Labyrinth of Touhou 5F

[trancehime]

(*sigh* Killed Serpent of Chaos 12 times, and still no drop.)

MGL's drop rate is obscenely low, even with some amazing luck after 100 times of defeating the Serpent, I still only had 30 MGLs.

How should I build Flandre, btw? Full ATK? Half ATK/MAG?

For the early stages, you want to focus more on one stat before you raise the other, not both at the same time. Pick one and stick with that for a while.

[Bananamatic]

Go full ATK on Flan IMO.
100 Serpents should give you 10 MGLs on average...30 is damn lucky :V

[Parallaxal]

0 for 21 right now on SoC's drop. I hate this, but I'm still too stubborn to give up.

MND? Like, MagicalDefense?

... So I was wrong to put everything into magic...?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF---

Also, where do I get the para rings? I only have one on me right now, -20 para is (AFAIK) not high at all.

Iku's offense is only average, while her magic defense is way above average. I find that by the late game, Iku almost never attacks; she spends all her turns passing out attack buffs, which can double the damage output of all my other characters. Iku's damage output will never be phenominal, while her high MND makes her a decent main tank against magic-heavy bosses (I used her in 1st slot for Agastobrauma and Kedamagramaton in the Plus Disk).

PAR resistance rings are dropped by the moth enemies on 6F.

How should I build Flandre, btw? Full ATK? Half ATK/MAG?

Full ATK all the way. Starbow Break only uses ATK, while her other spells use ATK and MAG equally. Since Flandre's ATK growth is better than her MAG, each level bonus you put into ATK gives you a bit more points than if it were put into MAG. Her composite formulas simply add her ATK and MAG together, so raising ATK will give you better results.

[Bananamatic]

Starbow Break is what makes her a boss nuker. Did almost as much as Nitori vs Winner for me.
Laveatein can be replaced by Hourai Barrage...and you don't reduce your own bar.

[Esoterica]

MND? Like, MagicalDefense?

... So I was wrong to put everything into magic...?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF---

Also, where do I get the para rings? I only have one on me right now, -20 para is (AFAIK) not high at all.

I know Para already responded to this, but

Iku's offensive capabilities are really only good as far as sweeping floor trash goes.  However, her MND growth combined with her HP makes her arguably the best tank against magic in the entire game.  To add to that, she has the best single-target attack buff in the game as well, and can lower enemy defense significantly to allow for even more destruction.  She's seriously the best support character in the game imo, and it makes me sad it took this long for her to be generally accepted as a useful tank/support character instead of just "oh look another subpar nuker dump her ASAP".

On that note, I already like tank-Eirin a lot more than nuker-Eirin, and I'm only on floor 4.

[Garlyle]

Also, where do I get the para rings? I only have one on me right now, -20 para is (AFAIK) not high at all.

Actually, with how Paralysis resistance works, that's huge.

PAR, PSN, SIL, and DBF resistances - at the very least - work as the following: 100% - (3 * RES) = chance of success.  therefore, that +20 to PAR resistance is actually a 60% reduced chance of it taking effect.  33 Resistance = 99%, so anything beyond that will make you totally immune.

DTH looks a little... different, but mostly the same.  It's just a bit odd because there's been rare cases reported of death effects that shouldn't have taken effect, doing so, and death spells with way over a 100% success rate missing on stuff that should've been guaranteed to connect.  ...soyeah.

[Esoterica]

Adding to that, don't feel like you're gimping your character by giving them something to increase their PAR resistance instead of their attack; the 72% buff from Stickleback will be much more noticeable than the 40% or so you're getting from most equipment.  Not to mention, you're better resisting PAR on top of that. :V

[Garlyle]

the 72% buff from Stickleback will be much more noticeable than the 40% or so you're getting from most equipment.

Also, the way those buffs work, the 72% will be FAR higher.  The +40% is only a boost to your base stats; it'll be smaller and smaller as your skill levels and levelup bonuses raise those stats in the first place (Still useful mind you, but yeah).  The +72% will be to your total, after applying all of your equipment and stuff, so it's pretty massive.  A +40% piece of equipment when you're at 3000 MAG might only get you 400-500 more; a +72% buff will be about 2000 more attack power.

[MysTeariousYukari]

10%, at least in Special Disk.

And I hope you meant 580+ about Winner instead of 480, especially considering his only DEF/MND buffs are Minoriko's single target and Renko's Charge. I've got no idea when beating Dual Hibachi is a good idea, though, especially considering no Kaguya; ver1 he said he had a terrible party for the boss, ver2 I imagine will be a nightmare.

I meant if your not limiting your party at all for any reason. For Para's Team... 550+ without uber Skill Levels.

[Esoterica]

Also, the way those buffs work, the 72% will be FAR higher.  The +40% is only a boost to your base stats; it'll be smaller and smaller as your skill levels and levelup bonuses raise those stats in the first place (Still useful mind you, but yeah).  The +72% will be to your total, after applying all of your equipment and stuff, so it's pretty massive.  A +40% piece of equipment when you're at 3000 MAG might only get you 400-500 more; a +72% buff will be about 2000 more attack power.

I wasn't 100% sure if it worked differently for buffs than it does for equipment, but yeah, that's another fantastic reason.

[Parallaxal]

I'm so glad to see Iku getting so much love. Personally, after 30 floors I'd probably name her MVP of my party right now. I'm willing to bet that if she weren't in my party, the damage I'd be missing out on would be greater than Nitori's damage output, given that she more or less doubles the damage dealt by Nitori, Orin, Mokou, and Rumia. Plus, she fills the 2nd (and sometimes the 1st) slot well.

[Bananamatic]

550 without Reimu...yeah, right :V
550 was a gamble with Reimu, as way too many of his attacks 1 shot your chars and you can do nothing about it. Sword of Light/Aule's Warhammer are 100% piercing and do 160-200k.

480 would cause every single physical to completely destroy your party.

Looking at his SoC video...I dunno how he built his party, as his Meiling has 60k more HP than mine had...might be thanks to builds though(and equipment), I put everything into def for mine plus I concentrated on affinities before stats. That, and my Meiling was 10 levels lower at SoC.

I might be wrong, but Winner at 550 with Reimu seemed luck based, so 480 is impossible unless I built my party seriously wrong, which I doubt as no boss gave me much trouble.

Well, some freak of nature can always occur which would make him spam useless buffs. But it's like 1/1000000.

I'm so glad to see Iku getting so much love. Personally, after 30 floors I'd probably name her MVP of my party right now. I'm willing to bet that if she weren't in my party, the damage I'd be missing out on would be greater than Nitori's damage output, given that she more or less doubles the damage dealt by Nitori, Orin, Mokou, and Rumia. Plus, she fills the 2nd (and sometimes the 1st) slot well.

I'd still rather use Ran(if she has enough SP to spam it). Most bosses hold off until you somewhat damage them, and buffing 6-8 sweepers to switch in/out at once seems somewhat faster than buffing 1 by 1...definitely better than Ran in early/midgame though.

[FantomFang]

I use and love both; both do a great job as OffTanks (2nd Slot) for my party behind Meiling, and Ran can either help Reimu or Iku in the battle depending on the situation. Not to mention that the buff's stack up to just about hit the max nicely.  :V

[Parallaxal]

Looking at his SoC video...I dunno how he built his party, as his Meiling has 60k more HP than mine had...might be thanks to builds though(and equipment), I put everything into def for mine plus I concentrated on affinities before stats.

You're correct that I built my Meiling very differently from yours. Mine has much lower DEF than yours, because I put a lot of level bonuses into her HP. This was necessary in order for her to survive Shikieiki's Last Judgment at a reasonable level. Personally, I'd agree that raising her DEF is probably better, though, but I didn't have Komachi for this run, so I had to make some concessions.

[Esoterica]

I'm half-tempted to try dropping Reimu this playthrough.  Minoriko is pretty much always going to be in the 4th slot, and I've got other characters for applying buffs.  Truth be told, I never got that much mileage out of Reimu's heal in the first place.  Healed too little even with a pure MAG build and the delay was like "what."

Aside from probably relying on Renko for partywide MND buffs, I think it'd probably work rather well considering how little I used her outside of Great Hakurei Barrier in the first place.

EDIT: Plus I have Meiling as my primary tank and Eirin as one of my off-tanks, so yeah.  Healing shouldn't be too much of an issue.

[MysTeariousYukari]

Ok, I had completly forgotten what Level you should be for Winner, since having hundreds to thousands in Skill Levels makes things a lot easier :V

[Mr. Sacchi]

Okay, so here I am losing countless times to both tenshi and eientei, I can't even kill anybody from eientei, and tenshi obliterates my party with motherland. My party has 2 tanks (Meiling and Komachi) 4 Physical DMG Dealers (Remi, Youmu, Yuugi and Nitori) 3 Buffers (Ran, Aya and Iku) and Suwako, all levels 39-45.

OK, so I put Meiling in front to tank along with Iku in eientei, third slot reimu and fourth patchy, I use Evil-Sealing Cicrcle (And pray all get PAR >_>) and buff patchy, if needed I use healer (Yes, I have the para resistance ring equipped) on her and if not switch iku out and put yuugi, patchy uses royal flare, eientei obliterates my party, normally sniping reimu, then ganging up on meiling and then yuugi, finally to leave my patchy alone, poison her and killing her (and no matter who I put in their places, they have the same fate), and that is when eirin doesn't decide to open the battle mana draining my patchy on the first turn >_>''

As against tenshi, I use the same strategy, only silent selene instead of royal flare, and reimu is replaced by yuugi (who also goes to slot 2 and iku on 3). In a nutshell, she slaughters my party before using focus and finishes the job with motherland.

Anything I'm doing wrong? >_>''

[FantomFang]

Tenshi: Adding some Nature RES gear might help in a pinch. She's also vulnerable to paralysis: spam Suwako and Reimu's PAR effect. I would suggest playing defensively against Tenshi and building up buffs, switch-hitting in your Nukers if you need to; she doesn't really hurt that much.

Oh....I just saw your lvl. You're probably underleveled. Wiki recommends 50-55 for Tenshi (I was just short of that, IIRC). 45-55 for Eientei. I actually beat Tenshi first, and she helped make Eientei a snap.

As far as I know though, in my one clear of both, it was simply Paralysis-spam with Reimu only (didn't use Suwako then) to lock down the enemies, while Ran/Iku/Reimu(1st turn, at least)/Aya buff up my party. Eientei wasn't hard for me because buffed MND neutralizes so much of what they do; scariest thing was when Reisen got off a very succesful Discarder at a bad time; also for Tenshi, gear up Meiling with that NTR RES gear. I managed to survive Violent Motherland when I fought her, and that buy's you 3 more turns to finish her if you weren't able to do it yet.

EDIT:
Here's Parallaxal's Let's Play of both fights:

Tenshi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0CC5WvEa_g
Eientei: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A69OA9j65Lo

Especially of note is that he lacked all of the effective setups he mentioned  :V

[MysTeariousYukari]

If your PAR-Lock isn't working that often for you, or your getting wrecked in one or two rounds, try using Great Hakurei Barrier and Exocising Border instead of Evil Sealing Circle. That will help the survival part for them. Same should work for Tenshi as well, to some extent. With Yuugi, who do you target?

Those levels you gave also make me think you should level a bit more. Like FantomFang said, Reimu Level 50 should get you though.

[Esoterica]

You could probably take Tenshi on right now, but you're way underleveled for Eientei.  I was at Reimu 49 when I beat that fight, and I'd say I was still slightly underleveled then too.

I really don't remember what I did in the Tenshi fight.  Reimu/Ran DEF buffs, some form of debuff, Suwako spamming PAR, then damage racing with Iku+<nuker> was my strategy for a long time though, so I'd try that. :derp:

Also, I'd like to take this time to say that

Spoiler:

Renko

is absolutely amazing, and I wish you didn't need to do a NG+ to have her in your starting party.  Charge makes everything early on a cakewalk.

[Parallaxal]

Against Tenshi, USE DEBUFFS. Seriously, she has terrible debuff resistance for a boss. You probably have trouble damaging her with her insane DEF and MND, but Iku can cut her DEF in half with ease. Bring Cirno and start the battle with Icicle Fall; a -50% SPD debuff will slow her down tremendously. Just think; how much extra time do you get to kill her after she uses Focus if you keep her at half speed? At 50% speed, Tenshi is literally slower than a level 1 Patchy.

In addition, you can bring Alice and hit her with Return Inanimate. Dropping Tenshi's ATK will help if you need to survive Violent Motherland, and Return Inanimate might do OK damage if you're using Iku's buffs/debuffs. As stated earlier, Violent Motherland's damage can be greatly reduced by NTR resistance gear, such as Hirami Lemons.

[MysTeariousYukari]

Side note, once you beat Eientei, Reisen is helpful for Tenshi. Discarder's Debuffs are rather nice at that point of the game.

[Parallaxal]

After 27 kills, it finally dropped!

(Yes, that's Wriggle main tanking after Meiling got OHKO'd by a 220k Thousand Handed Kannon. She can survive the full 3 attacks on SoC's 3rd form as long as she isn't hit by Scourge, Thousand Handed Kannon, or Demon-slashing Dance.)

[MysTeariousYukari]

MGL is awesome isn't it Picture having 3 on everyone in your team Even if Equips aren't that good later, MGL's effects are great, enough so that they are always great.

[trancehime]

MGL is awesome isn't it Picture having 3 on everyone in your team Even if Equips aren't that good later, MGL's effects are great, enough so that they are always great.

The ultimate tank item is actually the Physical Reactor from the Dual Hibachis. I put 3 of them on Tenshi and then nothing can damage her. EVER

[Bananamatic]

The ultimate tank item is actually the Physical Reactor from the Dual Hibachis. I put 3 of them on Tenshi and then nothing can damage her. EVER

except for non elemental piercing :V

[trancehime]

except for non elemental piercing :V

DETAILS

...Okay fine

Spoiler:

grumble thousand armed kannon grumble

[BallerSupreme]

For Eientei, I think the only way to reasonably par lock them involves debuffing all of their speeds, since it gives you much more room.
Specifically what I did on my first playthrough (and first battle against them, when i had no idea how the battle worked) I was using Komachi and Yuugi as my two tanks, had Suwako in reserve, both Aya and Chen, Minoriko, Reimu, Patchouli, Cirno, Alice, and Marisa. The person in the 12th slot wasn't important enough to bother remembering  :V
Also worth mentioning, I was very underleveled. (I believe my Reimu was level 43 or 45)

I stunlocked Kaguya (and spammed a lot of avici), killed her using Chen and Aya, then I missed one par on Eirin so she got off her super magic attack (but she also had very low mag at that point, so it didn't do very much). Reisen was Reisen.

Incidentally, when I did the battle, I missed my first stun with avici on Kaguya, and she used Buddha Stone Bowl on everyone in the battle. It definitely prolonged the battle, but wasn't too big a deal.


(incidentally, I used the same strategy for Grand Stamp, even though people think it's suicide. It was never able to take its second turn, and I was also under level for that fight as well)

[Mr. Sacchi]

Didn't need to level up, and got tenshi, wasn't as hard as I expected, I just had to plan ahead, yuugi died on the second turn  :V

And I discovered why meiling was surviving motherland before, she has a green dream on her :V

Now I have another tanker for mah party, I only need to level >_>''

[Unassuming Squid]

More technical issues...

My Config file seems not to affect the game at all. I wanted to mute the BGM volume for those times when I had to level grind and got tired of the music. However, I put the slider to 0% and unchecked the box, and the BGM still plays when I start the game. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my Config file isn't in english?