Labyrinth of Touhou 5F

[Parallaxal]

Got tired of level grinding tonight, so I tried a practice run against ***WINNER*** a lot earlier than I expected. My highest level character was Rumia lvl 583.

Here's the result.

Was very difficult, though, and I felt like I was struggling at times without a group DEF/MND buff. Poor Orin got OHKO'd on her very first turn out. I really did get lucky a lot near the end there. Too bad I didn't record this one, eh? I think I'll try to level up some more before attempting to record this, because this one was close enough as it is.

Regarding the all-MAG party vs. Dual Hibachi: you do have Reisen's PSN spell to hurt Hibachi #2, you know. If you're patient enough for that. Same goes for Bloody Papa; both have 0 PSN resistance.

[RainfallYoshi]

I've been incredibly irritated at the fact that I can get to Ressurection on Mokou and not win. I know I should just move on with my exploring and come back later but my stubborness is getting to me. Curse you Mokou!

I'll explore 15F more and get my ass kicked.  :V

[MysTeariousYukari]

Mokou is pretty bs at first, but one thing you could try, if your not using it already. Damage Count, add up your damage so you roughly know when she'll Rez, then you can switch in the nukes and let them do their job. One of my attempts against her was actually kinda epic, I bring in Marisa and Remi for the big nuke, I get off Spear, but not Spark. Volcano leave only Meiling out, and cue the 1-on-1.

Meiling is friggin awesome, she has killed bosses for me multiple times, usually with her being the only one out.

[Esoterica]

That's what I was going for. Theoretically you could using the "attack" function. But that's where "without cheating during the course of 1 lifetime" part comes in.

I believe defeating dual Hibachi (and bloody papa btw) is a requirement in order to get to winner is it not? For a star thing? So it's not really all that optional after all.

Reisen has poison, too.

But yeah, that one fight would definitely stop the team in its tracks.  It'd work fine until then though.

[spookedmoose]

Any idea how I can keep my monitor refresh rate from effecting LoT's speed? Because it plays fine at 60hz, but if it's set to 85hz the game plays too fast, especially the menus (which is just great when Reimu uses Barrier instead of Border resulting in some heavily buffed corpses).

[The Greatest Dog]

So I walked into the 16F boss with this team order and Reimu level 80... Komachi, Eirin, Yuugi, Chen, then Reimu, Alice, Reisen, Aya, Suwako, Iku, Minoriko and Suika.

Cue Eirin being knocked out in two attacks due to not being able to heal herself. Or get a single action.

Then Suwako and Chen get knocked out because I overestimated Suika's Black Hole debuff and Chen's speed to switch both of them out.

The rest of them also fell slowly as well, leaving only Komachi, Suika, Aya, Reimu and Iku - and Iku was sitting in the back because she accidentally paralyzed herself (!).

Reimu was being a healer, Komachi was barely managing to debuff, Aya was hitting rather well once DEF debuffs were in effect, and Suika had just enough SP recovery to get 36 SP per focus... Meaning exactly one rock throw.

Once Iku recovered and buffed Suika, she was hitting for 60000 for a relatively cheap and fast attack. Iku died though, and it was just those four.

And then the boss died from a Narrow Confines of Avici. :V

[Esoterica]

So I walked into the 16F boss with this team order and Reimu level 80... Komachi, Eirin, Yuugi, Chen, then Reimu, Alice, Reisen, Aya, Suwako, Iku, Minoriko and Suika.

Cue Eirin being knocked out in two attacks due to not being able to heal herself. Or get a single action.

Then Suwako and Chen get knocked out because I overestimated Suika's Black Hole debuff and Chen's speed to switch both of them out.

The rest of them also fell slowly as well, leaving only Komachi, Suika, Aya, Reimu and Iku - and Iku was sitting in the back because she accidentally paralyzed herself (!).

Reimu was being a healer, Komachi was barely managing to debuff, Aya was hitting rather well once DEF debuffs were in effect, and Suika had just enough SP recovery to get 36 SP per focus... Meaning exactly one rock throw.

Once Iku recovered and buffed Suika, she was hitting for 60000 for a relatively cheap and fast attack. Iku died though, and it was just those four.

And then the boss died from a Narrow Confines of Avici. :V

I love it when silly stuff like that happens.  Orin killed off Kaguya's Foe with a Cat's Walk, and I had Tenshi Sword of Rapture something for a victory once as well.

[FantomFang]

Wrenching victory from the jaws of defeat can definitely be incredibly satisfying  :V

I've finished clearing everything up to the Final Boss now. Just gotta do some leveling to try and get some of the 20F item drops (none as of yet) and try to hit LVL 130 or so before I take her on. Hopefully the battle is appropriately difficult and intense.

[The Greatest Dog]

On a serious note, Suika would have been great for 16F if I realized that she had her first attack hit with the power of a nuke, while it was cheap and fast and she can tank the hits.

That really was all I could do since Suwako got wiped. :V

[RainfallYoshi]

It doesn't seem like a lot of people realize that Suika has a WND Nuke available since I mostly hear mention of Aya being used to take care of 16F's Nature form. Curiouser and curiouser.

[Esoterica]

It doesn't seem like a lot of people realize that Suika has a WND Nuke available since I mostly hear mention of Aya being used to take care of 16F's Nature form. Curiouser and curiouser.

I think you mean 18F.

And it's mostly because when you have characters like Iku that can buff ATK massively, Suika's ability to do so herself makes her pretty underwhelming.  Aya can actually finish the NTR form off faster because of her absurd speed and low delay, and her damage won't even be that much lower per hit.

Don't get me wrong, Suika's not a bad character by any means; she can remove ally debuffs, apply speed debuffs, and hits decently hard.  However, with a buff as large as hers, I'd expect her to do a lot more damage than she actually does.

[FantomFang]

Just a question: Been grinding on 20F for an hour or two now, and I'm up to Reimu 124, but I've yet to see a single item drop. Do the increased drop rates for the specific items increase to 5.0% automatically for the first drop, or does it have to be Postgame to gain the benefit of the increased drop rate? Just seems odd that I haven't gotten a single drop yet, but eh, It's probably just Murphy's Law laughing at me.  :derp:

Also, does the wiki's recommendation of LVL 130+ seem about right, or do you think I could go ahead and take on the final boss now? Just wondering.

EDIT: I'm also noticing more Aya competence on the nuking side now. it's been getting better, as her ATK actually more or less matches Youmu's now in similar gear at the same exact level, with Youmu going ATK-focus w/smattering of HP/DEF and Aya going SPD/ATK (not sure on my exact %'s). Just kind of interesting in that regard.

[The Greatest Dog]

At the cost of a slower speed, she makes an effective MND tank with ATK based formulas. As a result, she moves slower than, say, Suwako, and they would both be sent to 0%.

For efficient switching in and out, that would mean another tank would have to be even slower, thus altering the altogether damage per round of the group.

In addition, her fastest attack has a rather bad ATK multiplier.  Though it deals rather respectable damage for a tank if you spend the skill points for it and you have a group ATK buffer like Keine while she also buffs another nuker...

Keine group buffs, Suika self buffs low delay. Cue a damaging tank with somewhat low delay (though also low speed?). As a result, it seems she's better if you use a group buffer ala Keine or Renko rather than a single uberIkubuff. You also don't need to apply PAR resist gear in that fashion, I guess.

Edit: Actually, Suika has a faster base speed than Iku. :V

[Parallaxal]

Just a question: Been grinding on 20F for an hour or two now, and I'm up to Reimu 124, but I've yet to see a single item drop. Do the increased drop rates for the specific items increase to 5.0% automatically for the first drop, or does it have to be Postgame to gain the benefit of the increased drop rate? Just seems odd that I haven't gotten a single drop yet, but eh, It's probably just Murphy's Law laughing at me.  :derp:

You are just unlucky. I've had similarly bad experiences with certain 30F drops. (30F is very similar to 20F in design.)

[quote[Also, does the wiki's recommendation of LVL 130+ seem about right, or do you think I could go ahead and take on the final boss now? Just wondering.[/quote]

You can probably take on the final boss now (Team Unappreciated beat her at about the same level as you are at now), but do take note that whether you can defeat her last form will depend on luck. Either she wastes her turn using nukes like normal, or keeps herself fully buffed and goes to work against your team.

[FantomFang]

You are just unlucky. I've had similarly bad experiences with certain 30F drops. (30F is very similar to 20F in design.)

[quote[Also, does the wiki's recommendation of LVL 130+ seem about right, or do you think I could go ahead and take on the final boss now? Just wondering.

You can probably take on the final boss now (Team Unappreciated beat her at about the same level as you are at now), but do take note that whether you can defeat her last form will depend on luck. Either she wastes her turn using nukes like normal, or keeps herself fully buffed and goes to work against your team.

Heh, I see. I'll keep that in mind. At least the grinding is really easy when you can just buff with 18F and then slaughter with Suwako/Flandre/Youmu's nukes. Hehe. 

[Garlyle]

130 is a good level to take on the final boss.  You still run the risk of getting obliterated by her keeping herself fully buffed and making you rage, but that happens even at a higher level.  Either way 125-130 is like the perfect range to take it on.  It won't be too easy but you can still be killed if you're not handling it right, so yeah.

[FantomFang]

Well, *knuckles cracking*, time to try to beat me a final boss. It's go time!  :V

EDIT: Well. At Reimu 128, I beat it on my first try. That's not to say it was easy, however. I rocked the first part of the fight pretty well, keeping significant buffs up thanks to Ran/Reimu mitigating any threats while I switched nukers in and out to keep up the damage. Suwako paralyzed the PHYS summon for the majority of the battle, and I relied on Alice's MAG debuff to keep the MAG summon under wraps. All went well, but the PHYS summon went down first. Managed to kill the MAG summon quickly afterwards, but the Support summon got of a DEF/MND buff, followed immediately by the SPD buff, right before I killed it, causing the boss to seque to Overflowing Natural Power already buffed.

Ouch.

From there, it still seemed good. I'd saved 18F's buff to Nuke her down really hard and fast. But right after I spent the buff...she Djinn Stormed. That plan ruined. At that point I was only down one person I think (Flandre got sniped the instant she hit the board, more or less, made a mistake there), and it was a grind to the finish. Couldn't really nuke her down before she'd kill me, so I was forced to cross my fingers and pray she didn't overbuff while I tried to whittle away at her, rebuilding my SP and defenses. Suwako was the MVP here, as her REC rate combined with her high dmg and fairly cheap nuke allowed her to do the vast majority of the dmg in the final form. To that end, I was incredibly cautious with her. Patchy was useless with her pathetic REC rate, Youmu got debuffed out the wazoo and was only useful for switching (-50% to everything, basically) but Reimu managed to keep recovering JUST ENOUGH sp along with Ran to keep everyone alive. In the end, Suwako finished her as my party basically was finally spent.

Ironically enough, I think that's how i beat all of the later on bosses. Came in for a run, had some bad luck, and just ground out the ending out of an incredibly bad scenario to win, while generally being underleveled for the battle.

All in all, it was an incredibly intense battle, which equals fun for me. 
Now it's time to consider moving on to some of the Postgame while I prepare for the start of the school semester...

[Esoterica]

Alright, I can't stand it anymore.  I like Sanae too much as a character to use Minoriko over her.  How should I build her to keep her similar to Minoriko in healing rates without making her squishy?  I'm thinking MND/SPD with emphasis on SPD in skillpoints.

[FantomFang]

I focused a bit on MAG early on and regret it now, as her formulas still seem strong enough to support little to no investment. I've been going pure MND since then to buff up her durability, and since she doesn't stay out on the battlefield long (she switches in and out for the most part) I don't miss the lack of SPD lvl. ups. I just make sure that she's slightly faster than my MT, Meiling, at all times.

EDIT:  Btw, what order should I go around doing stuff in the Postgame + Plus Disk in? Start with Ver. 2 bosses? Boss rush? Seals? Maybe I should just trawl through the wiki and make a note of all of the level recommendations...

[Parallaxal]

Depends on how you're using Sanae. Since her SPD isn't that great, and her support spells have large delays, you can use her as a switch-in-and-out type character. If you do, raising SPD isn't important, and you can focus on both MAG and MND. If you want her to stay in for longer periods of time, SPD/MND is probably better. Even with MAG level bonuses, she won't be healing quite as much as Minoriko (who still probably spends her levels on MND).

[Ghaleon]

Alright, I can't stand it anymore.  I like Sanae too much as a character to use Minoriko over her.  How should I build her to keep her similar to Minoriko in healing rates without making her squishy?  I'm thinking MND/SPD with emphasis on SPD in skillpoints.

I don't t hink it's possible for her to heal as well no matter how you build her. Her tradeoff is the great buff, and cleansing affect on her heal.

Anyway I'm pretty sure I did 50/50 something/mnd with Sanae on my first playthru, and she still seemed really easy to kill via spells. Of course, if you want to use her use her!

[The Greatest Dog]

You know, I just had the thought of using Mystia to turn Suika's self speed debuff into a good speed, attack, and defense buff.

Granted, her defense isn't great to begin with, but that ATK is still good for a MND tank.

[Esoterica]

I don't t hink it's possible for her to heal as well no matter how you build her. Her tradeoff is the great buff, and cleansing affect on her heal.

Anyway I'm pretty sure I did 50/50 something/mnd with Sanae on my first playthru, and she still seemed really easy to kill via spells. Of course, if you want to use her use her!

See though, I'm not using Reimu this playthrough, so I need to have a solid healer.  It's not a question of "if you like her use her" so much as "will she be able to keep up?"

[Pesco]

I suddenly get the idea of wanting to find the address to keep enemies permanently PAR locked

[The Greatest Dog]

I think she'd be more capable if she can maintain a Miracle Fruit on herself. Aside from boosting the output of her healing in both efficiency and speed...

Well, her defensive capabilities might match Minoriko's squishiness.

[Parallaxal]

For my next playthrough, I'll be going full-MAG Sanae, to be switched in and out by main tank Tenshi. It'll be part of my strange builds team, including ATK Sakuya, ATK Komachi, MAG Eirin, MAG Ran, and more. Basically, relying on characters who are normally not considered nukers to, well, nuke.

[Eilaris]

Hmm, on a NG+ run, can anyone see any potential serious problems I might face clearing the game with this group:

Spoiler:

Komachi, Kanako, Mystia, Rumia, Meiling, Mokou, Suwako, Nitori, Youmu, Keine, Renko, Reimu

I couldn't remember what the spoiler consideration rules were for this thread so I erred on the side of caution.   Build-wise,

Spoiler:

Reimu/Keine/Renko

are going SP,

Spoiler:

Meiling

is going DEF, and the rest are focusing on their attack stats (with a mind to boss killing where people with two attack stats are concerned i.e.

Spoiler:

Suwako

) so far, but I've got plenty of time to change course since I've only gotten them to level 12 yet.

[Ghaleon]

For my next playthrough, I'll be going full-MAG Sanae, to be switched in and out by main tank Tenshi. It'll be part of my strange builds team, including ATK Sakuya, ATK Komachi, MAG Eirin, MAG Ran, and more. Basically, relying on characters who are normally not considered nukers to, well, nuke.

I'd wouldn't be too surprised if people don't use komachi as a nuker outside our little English community here. I mean when I first saw her, and knew any formulas and whatever I assumed she'd be a nuker with her good attack and poor defenses (minus hp). This was before I was aware of any defense ignoring attacks and whatnot. I opted not to use her though because I figured all those +dth effects probably came at a "less damage" price.

[Ghaleon]

Hmm, on a NG+ run, can anyone see any potential serious problems I might face clearing the game with this group:

Spoiler:

Komachi, Kanako, Mystia, Rumia, Meiling, Mokou, Suwako, Nitori, Youmu, Keine, Renko, Reimu

I couldn't remember what the spoiler consideration rules were for this thread so I erred on the side of caution.   Build-wise,

Spoiler:

Reimu/Keine/Renko

are going SP,

Spoiler:

Meiling

is going DEF, and the rest are focusing on their attack stats (with a mind to boss killing where people with two attack stats are concerned i.e.

Spoiler:

Suwako

) so far, but I've got plenty of time to change course since I've only gotten them to level 12 yet.

looks fine to me. There seems to be an heavy emphasis on atk-based attackers over mag though., it wont break the game but it might cause some frusteration at certain points.

why build for sp though? it's really needed early game yes, but early game is early game, and ng+ is a breeze with early game since you start off with 12 characters. And late game, you'll have more sp than you can possibly spend before a djinn storm/destroymagic/dead enemy, and all those level up bonuses into it just get wasted from then on.

You're aware that focus is capped as if your sp is 200 right?

Edit: Blah, sorry for double post, forgot I made the last one.

[Eilaris]

looks fine to me. There seems to be an heavy emphasis on atk-based attackers over mag though., it wont break the game but it might cause some frusteration at certain points.

why build for sp though? it's really needed early game yes, but early game is early game, and ng+ is a breeze with early game since you start off with 12 characters. And late game, you'll have more sp than you can possibly spend before a djinn storm/destroymagic/dead enemy, and all those level up bonuses into it just get wasted from then on.

You're aware that focus is capped as if your sp is 200 right?

Edit: Blah, sorry for double post, forgot I made the last one.

Yeah, I figured out the focus cap bit last run.  I'll probably switch the buffers to MND then, since you make a good point, the only character I ever had SP troubles with in my last run past around 12F was Reimu, and even then it was only at the end of a drawn-out boss fight like 18F or 20F.

I was worried a bit about the ATK/MAG slant too, but so many of the MAG-based nukers feel underwhelming to me for some reason - Patchy's too slow,

Spoiler:

Kaguya

is a little underwhelming on targets where her DEF/MND ignoring isn't actually all that meaningful,

Spoiler:

Alice

's best nuke hits against DEF which defeats the purpose of getting more MAG nukers, Master Spark doesn't fit my play style too well because it can't be fired as frequently as

Spoiler:

Suwako or Nitori

's nukes (via switching),

Spoiler:

Yuyuko

runs out of SP too easily and thus falls prey to the same problem (at least in the main game), and that's most of the high-power MAG nukes I think.

I suppose if I get really desperate on high-DEF bosses I could always build up

Spoiler:

Shikieiki

on the side, though as long as they aren't packing huge MYS resistance

Spoiler:

Rumia

should be able to do well as long as I keep her alive (heh).