Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 16F

[Serela]

Probably. With an MP cost of 20, it's a bit much to just throw onto a glass cannon to keep them up. Could be nice for avoiding stuff like Memorized Knowledge's unsurvivable ether flare or some unresistable status effect, but unless I specifically need to have her for a fight like that, I'm not using Akyuu. (Apart from as a wiki replacement occasionally, esp. if wiki data isn't up at the time. That'll be neat- we can have exact numbers on boss entries instead of triangles and circles.)

Thankfully it's easy to swap in characters like that for a single boss by just dumping all of their levelups into HP so that, even with next to no investment, they can take a few hits.

[DarkAtma]

Just compare the hp value of meiling and everyone else, i shouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, i think i will just hack some tomes of reincarnation and reconfigure my party from the ground up

things like wasting points on meiling attack could be relocated somewhere else

[Serela]

uhhhhh.

yeah there's definitely overinvesting in one character XD

[Myosotis]

I'm curious how the progression will work out, I'm a bit worried that, if you finish the below basement floors, you will be overlevelled for the above-ground floors. Hopefully you unlock 21F+ only after finishing the basement floors.
I'm pretty sure there was no word about it, so it's unlikely to happen, but I hope they do something with hardmode, anything, even if it's just letting you keep playing in hardmode after the maingame until forever. It felt pretty bad how suddenly that shiny hardmode flag was gone forever after the maingame. Not that hardmode was actually a genuine hardmode, but it was something.
How was the difficulty and reward scaling at the endless corridor by the way? I never touched the trials in details since it's all in moonrunes.
I hope it's not a pushover-area where you can progress without trouble all the time, I like to put in effort to make progress.

On a sidenote, I decided to re-do some character portrait changes to keep it closer to the original, I know no one seemed to be interested in it before, but since I did it anyway, might as well upload it. How are uploads handled here? Is it fine to just drop a link to the download location?

[Serela]

Well, the issue is, a lot of the postgame fights are very unforgiving about party setup- even after a second playthrough with a party that fared notably better (where most of the postgame wasn't actually that bad this time!) there was still a couple bosses that were utterly dumb (Refight Magatama is the stupidest thing, what the -hell-?) and being in hard mode limits would force you to make a fight-perfect party... because even if you kick people out you really can't overlevel for it.

And that fight-perfect party would still be a goddamn nightmare in Magatama's case. With my much better made party I still struggled for a win at 20 levels over the challenge one- and I'd done all the other fights fine enough at challenge level this run, with a fairly good party for Magatama, all considering- I just didn't have Rumia, who only could've made so much of a difference herself. (my first playthrough took about 40 levels over... forty. And the same for a couple other fights. Fights that were still hard even with the low damage taken. Ugh, regen on tanky bosses that speed up every turn... wtf)

Granted, that fight specifically is more a game design problem than anything else- but several fights in postgame are very cruel to parties that don't fall into fairly specific requirements and would regularly force redesign and frustratingly high difficulty depending on who you wanted to use. And when you have to refight like 12 bosses and there's 3 more right away too, having them all be so difficult... makes them a PITA to do all at once.

It'd just be really unfun for a lot of people, even the kinds that are happy to apply for something like hard mode. And kinda goes against the spirit of ThLaby2 almost explicitly telling you it's a waifu game in some of the achievements :V Yeah you need a well made and balanced party, but there's a lot of attention paid to everyone being really good (And most of the support characters are truly viable offense now, too, with more hybrid-types as well), so yeah, it's a pick-your-waifu sort of game.

tl;dr Hard Mode lifting for postgame saves you from how unforgiving postgame can potentially be, where hard mode restrictions just stop being fun.

Speaking of fun, jeez, the lower section of the Extra Floors in non-plus postgame are really boring, I forgot. zzzzzz. It's 4 big floors with a little treasure and annoying enemies and not really anything else. At least the higher section mixes it up with some gimmicks and doesn't have literally -an entire extra floor after the superboss is found-. XD 13F wasn't so bad anyway since it's a pretty easy layout. 14~15~16F to go before plus release. (Granted, I'll probably wait for at least a partial translation patch...)

[Myosotis]

Just to make sure, you are talking about the plus disk postgame stuff, not the base game, right? Because in the base game, I remember being able to punch my way trough with nothing but brute force, including the enhanced last boss. I feel like the earth spirit team was horribly overpowered though to be fair. Or at least Rin is, I actually wish we didn't have synergy skills at all, I only tried that one, maybe the other ones are less OP.. or even more so?

But yeah, the way you describe it, hardmode is just generally poorly designed I guess. I also completely forgot about  how my average levels never matched up with the recommended levels in the postgame.

[Serela]

No, I meant the normal postgame stuff.

But if your average levels never matched the recommended ones, that would be why brute force punched you through :P I'm talking about when you're playing at the challenge levels, which hard mode would restrict you to- as well as the lower library limit.

Also, Proof of Kinship (synergy activates at half power for family members in the back) is only gonna make synergy better... plus Earth Spirits gets another member in postgame. Welp. At that point you face the issue of cramming 4~5 team members into your party of 12 when everyone got new exciting corridor skills and 8 new postgame characters, though. It's hard.

I think synergies were totally balanced at first because the effect is only particularly large if you have more than 2 members out at once, the Earth Spirits team is really not all that durable, SDM gets less per member in exchange for having 5 (and remi/patch weren't even that great of characters to start with), most of 9 team was sorta underwhelming (except rumia) without the passive up, but in postgame a lot of that stuff changes and they get really strong to have around... in exchange for taking up an awful lot of your party composition. They're all good teams.

[RegalStar]

More things to consider about the new stuff though is that you have to traverse 120 floors of endless corridor to get all the awakening items for an entire team, which includes 12 bosses to defeat, the first and second of which are already at level 270 something and level 312, and then you have to use about 200-400 skill points to actually get the skills. You're really not going to be taking full advantage of them until the end of plus disk, and until then you'd have to consider who to prioritize getting the skills with as well. Especially since there's no takebacks on which item you get, it would be nasty to find yourself regretting your choice.

[Serela]

Wait, it takes 10 floors to get one copy of one person's item? :S

[RegalStar]

Yes, it does. Like with subclasses, planning will matter. (Especially since you can't go back on your choice without reloading)

[Serela]

Ooooo-kay. Guess it's a pretty good thing I'm probably not swapping in the full earth spirits team postgame then. My team has lots of useful corridor skills, sure, but it's not integral. >.>

Don't the items stack up to 50? Jeez. That would take forever.

There's an achievement for beating floor... 516? That's 51 items if the progression works the same. I wouldn't be surprised if it changed eventually though. 516 sounds sort of random, after all, as opposed to say, floor 500.

I wonder if there's a special corridor boss for getting ridiculously far in.

[RegalStar]

The achievement is 512, which is not a random number at all. You're probably mixing it up with the previous one which is 256.

[LazorPagoda]

Kogasa's 33% damage to TRRed enemies is HUGE. With out the skill, she could only hit the Ame-no-Murakami ver.1 for 1 damage, with 10200~ attack and -50% Def on Murakumo, with 20% dmg buff with Strategist Komachi and all the transcendent  skills maxed out. Once I applied the +disk to my game, gave her the 33% skill, sheer force, lv 4 of her dark nuke, I am hitting him in the high 30,000, low 40,000. With the monk 4% buff skill, and her TRRed enemies buff her stats skill, she is hovering around 92% buffs. Plus her bugged 32 mp regent maxing her mp with each concentrate, her durability is insane.

[Serela]

The thing is, that should be a bonus to final damage, as far as I'm aware... so if she was doing 1, +33% would still be one or two? Maybe it works differently, but was her attack buff just a lot lower?

I could be wrong and it increases the attack factor itself, I suppose, but that would be strange imo.

[RegalStar]

The skill description clearly says that it increases damage. And 10200 ATK on -50% Murakumo with A Rainy Night's Ghost Story shouldn't hit 1 regardless since it has a 3.2 to 1 factor and Murakumo has 56k DEF.

[Serela]

Yeah. The buffs/debuffs must have been different or something.

The skill -should- just be an increase to final damage dealt, not to Kogasa's attack stat, so the attack won't be any better at piercing defense.

[LazorPagoda]

Ehehehehe.... sorry. I was a bit excited, Kogas I'd the underdog on my team, so when she finally got stable damage, I was ecstatic. My Hina and Yuyuko deal better dark damage. Kanako does better CLD, and Kaguya aND Yuka do better NTR.  But it was without the buffs and 33% she was doing 1 damage. The buffs shenanegans were an after thought when I saw her low damage with low buffs on. Before +disk, she couldn't peirce Murakumo's defence, but with +disk she could, so I probably attributed the sudden burst of competence with the 33% boost.

[Serela]

Kogasa's NTR attack definitely isn't that good XD It's just for randoms. If subbed Warrior she doesn't just get the strong FIR attack, though- row attack strengthening also brings her CLD attack up to high power. Still, the Dark one has the best terror effect.

I can understand Kogasa being an underdog and wanting to use her ;_; IMO if you really want Kogasa to work though you want to have someone else with good TRR infliction, though, both so you can swap her in when it lands, and because despite her abilities and Sheer Force, Kogasa's personal fear infliction rates aren't actually terribly high. Kasen, Parsee, and Maribel are all good options with a 100%+ TRR attack... huh, every TRR attack in the game is dark element...

Whenever you face a boss weak to SHK you might consider swapping her to guardian though, as she's one of the best options due to it's high-accuracy SHK skill, possessing Sheer Force and all.

[LazorPagoda]

Just degrated Murakumo ver1 for the first time. I noticed he now LOVE to spam that azure light buff move, sometimes using it three times in a row. Parsee is horrifyingly effective, melting his face of with an almost four hit kill. Enhancer Aya is pretty good, speed buffing attack to max. Still don't know how to use Diva Aya.

Just started post game now! Hina lvl 111. Why Hina? Because Hina has the most average lvling rate in my party. Is the Great "C" rock glitch still a thing in + disk ver E+? Floor 21 now has encounters! Around lvl 210 enemies, scary scary! Boss rush was weirdly easy. After checking the wiki, both wasps are vulnerable instant death with intense veritgo. Some of the other shadows as well.

[Serela]

One of the wasps is annoying enough to want to instant death, too, if you want to beat it at challenge level. I thought one of them wasn't vulnerable, but maybe it was just a little more resistant and thus more annoying?

I think Diva Aya only works if you throw every bit of stat for her you can into SPD, because she has to move faster than the boss? (Fast enough to be able to concentrate, and then slow dance the boss -again-) I'm not super clear on it though because I think anyone else you want to move also has to outspeed the boss, which is actually kind of a tall order a lot of the time, as most of them are immune to SPD down.

Cirno's irresistable SPD debuff in the corridor will be pretty critical for anyone who wishes to continue abusing Diva Aya in postgame, but as amusing as it is, it's still pretty much just a dirty cheese tactic. I'd use it on something like Memorized Knowledge's Shadow, though- probably isn't even that hard to pull off there and the boss is literally made for tactics like that.

Parsee is a character I keep being surprised I'm not using... her insane MND is awfully nice and all she needs is a bit of extra base HP (first aid kit?) to be one helluva bulky attacker. My first run I thought she was too cheesy, and my second run I guess I just was too interested in other characters (or got tired of Small/Large Box). I suppose she -is- less exciting when I don't have other TRR inflictors like Kasen in my party.

[Thata no Guykoro]

Both wasps can be instant deathed. The Paralyzing Wasp is easy to do so; the Poison Wasp is listed as having a star resistance, but it actually has just exactly 100 resistance. You can combine Reisen and Yuyuko to get Saigyouji Nirvana to instantly kill it.

(Things I wish I had known my first battle with it... god, that was difficult.)

[jaxter0987]

Just degrated Murakumo ver1 for the first time. I noticed he now LOVE to spam that azure light buff move, sometimes using it three times in a row. Parsee is horrifyingly effective, melting his face of with an almost four hit kill. Enhancer Aya is pretty good, speed buffing attack to max. Still don't know how to use Diva Aya.

Here you go, this is how you use Diva Aya.

[Serela]

JP wiki confirms that Shou's Bishamonten's Wrath can rise over 100 count, and also notes that it raises your Attack stat, not your damage- a significant difference considering defense matters in this game. This is also true for Chen's new boost skill from the corridor.

She -is- really bulky with her synergy skills, so I suppose she has potential to be an amazing bulky attacker in a long fight. It's just that she really wants to make use of not even one, but up to -three- synergy skills for heavy stat increases (Byakuren for major passive buffs/regen, Nazrin for extra bulk, Rinnosuke for extra damage)  and she's sorta underwhelming until the counter goes up, esp. without using the synergies. Her personal attacks are good, but pretty slow. Monk could be a good option for her to give her potential to keep max buffs and speed up her own slowish attacks, along with a little element variety. Swordmaster not quite as much since her personal skills are already strong, although explosive flame sword is always good if you need the element difference. Transcendent never hurts for bulky attackers, but whether it's better than monk is a pretty good question.

Potentially a good candidate for subbing the special subclasses for truly useful new attack moves, if you aim to make her a main attacker or are tackling lategame long-length bosses where Wrath will build up and up. (It doesn't go away on swapout after infinite corridor awakening.)

edit:The jp wiki seems to have filled out evaluations for everyone's infinite corridor skills. It's fun to see how much they agree with me on. They talk about how defensive Tenshi becomes but then "...however, it has to be said that she lacks decisive things to do other than being a wall with her enhanced abilities. Most characters with high durability also boast powerful auxillary actions, so just being a wall can't let you compete with the other options." It seems that the abundance of self-buffing bosses might take care of that, though. Even if I commented on her bulky attacker potential, most attackers get notably stronger after the infinite corridor...  hmm, but it's possible.

rofl, Yuuka's after concentration, always activate extra attack, currently softlocks the game. It goes into effect immediately, and you enter an infinite concentration loop without end. That's amazing.

edit again:Oh?! Maribel's corridor ability was misunderstood by me! All of the vanguard's stats are increased by a quarter of Maribel's current buffs... not, each buff maribel receives is doled out to the front row at a quarter strength. Ooh, this is notably more interesting. Plus Renko gets double effect... Renko was crazy durable as it is, with this plus a functional Sealing Club, she'll be unstoppable? As an aside note, if you max Unnatural Power and Unnatural Control, the hp loss effect is negated.

Mystia's lv6 boost from inflicting silence on an enemy will be about 30~40% stat increase, from jp testing. That's pretty significant. Combined with her other bonuses, she could finally have the stats to do real work- even be a speedy bulky attacker.

Sakuya's Private Square powers up to 4800 effect from 2800 with her new skills. Combined with steadily rising speed and mp values, this is actually a rather large amount. This could become a rather useful skill.

[Serela]

Sorry for double post, but I started the 7th Character page on the wiki, for the postgame characters. Currently I have filled out Shou's page, minus the image and few of the stat grading metrics (because I got bored of checking back in the wiki to see what grades they should get and they aren't that important). Page 14 of the previous thread has all the translated passives, and the JP wiki lists growth rates and all basic stat values for the first three, so even people without the trial can help out if you're up to copy-pasting Shou's profile and filling in any of the correct data for Mamizou/Futo, or even the skills for further characters.

mamizou's jp wiki page translated for easy access (the stats listed are the growth values; 100=10.0 )
the post with the translated passives/skills in last thread

If you have the full unlock save for the early edition of the trial you can even fill in stats on Kokoro/Miko/Tokiko! :V I had it but deleted it before thinking about wiki oops. Level-Up difficulty is just exp needed from lv1 to lv2 (listed in shrine's first level up option) and Library Cost is the cost of the first level of the element affinities.

Anyway, if anyone's willing to fill in any of the data for other characters (like, any of it- don't worry about doing the whole thing if you don't feel like it, if you fill out half a character I'll be happy to finish), I'll be more motivated to jump in and fill in all the missing bits myself. Otherwise, we'll see how often I feel like spending an hour slogging out an entire character at once. :V At least there's only a few of them, as opposed to that time I reformatted the spellcard info for LoT2's entire cast (dear god)

I also shortened Shou's long "Light of Dharma" passive as a suggestion for how to place it ingame, as an aside.

edit:Did Mamizou's entire section. Doesn't mean there's just one left though, since there's no need to stop at Futo. Especially if the old trial is still up, I should check that- with it pages can be almost fully filled out for everyone. I also somewhat shortened the description of Mamizou's Seven Elemental Transformations- I wasn't sure if that would be fitting ingame either.

[Ghaleon]

I wanna preorder +disk but I only have 40 bucks left after christmas shopping and I need to see how much steam wants to nom my wallet during its sale. Last year I only spent 12 bucks. But the year before I spent like 80.

[LazorPagoda]

Lol, set up Diva Aya because the cookies were infuriating. That plus my ultimate PSN combo, Reisen and Mystia for full screen PSN, and Sakuya for Extra Attack procs on Poison Incense or what ever it's called. That plus Kogasa with her NTR attack plus Nitori's 3D gun killed all the Cookies. (Those bosses made me strangely hungery, lol). Also killed Knowledge's Shadow with DiVA Aya, Parsee's TRR shenanigans, Kogasa and Reisen to inflict TRR, Flan and Nitori for nukes. The oversized book was SIGHTREAD! (Hahahhahhahha, I hate myself) ).

I can't wait to see what else + disk has to offer, mabye refiners with the cookies, 2nd sun, etc? Or maybe another boss rush with the all the bosses, (with or without Murakumo and the character bosses), more playable characters that were not revealed in the demo? Even if there isn't, I am willing to waste ALL the money for on the +disk#

[Fishin]

I wanna preorder +disk but I only have 40 bucks left after christmas shopping and I need to see how much steam wants to nom my wallet during its sale. Last year I only spent 12 bucks. But the year before I spent like 80.

I was hoping it'd be on Melonbooks DL, that's where I bought 2, but I don't see it there.  I guess he might do a physical release first or something.

[Serela]

more playable characters that were not revealed in the demo?

Technically, only 3 characters were revealed in the demo (and somewhat more with the onsite teasers that aren't very well disguised), it's just we datamined the other five XD

[Ghaleon]

I was hoping it'd be on Melonbooks DL, that's where I bought 2, but I don't see it there.  I guess he might do a physical release first or something.

oh I thought someone even had a pre-order link for melonbooks in th is thread or the other one, otherwise I'm in the same boat as you.

[Fishin]

oh I thought someone even had a pre-order link for melonbooks in th is thread or the other one, otherwise I'm in the same boat as you.

it was probably the Melonbooks.co.jp one, which is the mail order site unfortunately, the only links I've seen thus far have been for physical editions.  Can't remember if he did it that way back when 2 was first released or not.

https://www.melonbooks.co.jp/detail/detail.php?product_id=191983

(I also find it funny that they advertise it as 好評受付中...if you can't read Japanese, 好評 means positive reviews/reputation and 受付中 is taking orders, normally the former is something you'd see to advertise a game that's already come out.  I guess that makes sense in the context that it's a fandisc though)