to assume Sakuya will get the proc much faster when I try the strat on her.


I also tried to see if I could figure out how much Reisen's Intense Vertigo skill lowered the resistances, but I had no luck trying to find it.


So I altered Komachi's Attack and Magic stats to 0...and got hilarious results. I was actually HEALING the enemies with every attack. Twas funny it was.

[jaxter0987]

Yeah, I really didn't want to bring out Nitori, but it was like... "Yeah, really, I just need an assload of damage and unfortunately my normal physical attackers aren't quite going to cut it".  ...Also I'm impatient even with regenerating bosses oops.  Bringing out Nitori was a "I don't really want to do this, but hell with it this fight's enough of a pain in the ass already".  She still did less damage than Parsee did though ahaha

The level cap from Hard Mode doesn't seem to have caused too many problems, to be honest; at most it made the 12F bosses kind of irritating.  I don't think I've hit the library cap on stats since like 3F either, even though I've totally got the money to burn now.

Anyway, I'll look forward to seeing you there!

EDIT: All done!  Next time I stream will be the Magatama, Mirror, and final boss, so... yeah 8D

So I fell asleep like an hour before you were supposed to start streaming and just now woke up.... Oh well, I can at least still watch the video. Hopefully, I'll actually be able to watch it live for the final floors...

Edit: Also, you might want to update to the latest version of the english patch, I just realized.

[Garlyle]

Edit: Also, you might want to update to the latest version of the english patch, I just realized.

but I like the current patch this patch is good and stable

I'll probably update after the final boss though.  SPEAKING OF WHICH turns out some asshole cut some of the fibers used by our provider recently and while the connection from work is actually fine my home connection is currently sort of crap so until that gets resolved I won't be able to stream the finale.

[vetokend]

Sorry for the tangent, but I ran into something strange in LoT1, and I'm wondering if anybody knows something about this.

I recently noticed that two characters with differing speeds (7300 vs 8500) were reaching their first turns at the same time.  The faster one got their turn first, but the slower one still had a blue bar (ready to act).  So, thinking that the speed gap wasn't large enough, I decided to experiment and sell all my acquired drops, for a whopping total of 240m skill points.  I dumped it ALL into the speed stat of the faster character, until the speed difference became 7300 vs ~12000.  I then went into battle, and was shocked to see the same thing was happening - a character with 7300 speed was reaching their first turn just as fast as a character with ~12000 speed.

Have I hit some sort of built-in speed cap?  Is the game trying to tell me to stop grinding?   :ohdear:

Thanks for any info,

Veto

Edit: I moved around some equipment and managed to get the faster character's speed to ~13000, which suddenly allowed her to act WAY before the other character.  I think I understand what was going on.. at such high speeds, there aren't many animation frames before the bar fills.  Both characters are so fast, the same number of animation frames fills their speed meter, even with a decent gap.  So in order for one to act before the other, the speed gap has to become even greater (even percentage-wise) than with lower speed values.

Anyway, OCD analyzation over, OCD grinding continuing.

[Serela]

Been a while since I played LoT1, what level are you to have stats that high? Just curious. Anyway, yeah; they're hitting 10000 on the same tick, even if one is way over 10000. It's easier to tell in LoT2 where they actually list how high the ATB number is. In really late game, there ends up being thresholds where you don't gain effective speed for awhile and then suddenly *bam* you're a significant fraction faster. It probably has silly effects on the characters with low delay attacks like Chen, and Aya (who, due to actually being at really high speed buff a lot due to PWG, has stupid high spd even with her not-chen-tier delay)

[vetokend]

Been a while since I played LoT1, what level are you to have stats that high? Just curious. Anyway, yeah; they're hitting 10000 on the same tick, even if one is way over 10000. It's easier to tell in LoT2 where they actually list how high the ATB number is. In really late game, there ends up being thresholds where you don't gain effective speed for awhile and then suddenly *bam* you're a significant fraction faster. It probably has silly effects on the characters with low delay attacks like Chen, and Aya (who, due to actually being at really high speed buff a lot due to PWG, has stupid high spd even with her not-chen-tier delay)

My character levels are floating in the 530-690 range, though I dump pretty much all my level up points into speed.  I've already beaten "WINNER" a couple of times, but he's still never used that time stop attack on me.  I want to beat him when he uses that, just to say that I have.  Plus, grinding in that game is fun, what can I say.  I suppose I'm taking out my excitement for LoT2's translation on the original title.

Huh, yeah, good point on the low delay attacks.  I wonder how much speed it would take to single-tick to above 10000 ATB, even from empty?  That'd kill the benefit of low delay skills.  Of course, getting that kind of speed would kill what's left of my social life anyway, so maybe it works out.

Veto

[Serela]

Speed prorates pretty hard, so it'd take an eternity to get that far. You'd just plain have to hack.

I was interested in beating up WINNER a lot at first, but after a couple fights I realized he was a really long fight that just isn't that interesting until he's pulling out the killer moves. But hey, more power to you. I remember TranceHime beat him 100 times, which was insane, but unfortunately he didn't still have the save file for others to look at by the time I asked.

[vetokend]

..100 times?

I'm so weak.   

Definitely the highest I've heard of.. quite certain I won't get there.  Either my sanity will run out, or the LoT2 translation will finish.

Veto

[Serela]

I don't think anyone else could manage that, unless maybe they paced themselves to a fight a week or something. :V Even then there'd be the infinite grinding though, so...

[Averaen]

I know its mostly about LoT2 these days, but would anyone be interested in a video series (and stream?) of a playthrough of LoT with a completely randomly generated party?

[qazmlpok]

Sorry for the tangent, but I ran into something strange in LoT1, and I'm wondering if anybody knows something about this.

I recently noticed that two characters with differing speeds (7300 vs 8500) were reaching their first turns at the same time.  The faster one got their turn first, but the slower one still had a blue bar (ready to act).  So, thinking that the speed gap wasn't large enough, I decided to experiment and sell all my acquired drops, for a whopping total of 240m skill points.  I dumped it ALL into the speed stat of the faster character, until the speed difference became 7300 vs ~12000.  I then went into battle, and was shocked to see the same thing was happening - a character with 7300 speed was reaching their first turn just as fast as a character with ~12000 speed.

Have I hit some sort of built-in speed cap?  Is the game trying to tell me to stop grinding?   :ohdear:

Thanks for any info,

Veto

Edit: I moved around some equipment and managed to get the faster character's speed to ~13000, which suddenly allowed her to act WAY before the other character.  I think I understand what was going on.. at such high speeds, there aren't many animation frames before the bar fills.  Both characters are so fast, the same number of animation frames fills their speed meter, even with a decent gap.  So in order for one to act before the other, the speed gap has to become even greater (even percentage-wise) than with lower speed values.

Anyway, OCD analyzation over, OCD grinding continuing.

See: http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Talk:Labyrinth_of_Touhou/Gameplay
Basically, it's due to how the speed stat works. You get hugely diminishing returns at higher levels.

First, there's game-speed vs database-speed. "Database speed" is what is listed in the translated encyclopedia thing; an enemy with 500 speed is actually as fast as one of your characters with 1100 speed.  Up until 200 speed, every point in speed means one ATB point per tick. After 200, you need 2 points for one additional ATB point, after 300 you need 3, etc. 500 db speed is 1100 game speed, and 501 db speed is 1111 game speed (AFAIK. It's been a while, but that should be right).

Secondly, getting more than 10,000 ATB doesn't carry over. With 101 speed it will still take 100 ticks to go from 0 to 100%, and your final ATB will be 10100. All this means is that that character will go before anyone with just 10,000 ATB. That's what the chart shows - the breakpoints where an increase in speed is actually beneficial. At 7300 (1250 db speed), you go from 0->100% in 8 ticks. To get down to 7 ticks, you need 9606 speed (1429 db). Anything between that is just wasted.

Now, the chart isn't strictly accurate. It's just a general guideline, and only accounts for 0% and 50% gauge. What really matters is the post-use gauge for the skills you use. Chen's Flight of Idaten has 85% post use, so you can spam that every single tick once you hit 1500 db speed, which is around 10,000 game speed. But the basic principle still holds - you need absolutely massive increases in speed to notice any difference.

Incidentally, this means that if you're planning on going for the endgame, you should never put level up bonuses into speed. They'll be useless by the time you hit 30F. Skill points are fine.

[Serela]

In LoT1, Speed is a pretty useless place to put levelup bonuses for everyone except -maybe- Cirno or Renko, anyway. Your support characters generally want to stay alive better, and everyone else wants to deal damage, where subtraction formula means atk/mag stat is god; plus only stay-in attackers care about their speed much, and those guys need all the help they can get to either live or not deal worthless amounts of damage. (Cirno's a guaranteed dropped-before-postgame character anyway since all her stats suck and you get other people who can paralyze/debuff speed; and with Renko you're better off just giving her SPD equips for randoms if you want her superfast to Galaxy Stop first)

Of course, that can all be solved by leveling up more, but.

[vetokend]

Wow, I wonder how I missed that on the wiki that I frequent so often.  Very good data, thanks for that link.

I concur that the rate at which you move through that table diminishes heavily with higher speed, but I'd also argue that traversing each row in the table becomes significantly more potent with each row.  So while (from the table) 9606 speed and 13172 speed only are separated by a single row, that's still a 16.6% increase (7 ticks / 6 ticks) difference in effective speed.

Upon doing a little more math, it does still appear to diminish a bit, despite the point I bring up.  Not by as much as the author of that table makes it seem though.

Sadly, I concur that my level up points into speed aren't as useful as other stats.  Boo.. oh well, I suppose that's what new game+ is for, right?

Veto

Edit: Does the ATB still reset to a certain value in LoT2?  That is, if you tick way over 10,000 ATB, are you compensated for it in subsequent turns?  Or does it work just like LoT1?