Labyrinth of Touhou 5F

[Garlyle]

I'd say hybrid.

Most of the time, you're going to be using Komachi more for Narrow Confines of Avici, it seems; and in those cases, HP, SP, affinities, and Speed let her stay out longer and apply Avici more.  And those things help her survive and need less healing when she's out attacking, too.

[MysTeariousYukari]

I'd say hybrid.

Most of the time, you're going to be using Komachi more for Narrow Confines of Avici, it seems; and in those cases, HP, SP, affinities, and Speed let her stay out longer and apply Avici more.  And those things help her survive and need less healing when she's out attacking, too.

Or just put the levels in ATK and give crazy Skill Levels in HP and ATK, moreso HP :V I've been able to have her in Slot 1 versus

Spoiler:

***WINNER***

and she did fine, never taking more damage then Reimu could heal.

Edit: Oh yeah, that's at Reimu Level 330 or so. SoYeah.jpg

[Ghaleon]

Nah, Cheat Engine just modifies the active memory.

You'd need to find a way to decompile the exe in order to view the code used.  I bet it's actually really simple after that step, but yeah.

Yeah, I mean the best bet of finding the addresses for what you want to mod is by the cheat engine, not decompiling it and finding a nice and tidy set of variables to fool around with.

That being said, certain things that do not change in the game are extremely difficult to find in cheat program (like spell formulas, spell selections, item statistics, etc), and hence are probably impossible to mod using that method, this is assuming that it is the best/easiest method known to mod the game, currently there are no better known methods that I'm aware of.

[Garlyle]

You know, the Plus Disk isn't as hard as I thought it'd be.  Even with a party that's only at Reimu 180 I'm doing pretty well at 22F.

Speaking of which I nearly flipped shit until I realised this floor isn't as bad as I first feared.

[Ghaleon]

You know, the Plus Disk isn't as hard as I thought it'd be.  Even with a party that's only at Reimu 180 I'm doing pretty well at 22F.

Speaking of which I nearly flipped shit until I realised this floor isn't as bad as I first feared.

The special disk doesn't directly make things harder, but the selling items thing goes a long way actually...
In addition, having a wiki helps alot too. I mean being able to see the spell formulas, character growth rates, etc, etc. Makes your party soooo much better than if you simply just experiment around with everyone, pick who you feel is good (at that moment), only to find out until far too late that they weren't exactly what you thought.

Baal guardian is also a horribly designed (in a cruel evil way) boss for after 18f/20f bosses. I mean those are totally long endurance patience-wins fights, and then baal guardian shows up, and it's not very obvious that it's a NUKE NUKE EVEN IF YOU LOSE HALF YOUR PARTY NUKE FASTER fight. Again, knowledge helps more than most people can anticipate.

My current playthru is *SOO* much easier than my first, even though it's not exactly my dream-party. Simply because knowledge is oh so much power, and selling items gives an obscene amount of skillpoints sometimes.

[Parallaxal]

Team Unappreciated vs. Hibachi-sama Ver.2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED8h7IkBNsA

Only tricky part was switching characters out for Needle Parade. Had an easier time with this one than Version 1. Surprised Wriggle managed to survive Dual Funeral Washing Machine at this level.

Now I need to grind several dozen levels for Beast of Centaurea Ver.2...

[trancehime]

My current playthru is *SOO* much easier than my first, even though it's not exactly my dream-party. Simply because knowledge is oh so much power, and selling items gives an obscene amount of skillpoints sometimes.

Yeah, when I played, the English information was very scarce and all I knew was from the Japanese wiki. It's a lot easier nowadays now that you have so much information.

[Serela]

Wriggle contributed at least 1.3 million damage, by the way.

This is without considering the PSN, right...? Or is PSN really THAT terrible at this point? Considering Nitori does more then this in one hit.

I mean, now that I know firsthand her PSN is great maingame, I want to see how it scales in Plus Disk. And with speed increasing and such, I don't exactly have a lot of hope for it :V

Originally, I considered Maribel for just staying in and spamming Chaotic Quadruple Barrier quickly for 400-500k each while trying to debuff it, but ended up not doing that on this particular run for some reason

Isn't it sad, Maeriberi? ;_;

Raymoo lv160 on my end. Dual Hibachi, I'm comin to get ya...

[Parallaxal]

This is without considering the PSN, right...? Or is PSN really THAT terrible at this point? Considering Nitori does more then this in one hit.

No, I'm afraid that is with PSN. But it's still more damage than most of the party, actually. You're correct that with fights lasting fewer tics, it doesn't have as much time to work. However, comparing her to Nitori really is unfair. "Oh, Wriggle did less damage than the best damage dealer in the entire game. How disappointing for a tank-ish character than can survive Dual Funeral Washing Machine!"

The problem with Wriggle's PSN is that it can't be buffed, and my party relies heavily on buffs (Nitori only does ~1 million without buffs). The damage dealt by Wriggle with each attack is comparable to other non-buffed attackers; about 80% as strong as an unbuffed Fujiyama Volcano, I'd estimate. If I weren't using Iku, Wriggle's damage would be more impressive.

The biggest issue that Team Unappreciated has (aside from lack of group defensive buffs) is that I selected all the character simply because of their lack of use, not because they actually synergize well with each other. Wriggle works best on a team that can play defensively while passing out lots of buffs; for example, some people (like in Banana's videos) spend many of their early turns first casting group buffs with Ran. Others focus on stalling and survival with Reimu. In these parties, Wriggle is good for her survivability while still doing damage. Since I lack these characters, my only option is to hit full-force with my best attacker (Nitori) as much as possible, while letting less powerful but more durable attackers like Mokou in during boss attacks.

There are other ways that my party is non-synergistic. Reisen and Maribel are actually both very similar characters; they can both self-buff and spam mass debuff spells rapidly. Maribel does it faster (CQB has significantly lower delay, and still debuffs by the same amount), but doesn't hit the enemy's speed. But with both on my team, I gave Reisen the debuffing job while turning Maribel into a switch-in-and-out nuker. And let's face it, anyone (except maybe Shikieiki) pales in comparison to Nitori in that role.

[Serela]

Oh, Wriggle did less damage than the best damage dealer in the entire game

Yeah, but my big point is, Wriggle did less damage over the entire fight then Nitori did in a single hit Your other damage dealers only take 2 or 3 attacks to do the same, and since this is a pretty long fight, that's really bad! Poor Wriggle just doesn't keep up past main game.

And yeah, I kinda wish they hadn't buffed Nitori so massively. She's just plain overpowered now. Now she's with Reimu on the list of "If you aren't using her you're doing it wrong", and that's kind of disappointing in a game like this, especially considering it's for pure damage and not support. She's a little more balanced when you're fighting something with weaknesses, since the super-effective attacks will outdamage her, but on fights with no weaknesses she just far outdoes every other character. Shiki/Kaguya (Yes, Kaguya's nuke is about as good as Shiki's!) don't come near her output, and I haven't tested Yuyuko, but.

[Parallaxal]

Your other damage dealers only take 2 or 3 attacks to do the same, and since this is a pretty long fight, that's really bad! Poor Wriggle just doesn't keep up past main game.

My other damage dealers only get to attack like 3 times anyway. Given how many times Wriggle attacked, I estimate each attack does a total of about 325k damage. Not amazing, sure, but compare that to other tank-ish characters. Keine only does 100-150k per attack, and she has longer delays anyway.

Also, I'd like to mention that Nitori isn't nearly as good without a dedicated buffer like Iku around. That's why I currently prefer Iku over Ran: if you're going to rely on a single in-and-out character to do most of your damage, Thundercloud Stickleback is several times better than any other offensive buff. The most important thing is being able to refresh her offensive buffs as many times as you want with little cost. Since Nitori is more fragile than many other nukers, you need something strong with low delay to buff her as she's switching in and out. I'm willing to bet that Iku's presence accounts for about an 80% increase in Nitori's damage output.

But yeah, Megawatt Linear Gun is grossly overpowered.

[Bananamatic]

Ran did just fine for me when my offense was 90% long delay heavy hitters.
Depends on how many you have I guess.

[Serela]

Keine only does 100-150k per attack, and she has longer delays anyway.

Well Keine is for buffing ATK/MAG, that's like talking about Iku or Reimu's damage

Wriggle does have nice tanking power, but neither her damage (in Plus) nor her tanking compares to characters like, say, Remi or 18F. Yeah, they have to stay out for their damage to be done, but in their single hit they'll achieve more damage then Wriggle's single hits. Yeah, if Wriggle deals 325k~ in one hit, well that's not too bad, but thing is that damage isn't really increased a lot if you use the attack again quickly either. This also hurts if you want to use her for tanking, since her damage will be nearly the same as if she was switched out a lot, so other characters are again MUCH better suited to the task.

I do think Wriggle is a wonderful character to use up through Yukari, and maybe up to the final boss. Into Plus Disk though, she doesn't offer anything several other characters can't do better.

[Janitor Morgan]

Yeah, I mean the best bet of finding the addresses for what you want to mod is by the cheat engine, not decompiling it and finding a nice and tidy set of variables to fool around with.

That being said, certain things that do not change in the game are extremely difficult to find in cheat program (like spell formulas, spell selections, item statistics, etc), and hence are probably impossible to mod using that method, this is assuming that it is the best/easiest method known to mod the game, currently there are no better known methods that I'm aware of.

On top of those problems, there are regions of data that are totally unreadable (from what I can tell, anyway) if the hex editor you're using isn't attached to the active process.

Let's say you're trying to increase an enemy's EXP payout. Unless you want to manually adjust it for each battle, you'd have to go find the variable in the read-only memory that corresponds to that value. In Cheat Engine, it's fairly easy to find it, but if you go view that same memory region in a standard hex editor, there'll be nothing there but a wall of CC. I was testing this with Yuyuko's boss fight; I found the address that controls the EXP given on defeat, then opened another hex editor and checked that same address. Nothing.

I can only assume that means that those values are either a) revealed at runtime, or b) write-protected.

[Pesco]

The easiest point to start with imo is the base stats of a character. Things like their growth rates and upgrade ratings. Those values are hardcoded into the exe. While you play, the values can be adjusted, but once you exit and restart the game, the values are reset.

In a fight, the game loads enemy data into slots for the encounter. These will obviously change for different enemies that come to occupy the slot in battle. I found addresses for debuffing the enemy with and it confirmed that I only found the slot template addresses, not the inherent data of the specific enemy. The debuff address could be saved to reliably be applied each fight.

There's also another difficulty in there. Characters who have moves that can poison do not appear to have fixed addresses in memory. I remember Wriggle, Yuugi and Komachi always having different adresses each time I needed to adjust something of theirs. Mystia also has a poison move, but since 2.06 her address is pretty constant.

[Parallaxal]

Still grinding in preparation for the Beast of Centaurea Ver.2 battle. During a practice run (I'm still about 30 levels below where I'd like to be), I made a few observations:

1. It's possible to win this fight very easily at my level with a particular strategy if I have the patience. Beast of Centuarea's normal form only has 24 PAR resistance, and is extremely slow. It's possible to have Suwako and Renko keep it PAR-locked for the entire fight with their extremely powerful PAR effects. If you can defeat the Beast of Centaurea's normal form before it uses Hahahaha! What's wrong?, then you'll never have to face the super-powerful Breakaway form. Unfortunately, this means doing an extra 100 million damage. However, since it's possible to PAR-lock the boss with some luck, I believe it's doable, if extremely tedious.

2. The normal form is susceptible to debuffs, but the Breakaway form is immune to everything. However, the Breakaway form still technically counts as an extension of the first form. That means it keeps any debuffs! Normally, Hahahaha! What's wrong? raises all its stats by 50%, which lets it murder you quickly with its fast attacks. However, by keeping the Beast of Centaurea at max debuffs before it transforms, you can nullify most of its buffs. Even better, it doesn't buff its speed when it transforms, so it'll still be suffering from -40% SPD when the Breakaway form is released, giving you a lot more time to prepare for its first wave. Sure, its spam attacks will quickly run down the debuffs, but it'll still make surviving its initial attacks much easier.

[FantomFang]

Just got into this game a week ago thanks to Parallaxal's Let's Play on GitP, and was wondering if I could get some constructive criticism on my current party, as the random encounters have been giving me some problems (only Patchy/Youmu consistently beating the defenses of the walls on 15f hurts)

My Party:

Spoiler:

Reimu 72
Tenshi 67
Meiling 71
Youmu 68
Alice 68
Sanae 69
Kaguya 63
Patchy 64
Marisa 67
Aya 68
Iku 68
Ran 66

Just finished Floor 15 except for the Recruitable boss (Great Stamp took several tries, until I got an easy sequence of attacks plus proper resists + Alice debuff, no deaths there). Any and all comments wanted. Currently the main thrust of my boss strats is to get my party generally boosted some with

Spoiler:

Ran

+ Reimu, bring in Iku to help buff Youmu/Patchy/etc., and switch in and out like crazy to minimize the exposure characters like

Spoiler:

Sanae

get.
Thanks ahead of time  :V

[Bananamatic]

100m? Didn't you mean 10m?

[Parallaxal]

100m? Didn't you mean 10m?

Nope, I mean 100 million HP. You normally need to do 16,666,666 damage to force Beast of Centaurea to transform, but it actually has 116,666,666 HP. It simply uses Hahahaha! What's Wrong?! when it drops below 100 million HP.

[MysTeariousYukari]

Para, based on your post, you said "Unfortunately, this means doing an extra 100 million damage" if you PAR-lock before Hahaha! What's wrong? Does it's remaining HP drop after it goes into Breakaway? Or do it's defensive stats drop notably?

[Parallaxal]

Para, based on your post, you said "Unfortunately, this means doing an extra 100 million damage" if you PAR-lock before Hahaha! What's wrong? Does it's remaining HP drop after it goes into Breakaway? Or do it's defensive stats drop notably?

It works just like the final boss, Yuka, or 18F's elemental forms. Yuka is a very good comparison, as she also has 115 million HP, but uses Focus when below 100 million, which then sets her HP to 2.5 million. Similarly, Beast of Centaurea Ver.2 simply sheds the former form for the Breakaway form, and sets its HP to 20 million when it does.

[Esoterica]

Just got into this game a week ago thanks to Parallaxal's Let's Play on GitP, and was wondering if I could get some constructive criticism on my current party, as the random encounters have been giving me some problems (only Patchy/Youmu consistently beating the defenses of the walls on 15f hurts)

My Party:

Spoiler:

Reimu 72
Tenshi 67
Meiling 71
Youmu 68
Alice 68
Sanae 69
Kaguya 63
Patchy 64
Marisa 67
Aya 68
Iku 68
Ran 66

Just finished Floor 15 except for the Recruitable boss (Great Stamp took several tries, until I got an easy sequence of attacks plus proper resists + Alice debuff, no deaths there). Any and all comments wanted. Currently the main thrust of my boss strats is to get my party generally boosted some with

Spoiler:

Ran

+ Reimu, bring in Iku to help buff Youmu/Patchy/etc., and switch in and out like crazy to minimize the exposure characters like

Spoiler:

Sanae

get.
Thanks ahead of time  :V

Looks like a 100% solid party to me.  By which I mean "it'd be pretty hard to make it more perfect".

[Garlyle]

FantomFang, you should be fine.

There are definitely some changeups I'd advise before the upcoming boss (

Spoiler:

She's got 0 Debuff resistance and a huge weakness to NTR attacks, so try using characters like Komachi, Reisen, or Cirno to debuff her stats significantly, and Suwako to deal some huge damage

), but in general you've got a good setup.

I think you're going to find that you don't have a huge amount of the offensive punch you might want as you progress though, only Youmu, Kaguya, Patchouli, and Marisa on that list are characters I'd really classify as heavy damage dealers, and they've each got some speed-related issues (Either actual speed or attack frequency), and Kaguya and Marisa can be neutered by elements.

[MysTeariousYukari]

Ah, they nerf their remaining HP in exchange for the power-up. Thanks for confirming that Para

[Esoterica]

FantomFang, you should be fine.

There are definitely some changeups I'd advise before the upcoming boss (

Spoiler:

She's got 0 Debuff resistance and a huge weakness to NTR attacks, so try using characters like Komachi, Reisen, or Cirno to debuff her stats significantly, and Suwako to deal some huge damage

), but in general you've got a good setup.

I think you're going to find that you don't have a huge amount of the offensive punch you might want as you progress though, only Youmu, Kaguya, Patchouli, and Marisa on that list are characters I'd really classify as heavy damage dealers, and they've each got some speed-related issues (Either actual speed or attack frequency), and Kaguya and Marisa can be neutered by elements.

Well, by the sounds of it he still has Flan to worry about as well.

Assuming he isn't planning for a specific boss fight with that lineup, his team composition is great.  The only thing I find questionable about it is having both Meiling and Tenshi, but some people like running two tanks so I figured it's not worth commenting on.  For the 15F fight that team should perform just fine.  For 16F, the only thing I'd change would be to replace someone (Meiling in my opinion) with Suwako.

[FantomFang]

Yeah, I've been considering dropping one of the tanks, just hadn't fully decided yet. Am leaning towards Tenshi at the moment, but we'll see. Gotta decide on who I want as a replacement first! In the meantime though, for my general team (I very rarely switch in specific characters for specific bosses, although thats changing with some of the bosses now) I've stopped using Kaguya for Suwako in order to bring out some more paralysis fun on bosses, not to mention I like to heavily switch characters in and out so Kaguya's buff's a bit less useful.

I guess from now on I'm going to start saving a nice reserve of SKP for when I decide to use a character that I haven't really been using, in order to help out with a boss battle.

EDIT: And yeah, I still have to deal with Flan. Figured I'd explore F16 first for the extra Lvl's/SKP, not to mention some nice equips I've found. It'll be interesting seeing how far I can stretch my elemental equips without grinding for more 

[Esoterica]

Tenshi and Kaguya are must-haves for that fight.  Tenshi will takes 0s from both Forbidden Fruit and Laveatein while it'll wipe anyone else.  A buffed Kaguya will easily break 100k per Hourai Barrage on Flan (note: Flan has 600k HP).

EDIT: Currently at 3F on my new save file.  Party looks like this:

Meiling
Remilia

Spoiler:

Maribel

Minoriko Shizuha
Iku
Reimu
Mystia
Kanako
Patchouli
Komachi
Keine
Reisen

Doubt I'm going to keep this team as the current setup is mostly to cope with SP issues early on, but most of it should stay relatively similar (Mokou and Orin will probably replace Reisen and someone else).  Given that, how's the lineup look?

[Garlyle]

Doubt I'm going to keep this team as the current setup is mostly to cope with SP issues early on, but most of it should stay relatively similar.  Given that, how's the lineup look?

This makes me wonder if I'm the only person who constantly rotates up his team completely based on the floor/boss I'm facing?

[Esoterica]

This makes me wonder if I'm the only person who constantly rotates up his team completely based on the floor/boss I'm facing?

My teams are usually well-rounded enough that I can take on trash and bosses with almost the exact same lineup, usually only trading some random trash-sweeper like Chen for a buffing character like Aya.

[Parallaxal]

Starting from my 2nd playthrough, I've been getting into the habit of never changing up my team, just for the challenge. Surprisingly, I've had no problems clearing floor trash or bosses. Most notably, Team Unappreciated saw me switching characters very often against floor trash on the higher floors, but thanks to Galaxy Stop, it was rarely a problem for me.