Labyrinth of Touhou 2 -13F

[Serela]

The conversation about growth rate seems confusing. Let me explain it a little bit. (edit:Oh god I ranted forever why does this always happen)

You've got your base value for the stat, which is the most important; increasing this makes all further bonuses equally larger. Then you have your levelup bonuses, and increases from Patchouli's Library, which in the end work more or less the same, increasing your stat by a small percentage of it's base amount. And finally, you have your equipment, which plants one more big fat bonus on your stats, again from the base amount, independently of the levelup/library bonus. But, tl;dr, there are three ways your stats are raised, and the first (base value) will up the latter two at the same time, so it's big... especially when your BV was low in the first place.

Base value is only increased by the Stat Boost Gems and Stat Boost passive skills (the gems/books of enlightenment require Tome of Reincarnation to reset off the character) and by a few specific pieces of equipment (mostly, if not entirely Main Equips), and a small amount by subclasses... a large amount if you pick Transcendent. Base value boosts can be very powerful, and the most valuable cases are when the stat is important, but the character's Base Value is low... because adding 10 makes a bigger difference to 50 than it does to 100.

You can see base value on the special character info pages where you can see their Battle Points and how many gems you've used on them and stuff. It's also on the wiki, although the way the number is displayed is slightly different (If the game's page says 56, the wiki says 5.6). Gems boost it by 1 (or .1), while Boost skills increase it by 2 (maxing at +10, or you're rinnosuke and get like five times that) so... the difference is pretty small without, say, 10 gems.

It's possible to use base value increasing to build a character for a role they don't seem to be meant for, but in most cases it's best for just making them a little better at something they're already doing; like how a tank!Komachi can really use some investment in her low defense stats since she's already tanking, but her BVs are rock bottom. Or for characters who have good damage, but actually have fairly low base Magic or Attack; you'll hardly notice if you increase the BV of someone who already has really high Attack.

The reality though is you can't do this as much as you'd like. I barely (or didn't) have 10 gems for DEF/MND by the time I even beat the normal-game final boss, although I had more like 20 atk/mag gems and 30 hp/mp. And the Boost skills on not-rinnosuke are generally lower priority than a lot of their other passives or spellcards. And Transcendant isn't even -unlocked- until quite late in the game, along with taking a buttload of skill points to actually use. The main equipments to boost BVs all have significant tradeoffs and non-drastic effects... with the exception of the First Aid Kit (greatly boosts HP base value) which is godly on basically anyone, make your tanks tankier or your squishies suddenly not squishy, those things are priceless and you'll never have enough of them.

So, it's not the godliest tool, but it's there, and it can help some. It might also be worth pointing out that some characters with bad base values might have better effective stats than it looks due to cheap library levels... and vice versa. Late in the game you might be able to get their stats at lv180 for similar prices other people get to lv130 for... or only hit lv100 for that price. (And then, of course, that means that much more/less of a difference if you increase base values)

Side note:In LoT1, the equipment bonus is lumped in the same as the levelup/library bonuses, so late in the game when you have a ton of those the equipment bonus is really low... you mostly wear it for resists/affinities at that point. Equips are a lot more important in LoT2 due to this change, among other reasons.

[RegalStar]

Keep in mind that no matter what the character's original base value was, they would receive the same amount of benefit from the same amount of BV increase assuming all other factors (level, equipment, library, level bonus) stay the same, and even if it would be bigger relatively if the original BV was smaller, this doesn't really apply to every stat. HP is the only one which relative improvement is really significant, so low HP characters benefit more from HP gems/boost/first aid kit than high HP characters. DEF and MND, in my opinion, are actually more beneficial to increase on characters who are already high in them (Tenshi, for example), as reducing damage from, say, 2000 to 1000 is a lot more significant than reducing damage from 8000 to 7000. ATK and MAG increase are even more complicated and most benefit characters with good formulas, or those who depend on high multiplier, low piercing attacks. Above all though, they are more helpful on characters with more multipliers, so characters with great levelling rate, cheap library investments, and better equipments (or better equipment bonus, which is why gems are often more helpful on Nitori and Renko than on anyone else) will benefit more from them.

[Serela]

Gems are really helpful on Nitori/Renko partially because their base stats are awful but they still make heavy use of them for tanking with. But yeah, they're like, the best investment spots possible due to that plus maintenance. Nitori is broke tier and Renko is one of the best tanks along with having great support in Charge, which remains relevant due to several late bosses wiping off your buffs. (and in needing to get Byakuren up to speed in the first place before she becomes god)

You're probably right about def/mnd but it's kind of a moot point in actuality; you have -so little- power to actually raise def/mnd base stats due to the gems being nearly nonexistent (and going on Nitori/Renko if you plan to use either, most likely), and the people you do want to raise them for likely have a higher need of some other Main Equipment and subclass, leaving all of the options to raise it off the table.

[DarkAtma]

Already reached 3F, tried resetting reimu skills from Mana+ to exp+ just to find out i need a tome of reincarnation (I got 1) that means i should be more carefull where i spend my skill points, Anyhow managed to beat Alice doll and 3rd chen ambush party, finding out where to go now. always doing bosses in challenge level for more gem drops

Question: Can i freely sell any materials to nitori? or i need some specific ones to unlock characters? and where to get more chest keys?

EDIT: Runs into lv35 boss at 3F thinking i can rack game overs easily* Gets a yukari and yuyuko lv50 at party to wipe out boss*  I totally didnt expected that, got another treasure key at least

[Yookie]

You can freely reset Skillpoints and Subclasses. You just get asked if you wish to also expend a tome to reset everything else. Just answer no at that question and you get a normal reset.

You may sell any material to Nitori if you so wish aside from the 3 great leafs for Minoriko.
Thing is that you really shouldn't. You'll need most materials later on and there are Achievements to get from crafting a certain amount of items. And there's a things that doesn't let you pass if you didn't craft enough items.

[Garlyle]

Keys mostly come from achievements - you won't have many early on, which is where most of the treasure chests are.  Any you get should probably be saved for opening relevantly-located chests (they always have amazing stuff for the floor you're on!).  You'll eventually have enough keys to open everything, so don't worry.

And yeah.  Crafting stuff is part of gathering achievements.  There's also achievements to get by getting x yen from selling materials/gear to Nitori, but I'd save it for crafting instead (at least until postgame when there's like nothing worthwhile to craft except affinity upgraders/resistance items).  I think crafting 10 pieces of equipment is what lets you get Nitori.

Also while it might sound silly to treat them as important, they are.  Specific achievements are part of the process for unlocking Patchouli (255 levels in Voile), Nitori (10 crafted items), Kasen (game over 12 times), Suika (buy all three Sake from Nitori), Yuugi (Kill FOEs 10 times), Flandre (Kill FOEs 30 times and have 60+ total achievements), and Shikieki (72+ total achievements).  There's also other barriers throughout the game that only open after collecting certain amounts of achievements (The highest I know of is on 20F, requires 88 achievements, and guards some amazing items). 

Most of the achievements just get you permanent stat boost items, or cash bonuses, but there's a few that give really good equipment you can actually exploit by trying to get them early.  Running from 50 battles in a single trip gets you a Meteor Drive (massive +spd, +def/mnd, some other bonuses), while fighting 60 gets you a Wash Basin Set (+50% atk/mag/def/mnd/spd).  Once you have the TP via a full party, just do these on floor 1 - they're incredibly good equipment that you will probably be using a few of while fighting the final boss.  If you can manage 36 item drops in a single run too (try Nazrin, Rinnosuke, etc.), you also can get a Master's Emblem (+8 Max MP main equip).  Use that plus a character with already high max MP and some temporary skill levels into Max MP Boost, and if you can get >50 max MP even for a moment you can get a free Star of Elendil (+20% all stats, +all resistances/affinities too)

[DarkAtma]

Reached 5F, Rumia was MVP against golem FOE, however i feel like restarting with NG+ just to have favorite party from start,how this looks like? Meiling Utsuho Keine Mokou Kaguya Aya Chen Momiji Marisa Reimu Kasen And lastly Byakuren, however, from lurking i get Byakuren is the most broken character made with strategist subclass, is possible to make a offensive byakuren of the sorts?

[Garlyle]

Off the top of my head the party looks alright.  I hear Meiling doesn't quite make the godly tank she did in LoT1 (she's better as a second slot apparently?), but between her, Keine, Mokou, Momiji, and Reimu you have enough "can tank enough", I think.

Byakuren isn't the most broken character made, but she is the best single-target buffer in the game once she's in lategame/postgame to have all the skills that make her so broken (It takes 90 SP to purchase all the Sutra Scroll personal skills, and then another 10 if you want her to have the Strategist effect that makes her so ridiculous).  In other words, you won't see her really being amazing until the final floors/postgame.  As for offense... theoretically she probably could, but I'm not too sure personally how well she'd perform (Her MAG and levelling rate aren't exactly stellar, but she has some good side effects on her attacks and fair elemental coverage so she might be better than I'm thinking).

(the most broken character is likely Nitori - huge damage, and Maintenance is an incredibly broken skill, plus Optical Camoflauge, Cooling Down, etc. makes her able to just become a permanent frontline resident because she can tank too later)

I'd recommend playing your first time through as normal though.

[DarkAtma]

I am just not looking forward at those BP requeriments to get characters >_>, already had enough of those at LoT1

[notverycreative]

Well, look at this way: you can grind BP while level grinding or money grinding or trying to get a drop item (for money grinding?).

I'm on 5F right now. I'm actually just going to try to get the "50 battles in one dive" achievement (while building up BP for Chen for the Ran events). At the tail end of it I'm going to have Nazrin and Rinnosuke in the front so that their drop rate increases are going to stack with the chain bonus.

[Garlyle]

I am just not looking forward at those BP requeriments to get characters >_>, already had enough of those at LoT1

Fortunately they're not as bad.  You can get up to 3 BP per battle this time, and 1 BP just by being in the party at all; to top that off the max BP requirement on any characters is only 400 this time, and if you go onto the status screen and change page a couple times you can accurately see how much BP each character has racked up, so you know when you're done.  If you're aware of which characters need it and how much, just pop them in your party, check their BP once in a while, and you're golden.

[Serela]

BP requirements are really easy as long as you just pop the character in your party for a bit during your casual gameplay. You gain it pretty fast now; it used to be far slower. And they still get BP when they aren't in the active 4, too.

(the exception is that flandre takes -so much bp to unlock- and it's all on characters you don't unlock until a good chunk into the game, so she actually kinda is an issue)

Offensive Byakuren -works-, but her damage isn't particularly impressive. Her attacks are okay due to the side effects they have, but Byakuren's real specialty is spamming her buff skill, and for that you're better off setting her as a tank. That being said, she needs a -lot- of skill points before her buff works particularly well, so before the final floor or two of the maingame she'd probably be best as a damage dealer anyway.

Darn I was cut on the matter of BP ;_; 400 is still a pretty significant BP chunk, though, but only Komachi/Minoriko/Nazrin need that much, and you'd probably want Minoriko around for that long anyway due to the early need for cheap support. Plus her offense is pretty good in this game.

[RegalStar]

If you're using Byakuren you should pretty much dump every training manual you get on her anyways. You can always reincarnate them out once you hit postgame.

[Serela]

The issue is when you're using Rinnosuke and want to dump every training manual on him instead :V But yeah, there's always reincarnating them off and giving them to him later.

Even at lv200 with every manual Rinnosuke is still so hungry for more. He's going to be silly in Plus Disk, whenever that comes out.

[Shivanic]

(the exception is that flandre takes -so much bp to unlock- and it's all on characters you don't unlock until a good chunk into the game, so she actually kinda is an issue)

Darn I was cut on the matter of BP ;_; 400 is still a pretty significant BP chunk, though, but only Komachi/Minoriko/Nazrin need that much, and you'd probably want Minoriko around for that long anyway due to the early need for cheap support. Plus her offense is pretty good in this game.

flandre is dangerous enough that you gonna be most of the way through the next stratum before your ready to fight her anyways, so the fact that two of the characters you need to get BP on only join at the beginning of the stratum you find flandre in doesn't matter as much.

Nazrin should be in the back most of the time anyways to get part of the drop boost benefit from her dowsing skill.

Komachi is about the best tank in the game so she should reach 400 BP easy since she'll be in your party constantly to benefit from her tanking and her money boost.

Minoriko helps a lot in the second stratum (trying to fight the f4 foe without her is really hard, with her it's just hard), and you'll need to grind a fair bit to legit beat the f6 stairs boss anyway, so if you grind for the f6 boss, minoriko should have most of her BP as well.

so BP in this game is relatively easy comparative to the first game.

[Serela]

I didn't like Komachi so I didn't use her at all :V When I needed the bp I threw her along with the other 3 sdm members I never used into the front row and did 334 battles on 1f.

This game has a lot of "best tanks", as far as I can tell; like, some people swear by Hina. (Although this flexibility is a wonderful thing compared to Meiling mvp eternity) Although haven not used Komachi (...or Hina), I can't really rate her against the others. Whenever I do a second playthrough (not gonna be for awhile, especially since I still have to play through Plus Disk whenever that comes out...!) I'll try her out, though.

[DarkAtma]

By the logic of the first post in page 13, means dumping defense manuals on patchouli sounds better than on meiling? sounds odd to me, also didnt knew komachi had a money skill, should check all skills before putting them at human village, my scout team is momiji with ACC skill, rinnosuke with +Drop rate and marisa reimu to kill floor thrash

[Serela]

I admitted it's true that for def/mnd you care more on people who are already tanks, but really, -everyone- who stays out to take a hit wants more def/mnd and it's arguably more important on the people who can't do that as well yet (it depends on how well your tank is doing already tbh; and Patchouli is a rare case in that even -with- the def boost she's probably too glassy. Although a first aid kit and using Focus for grand incantation+philosopher resist does make it possible)

But as I said already, in the end, that's going to come down to "I'm fighting the final boss, I don't/barely even have 10 def or mnd gems, and my tanks need equipment/subclasses OTHER than transcendent and def/mnd BV boosters", so your tanks really aren't going to benefiting from it either.

[Yookie]

This game has a lot of "best tanks" [...]

On the topic of tanks: In comparison to LoT1 you have much less of a need of a dedicated 2nd slot tank and even 1st slot tanking can many times just be done by a robust character that isn't a dedicated tank.
In LoT1 I basically always had 2 tanks in the left slots who mostly did switching and not much else.

Now in LoT2 I do always have a dedicated Tank who sits in the leftmost slot. Once it was Hina, once it was Komachi, I even gave Mokko a chance (she didn't do a good job imho) but I also got it to work with just putting someone like Ran there who I build for Defense since she doesn't need high Magic for buffing. 2nd Slot isn't even a tank-spot for me anymore. That's the spot for "that character who can take a few hits and regenerates passively but is actually offensive".
I appreciate this flexibility and very many characters can be defensive enough to "tank".

[...] Patchouli [...]

Patchy is no Glass Cannon.
She is a wet tissue. But a wet tissue that just so happens to be able to blow people up if it gets to prepare.
Really, she can't even Mind-tank anymore. Poor Patchy with all the mean bosses that just use Multi-target physical attacks instead of Row-type.

[Serela]

Yeah, there's not many row-type attacks anymore and a lot more all-target physical enemy skills. Kinda irked me. If you throw a First Aid Kit on Patchouli shouldn't she magic-tank just fine though? (The issue is still, of course, the MT physicals that are now rampant)

Anyway, as someone who went through the game with Mokou... Mokou's defenses are actually only "pretty alright", but Resurrection makes up for it IMO. She also gets a pretty powerful regeneration ability, so I tweaked her HP a lot, which also synergizes well with using Resurrection over just outright avoiding death entirely (Not that she chain-deathed against bosses I could actually handle, or anything) and she has a less-obvious selling point in VERY high SP regeneration, which is great for support subclasses like Pharmacologist. If you're really going to use Mokou tank though, you probably want a party that can ACTUALLY USE her Blazing passive, unlike mine... that's a great thing to have on your dedicated tank, but I didn't really have any fire moves until Lavaeteinn. Which, holy shit, why did I never think of combining that when Flan is nearly one-shotting some multipart bosses WITHOUT blazing?

[Yookie]

Guess I really should've given Mokko priority on the subclasses. The only thing aside from switching that she would do was trying to debuff with her one Spell. The thing is that in the same run I had Hina with me and I suppose you get where that went. :V
I really tried to make her useful with me even having 2 people that could use Blazing (Flan, whom I kicked at Floor 6 or so for two-shotting bosses and being generally Op and Satori who got some good damage out of Mokko's Spellcards)
What finally made me take her out of the party was the fact that she may be able to Resurrect-ank for a really long amount of time (unless you get unlucky and hit the 10% Fail-chance) but with her ATB being reset to 0 each time she would do nothing else and was just dead weight aside from Blazing in such situations. I should give her another chance sometime as an offensive character.


And yes, Patchy can certainly still tank Magical attacks if you give her a First Aid kit (even without, but that's risky). Sadly the fact still stands that now there are people who just do it better while not being downed by being slightly tapped on the shoulder.
Parsee comes to mind, who still isn't all that robust on the physical side but can take a hit if she isn't build glassy.

Also I found her damage to be slightly disappointing for being this slow and frail. Especially when compared to what she was capable of dishing out in LoT1
(That was even in my SDM run, where I had everyone but Flan out of that group)

[Garlyle]

Even though Patchy has stupidly high MND, she often seems to be just under the level of completely negating it - and unfortunately when she's not straight up negating things her complete lack of HP sort of means she's dying from them.  That said there were still several fights where I was able to have Patchouli just be Completely Immortal, so... yeah.

Komachi's an alright tank.  The fact is she needs constant healing, and it hasn't been hard to get characters to the point of straight up negating damage.  Even when negating damage is near-impossible, I've even had Reimu tanking things and taking 0 damage, or close enough that she can Concentrate (w/ Grand Incantation) -> Exorcism and fully heal the entire front line via buffed magic.  Hell, my actual negation tank throughout the game has been Wriggle (who is so damn good in post game what the legit hell)

[Validon98]

Hell, my actual negation tank throughout the game has been Wriggle (who is so damn good in post game what the legit hell)

As someone who has completed a Team 9 synergy run, I know this to be completely true.

[DarkAtma]

Okay Is there anything i am doing wrong? i am stuck in 5F with barriers blocking some paths and those lampry FOE blocking others, currently grinding like mad so i can beat em

[RegalStar]

How do I get Mari and Renko in NG+ file? I recruited them and beat up the final boss, but they still don't get included when I start a new game with all characters unlocked.

[Mystere]

So did the plus disk/expansion/whatever come out during this year's Comiket?  I can't read Japanese but the official site doesn't look much different so I'm curious if anyone knows.

[Shivanic]

Okay Is there anything i am doing wrong? i am stuck in 5F with barriers blocking some paths and those lampry FOE blocking others, currently grinding like mad so i can beat em

You want to find satori, she's on f4 but you have to get there from f5. the stairs for her are near the middle of the map (the FOE near the middle isn't a lamprey, pack fire and dark attacks for it).

komachi is your best tanking option for the lamprey FOEs since they use cold, dark (with a death effect) and psy attacks, they are weak to spirit and nature.

komachi will want ekkodo god of death for free spirit attacks versus the lamprey. You'll also want to kill ten FOEs before the end of floor 6 to recruit someone.

[DarkAtma]

Managed to kill 2 lampreys foes with a lv19 average party, via aya,rinnosuke and keine buffing kasen while rumia/miroriko/marisa/youmu did respectable damage

EDIT:Hina wiped the floor with my party  :V

[Garlyle]

How do I get Mari and Renko in NG+ file? I recruited them and beat up the final boss, but they still don't get included when I start a new game with all characters unlocked.

I had to manually edit the save files in order to add them (And doing so grants you the achievements for clearing the Deformed bosses for some reason, so they might become unfightable - not sure).  I can pack up the otherwise blank save file if you want?

[Validon98]

You get Mari and Renko for NG+ if you complete the postgame content and defeat the Strengthen final boss.