Labyrinth of Touhou 2 -13F

[Axel Ryman]

After reading things earlier, I just figured that


1: Since Eirin knows about it very well, she only gives enough to heal the party member's wounds, not grant immortality

or

2: It's not the actual thing but a modified version meant to heal wounds, ala an Elixir in FF, and just gave it the same name.

[Ghaleon]

I don't really pay attention to applying touhou-logic to spell names.. I mean Remi's spear the gungnir can miss in game, but legend says the spear never misses.
Speaking of it, wtf is it called "spear the gungnir" anyway? not "the spear gugnir?!"

and evil sealing circle works on non-yokai/non-evil just as well as otherwise.
There's probably dozens of things that make spellnames "wrong" according to their in-universe use somehow.

[Serela]

I'm not into lore too much but I thought kaggy was immortal WITHOUT the elixir, and her powers were somehow used to make the elixir?

No, although Lunarians probably live a pretty damn long time anyway and are inhumanly healthy. Kaguya's powers WERE necessary along with Eirin's to create the Hourai Elixir but she only became immortal -after- drinking it (which was super not allowed, which is why the princess of the Lunarian Kingdom had to run away to Earth and cause the IN incident to try to block off moon access).

It's not confirmed if Eirin's drank any or not. And for the other stuff, I think the saying goes you do have to take three drinks for full immortality, but yeah, Eirin surely wouldn't go around letting people sip legit Hourai Elixir- the effects of drinking just a little were definitely a lot more than just "makes you feel better". S'just a cool name for an appropriately relevant skill. (Plus the actual version of the spellcard doesn't involve using elixir to heal people- if we were analyzing the situation seriously I doubt Eirin would even playfully go around using "hourai elixir" on everyone, you just have to submit to "Alright... it's just a fangame" sometimes if you try to logic stuff out.)

In other news... PSN doubles the damage of Wriggle's Nightbug Tornado, but unfortunately, it's not terribly strong in the first place. You'd need to be doing an ATK build -and- in Team 9 mode for it to be relevant, but the chances of that... (also RIP how cool and cute wriggle's attack animations were in the original game)

[Jq1790]

Far as I recall, it's: 1 drink to stop aging, 2 to also stop diseases, and 3 for complete immortality forever.

Man, I really need to get to playing more of the first Labyrinth so I can play the second one. I know the stories are separate and all, but it'd feel wrong to get Laby 2 and potentially leave the first one for a longer time than it'll already take...  On F18 last I played, slowly working towards the boss at the end before the inevitable need to grind further to actually BEAT him.

[Ghaleon]

you don't actually need to grind for 18f boss unless you were running away from tons of stuff on 17f+18f.
20f and 30f are the only 2 bosses that flat out require some grinding.

[Jq1790]

you don't actually need to grind for 18f boss unless you were running away from tons of stuff on 17f+18f.
20f and 30f are the only 2 bosses that flat out require some grinding.

17F scared me, and with no treasure to find or anything it seemed more prudent to run to 18 andnmake up the difference there. Might go back to 17 to try for any cool drops though. I'm pretty sure that jerk of a red Angel Conception can drop Stars of Elendil...

[Garlyle]

17F scared me, and with no treasure to find or anything it seemed more prudent to run to 18 andnmake up the difference there. Might go back to 17 to try for any cool drops though. I'm pretty sure that jerk of a red Angel Conception can drop Stars of Elendil...

Honestly I remember 17F in LoT1 being worse than 18F in terms of enemy difficulty, and it being a lot easier to just speed through it and grind 18F instead.

[Jq1790]

That's exactly my point, haha.  There were too many enemies that took next to no damage from most of my stuff and who could nuke me into the floor, so I figured I'd just run through.  18F is still troublesome at times, but the enemies are mostly much more manageable.

[Ghaleon]

Even if you ran away from most stuff on 17f i thought you still reach 18f boss at reimu 90.

[Garlyle]

Even if you ran away from most stuff on 17f i thought you still reach 18f boss at reimu 90.

I remember reaching 18F's boss, with its map fully explored, at about 70 on my first playthrough.  It was the first time I had to stop and grind, because the power difference was just pushing the battle into "I really need some good luck with moves/form change timing to have a shot at this even with a super solid strategy".

Speaking of needing to build teams for specific battles, LoT2's 10F boss kind of ran over my BP-grinding party like a truck so time to deconstruct my party and build a new one 8D

[Kirin no Sora]

Is there any benefit to leveling up Eirin's Hourai Elixir? Also, why is it called Hourai Elixir? I'm guessing it's just the name of the medicine, but it isn't actually the "Elixir of Immortality" kind of thing?

It doesn't seem to have any benefit from leveling, for some reason. No reduction in MP cost, the post-use gauge doesn't change, and the healing doesn't change either.
As for Hourai Elixir, it is named after Mt Penglai (Hourai in japanese mythology), that was said to be a place where immortals lived. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Penglai

And this is something that I had pointed out before...

Personally, if a modification was to be put into it, I would vote for it giving the target (SLv - 1)MP when it's used on them. That would make it give a maximum of 4 MP, which would make the casting of said spell effective free if Eirin were to use it on herself, on top of the obvious benefit of her spell becoming a single target version of the Magician Sub class's Magic Transfer spell.

Also, as a somewhat related note, would it be a bad thing to want to replace Eirin's "Pharmacologist's Poison Mixing" with Arm-Twisting, if only to make the ailments that Eirin already delivers with her spells become more effective(I would also make "Mercury Sea" deal Poison instead of its debuff, and place the aformentioned debuff on the other spell that she has that deals a debuff, so it can deal both of them. That way, there is no true loss in switching out the former skill with the latter, and with both Arm Twisting and People of the Moon, Eirin can cause serious havoc to bosses and floor trash alike with the proper build)?
I can figure that people would call this OP, but isn't Eirin normally given a defensive build in the first place? Arm Twisting can allow for Eirin to become able to pierce through affinity and make her damage dealing more reliable, or at least more easily inflict an ailment that you need to put on a tough opponent(read: Tenshi) in order to hinder them.

[Hawk]

And the Team 9 run is done.  Hit postgame before the 30 hour achievement, beat Strengthen Ame at 40 hours.  No way I'm just going to idle for 20 hours to finish off the achievement list.

This game is just so, so, so much easier than the first game.  Thinking about doing a solo character run next.

[ZXNova]

I'm not into lore too much but I thought kaggy was immortal WITHOUT the elixir, and her powers were somehow used to make the elixir?

You are in a way right. Lunarians living on the moon are ageless as long as they stay on the moon, and since Kaguya's power is the control of the instantaneous and eternity, she is essentially immortal already. In fact the Hourai Elixir was created from her power. When Kaguya was first executed for drinking the Hourai Elixir, in her lore on IN, it said that she revived using her own power, not naturally reviving from the Hourai Elixir. So from the way I'm seeing it, there was basically no reason for her to even ask Eirin to make the Hourai Elixir. I think she just got her to make it cause she was bored or somethin. Spoiled lunarian princess.

@ Serela That's not why the IN incident happened. After the Lunarians had tried to continually tried to execute Kaguya and she just would not stay dead... They sent her to Earth as punishment. Kaguya actually didn't take it as punishment, and enjoyed Earth. The Lunarians sent may emmissaries to bring Kaguya back, but she refused each time because she loved the new place she was living. The lunarians didn't stop sending people to bring her back though. One the emmissaries was Eirin, and rather then trying to bring her back, she asked for her forgiveness and to work up under her. Eirin sealed off most of her power and became her servant (Eirin was one of the first people to move to the moon from Earth and is thought to be Lord Omoikane). Any other emmissary that came to bring Kaguya back was killed by Eirin. They had to go into hiding cause of that. Thousands of years later (They probably would have forgiven them by now), Reisen came to Earth to escape the Lunar-Earth War, Kaguya and Eirin took her in. Eventually the Lunarians got in contact with Kaguya and Eirin and told her that they were gonna bring Reisen back without any exceptions. This is what lead to the IN incident. It was for Reisen's sake. Hiding the full moon blah blah, it ended being pointless cause the Gensokyo barrier would have kept the lunarians from entering. Nice story huh? (Thus is why Kaguya is best character)

[suzushinayuriko]

The after-game enemies and bosses are incredibly fast and hit REALLY hard. Does anyone have any tips for grinding? The only method that seems to work for me is using Aya's Divine Grandson on Yuyuko in hopes of casting DTH on as much enemies as possible, with Reisen on the side for her Intense Vertigo skill (which hopefully increases those chances). Yuyuko even insta-killed the first three Strengthen bosses for me (one had Star DTH resist?? I think I was lucky). Nobody else seems to have enough damage to kill most of them before they move or enough defenses to stand up against several spammed party-clearing fire attacks in a row.

Also, can anyone tell me how to get past the rock on 11F? I think I cleared most of 15F and don't really know where to go next.

[Hawk]

For the entirety of the postgame, the most efficient place to grind is the 20F depths.  You can get battles that give more XP and Yen in places like 16F Extra, but they're much, much harder.  At a relatively early point, you can one-shot most every 20F depths encounter (which are always just 1 enemy unit), with an empowered 1MP attack.  It really can't be beat.

There are two rocks in 11F extra.  One is cleared by defeating all 12 reflections, and one is cleared by hitting the switch in the west side of 11F extra.  You may have ignored them because they look like color switches (confused me too), but they are one-time switches that you have to press.

[Ghaleon]

you probably know, but don't forget to mash 'm' to make grinding much faster too.

[Yookie]

It's also really useful to take Nazrin, Kourin and Komachi with you for increased Item drops and Money.
Just drop some money into Nazrin's offense. She'll pay you back in no time. In the beginning you might need have to use gambler to one-shot most of the stuff but later on you can gear out to pull of huge battle chains and get around 300k moneys with about 40 battles per run. Experience piles up as well on the side.
Luckily most of the enemies there are either weak to physical type attacks and/or divine. As if the devs planned that along with the fact that it is always just 1 enemy. :V

[ZXNova]

The after-game enemies and bosses are incredibly fast and hit REALLY hard. Does anyone have any tips for grinding? The only method that seems to work for me is using Aya's Divine Grandson on Yuyuko in hopes of casting DTH on as much enemies as possible, with Reisen on the side for her Intense Vertigo skill (which hopefully increases those chances). Yuyuko even insta-killed the first three Strengthen bosses for me (one had Star DTH resist?? I think I was lucky). Nobody else seems to have enough damage to kill most of them before they move or enough defenses to stand up against several spammed party-clearing fire attacks in a row.

Also, can anyone tell me how to get past the rock on 11F? I think I cleared most of 15F and don't really know where to go next.

The poison wasp is the one with star death resist. I don't think you got lucky, I landed it pretty easily. However, when I tried to land death on Ama no Murakumo, it would not work at all. So I think there are different levels of "Star" resists. I dunno, can someone clear this up?

[Axel Ryman]

I'd guess it's a bit similar to how the character resistances are, i.e based on numbers. Star would just be something like 450-500.

[ZXNova]

I'm guessing you're meaning elemental resistance, cause 450-500 ailment resistance sounds like it would never ever ever happen.

[Axel Ryman]

No, ailment resistance. 450-499 would just be low. Like low low low low low. Like 1% if that low. 500 would be Perfect immunity.

[Garlyle]

12F Bosses.  Namely the mirror and magatama.

Even reading about 'how' you would beat them I seem to be completely incapable of even making more than a small dent in either of them.  The Magatama I think I've figured out (it being weak to Reisen = me laughing my ass off, I just have to get the rest of the party set up); but the mirror it seems like only three or four characters can hope to damage - half of which will get eaten alive by its attacks in turn.  ...Any suggestions?

also speaking of the moon rabbit, is it just me or is Reisen seriously one of the best characters in this game?  Discarder is just so good even before adding Hexer, and she can be built with plenty of MAG and overall well-rounded to both decently survive hits and wipe enemy groups with Mind Starmine.  I don't think I've taken her out of my party since I got her, which I don't think I can say for anyone else at this point (although Momiji, Reimu, Rumia, and Cirno come close).

[Ghaleon]

oh finally someone who had a hard time with 12f minibosses. They were nasty for me too, and then when I saw the "Real" boss after I was like oh god, oh god no.. and then it was easy.. pft.

[Serela]

Leaning Iron Mountain from monk subclass is pretty helpful on the mirror, iirc. It's even weak to nature! I also think it was easier to hit it with magic than physicals (apart from Leaning Mount, of course) but that's a vague thought...

[Ghaleon]

Leaning Iron Mountain from monk subclass is pretty helpful on the mirror, iirc. It's even weak to nature! I also think it was easier to hit it with magic than physicals (apart from Leaning Mount, of course) but that's a vague thought...

Yeah i didnt have a monk yet on my first playthu. But on my next imma get a monk soon for sure. Its passives are obviously nice but its attack spells seem to have better formulas than most pure nuke classes 4-5sp nukes.
The warrior nukes on the other hand seemed relatively unimpressive, only used them for elemetal weaknesses.

[Serela]

Leaning Iron Mountain has stable damage due to getting through defense, but it's lackluster in cases where your ATK or MAG stat already significantly outclasses the enemy's def/mnd. This becomes more apparent in postgame where your attacker's atk/mag are most likely, slowly getting pumped farther and farther ahead of other stats due to equipments and levelup bonuses. Also because you're likely overleveling to smash through bosses since it's not too hard to reach lv180-ish, which is around the level to get to for the strengthened final boss, the last thing to fight.

I never actually tried the WND attack on Monk, though. It's single target, unlike how the Sorc and Warrior's less interesting skills are clearly designed for AoE random battle use, so I could understand it actually being pretty nice. Speaking of Warrior, I really should have used Explosive Flame Sword more, since I was using Mokou tank a lot (blazing passive) and many bosses were weak to it, yet I had -no- source of FIR on any of my damage dealers. But after a bit I phased all uses of warrior out of my party in exchange for other subclasses or for characters who wanted something else more...

Sorc subclass skills are basically only good for adding elemental variety to your skillset, that much I found out. Several magic users can get good use from that, though, and their single-target is still okayish damage for hitting bosses, so that's fine. Just nothing special.

[Ghaleon]

Yeah it's obviously more for defense being an issue situations but..well fact is, I found that WAS the situation for like half the effing bosses in the game, and even a fair amount of trash. Soo.. overall, it's an effing good spell =P.

The wind spell is obviously less outstanding for when it's useful but it didn't really strike me as a "will never be useful ever over your own nukes unless elemental weakness" nuke. It was a fair spell in its own right with fast delay (which is good since not everyone has a decent fast delay nuke). So it's useful if you want wind OR low delay...not to mention since monk buffs all stats with every turn, having a fast delay is a nice plus too. Good for getting a quick hit on something before a slower character buffs you. I also had monk on nitori and she could dish out a couple of those to overheat herself before 3d cannon. Not saying monk is her class per say, but it was satisfying since she can have good stats all-round due to maint, not just her attack, plus her self buff too...not sure if it's her ideal subclass but it's certainly up there. Incidentally, I gave her monk really late cuz she was op and I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket so to speak by spending an early stone on my already op character.

[Hawk]

So I started my Solo True Hard Mode Run.

By "True Hard Mode", I simply mean that I am not retaining any "illegal" bonus points, stat levels, or skill levels one can achieve by going past the challenge level, then leveling down.  I'm hacking in infinite Tomes of Reincarnation, but otherwise it's a perfectly normal NG+.

Solo means that only 1 character can be in my party at any time.  I can change my party in town however many times I want, though.

I'm also avoiding early boss death cheese, just 'cause.

I've just finished up the first stratum except for one boss.  Surprisingly, the Evil Nut Eater is by far the hardest boss to do solo at challenge level.  My current plan is to proceed until I have subclasses, then destroy him with a Guardian Momiji.

I'm not sure this run is possible!  Thoughts of level 100 Ame fill me with dread.  But I'll go as far as I can, recording all of the bosses with challenge levels (so no FOEs).  So far there's been a pretty nice variety of characters used.  Getting to level 2 on 1F took forever.  At some point I'll start posting the videos.

[Serela]

Transcendent is totes Nitori's ideal class (unless it's a case where the subclass attack does a lot of damage in comparison to Super Scope for a fraction of the cost and delay...) because, due to having low base stats that are good anyway due to Maintennance, her stats all actually shoot up an awful lot if you max it out. Like, her def/mnd can go up 20%-ish, and her ATK gets a pretty good benefit too... plus the 10% damage dealt/taken part.

About the postgame bosses, it really feels like you're intended to debuff a lot of them to hell and back using something ridiculous like Hina, Reisen, or an Armtwisting Hexer.

[Garlyle]

Well, I was able to down the Mirror afterall.

It's the Magatama that's giving me hell now, and at this point I am mildly certain that its speed grows over the course of the battle.  Not via buffs; just a constant increasing of its base speed value, which is kind of nonsense.  Because I can't find good enough characters for dealing damage (nevermind surviving most of its crap) to beat it down in a reasonable time frame.

EDIT: Go figure, I barely manage to squeak out a win about two attempts after I post this.  That fight was still stupid though.  Yuugi and Reisen are still god-tier characters
EDIT 2: Time to do some grinding before

Spoiler:

Tenshi

I guess.  (please tell me every boss through the rest of the game doesn't rely on stupid huge DEF/MND scores)