Labyrinth of Touhou 5F

[Savory]

If that's the case, then just move on for the moment, and explore for a bit.  A couple levels and some skill points never hurt.  I struggled with Suwako when I first got to her as well.  Mishaguji maimed basically everyone but Meiling and Komachi

Yeah might as well...

[MysTeariousYukari]

> Suwako can be cake or a brick wall, pending on how your doing so far. I think it's safe to say that is Suwako is giving you some issues, you will have similar difficulties for a bit.

> I forget, can you have 12 chars before Suwako? If not, how many?

[Garlyle]

Yeah. Even if you fight Suwako at the earliest, you can have: Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, Remilia, Patchouli, Chen, Meiling, Cirno, Youmu, Minoriko, Wriggle, Aya (That's 12 right there), Rumia, Alice, Yuugi, Komachi, and Iku.  I might have missed someone, but I don't think so.

If you skip her for a little bit you can come back and fight her with Reisen and Nitori from the next floor, who will do some horrifying things to Suwako (One's got a fire-damage multi-debuff spell, and the other is, well, Nitori...)

[MysTeariousYukari]

Getting Reisen of course needs you to pwn a stupid hard boss, your thinking of someone else :V

[Garlyle]

Getting Reisen of course needs you to pwn a stupid hard boss, your thinking of someone else :V

...oh right.

Well, Ran will probably help too, what with being able to pump up everyone's defenses that extra little bit.

Really, I never found Suwako's offensive power to be that high.  If you can maintain defensive debuffs and healing (Try Minoriko out by the way), the only thing I ever found particularly dangerous was Croaking Frog and Mishaguji.

She's also got a 40% chance of getting hit by any PAR effects, and a 25% for debuffs, so if you can paralyze and slow her with characters like Cirno and Komachi, you've got a fair chance to get a pretty significant advantage going.

[RegalStar]

Narrow Confines of Avici rocks. Use it.

I do get what you mean, though. Suwako is the main reason why I quitted playing Labyrinth for like half a year before restarting from a fresh file, and after that I kind of just trashed her in one try, although I completely mapped all 1-8F before fighting her that time.

In general you'll want to bring some MND tanks, like Patchy and Iku, in addition to your normal tanks so you don't get blown apart in her magic phase. Minoriko probably doesn't have the MND to tank well that way, so stack up her NTR and CLD affinity, and it'll pay off because her physical phase is completely laughable if Minoriko doesn't get nailed by a lucky Iron Ring. Otherwise, keep your physical damage dealers (especially Yuugi) out only in her physical phase.

[Esoterica]

Minoriko probably doesn't have the MND to tank well that way

Au contraire, Minoriko has a great MND growth, and you should be building her pure MND as well.  Add to that her fast leveling rate, and she should be one of the best MND tanks you have at that point, with a high innate NTR resistance to boot.

[NEETori]

On the other hand, Mishaguji is physical?  If so, she'd probably get oneshotted by it, even if she heavily resists nature due to frail defense.   If it isn't, she might end up taking less damage than Patchy, if Patchy's taking any damage. 

I found Chen pretty useful in the fight (Switch in, Kimontonku, Flight of Idaten until it's nearly Suwako's turn, Phoenix Spread Wings, have someone switch her out).  She could DPS like nobody's business, although if she got caught by anything, she died. 

[Esoterica]

Unless Boss Suwako pulled a Mokou, Mishaguji-sama's magic-based.

[NEETori]

Definitely misread Garlyle's paragraph then.  Minoriko will take Mishaguji like a tank  :V
Just beware of Froggy Braves the Elements. 

Also - have you considered Tank/Tank/Nuker/Nuker or Healer setup?  This is currently the setup I'm using.  Less damage per second, but more damage overall, because it's easier to switch two glass cannons in and out, and also lets me quickly field two durable characters in when the boss's turn comes up, making it easier to survive as well. 

[Unassuming Squid]

and you should be building her pure MND as well.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Goddammit. Is there a list of what you should be building each character with? I seem to keep finding out that I'm building my characters wrong.

[Pesco]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Goddammit. Is there a list of what you should be building each character with? I seem to keep finding out that I'm building my characters wrong.

There's nothing a few thousand skillpoints can't fix.

[NEETori]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Goddammit. Is there a list of what you should be building each character with? I seem to keep finding out that I'm building my characters wrong.

Iku should be pure mind or heavy mind hybrid, as well.
Wriggle should be HP/Def/Mnd.
Can't think of anyone else with an optimum build, as most characters function equally well with any decent build setup unless you do something like ATK Patch or MAG Yuugi

[Parallaxal]

You're nowhere near far enough into the game for your "incorrect" builds to matter much in the long run, anyway. I guess it depends on how far you plan on taking your characters, but having ~30-40 levels of incorrect level up bonus distribution is pretty minor when you're level 300+. Don't worry about the mistakes you're making now, you'll still be OK. As some advice, though, it's almost never necessary to boost SP with your level bonus, and it's usually not necessary to boost SPD either. In the late game, these stats rise to the point where diminishing returns will hit pretty hard, whereas HP/ATK/DEF/MAG/MND will all retain the same level of usefulness no matter what your level is. Just raising SP and SPD with skill points is typically sufficient for nearly all characters.

For the record, despite some people advocating a more defensive build, I've never used anything but a pure ATK or MAG build for my party's attackers, and I still turned out all right in all of my playthroughs. I suppose having the experience to know how to switch characters efficiently helps, but I'm just saying that even if you gimp your party's defenses like I do, it's still possible to survive the entire game, Plus Disk included. (Team Unappreciated didn't even have group DEF/MND buffs, since I almost never used Charge.)

[Garlyle]

To be honest you can use pretty much any build you want.

You can avoid levelling up SP or SPD much, like Parallaxal said, but that's only if you're thinking already about how you're going to handle the endgame.  It might come back to be a bit of a disadvantage to put a few levels into those now, but understand that level 300+ is 1/30 floors in the game.  It might be the hardest part of the game, yes, but it's not the only obstacle you're going to face, either.

Meanwhile, I have hardly ever specialized into a single stat for a character as far as levelup bonuses go.  Yeah, none of my characters are as ridiculous as they could be, but all the same they make up for that by having more usefulness in general.

The only way I think you can level a character bonus up completely wrong is to spend levelup bonuses on a stat that a character will never use (ATK for a mage, for instance), EVA, or affinities (The affinity bonus you get is so goddamn tiny).

[Pesco]

(9) squad spent their first 50 or so levelups on affinities and they turned out fine

[Garlyle]

⑨ squad spent their first 50 or so levelups on affinities and they turned out fine

Really?

...Well, I guess technically it is cheaper than trying to level those affinities up via skill points in that time.

[Unassuming Squid]

Finally took down Reisen. She was surprisingly easy after Nitori.

To celebrate, I did some more portraits.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?miimske2l089330

[attach=1]

EDIT: I just realized I already did that first Sakuya in the last update...ah, well.

[Savory]

I'll probably go around on the next floor building experience. Then'll go back to Suwako.

[Unassuming Squid]

Is there a way to track a character's BP? I need to know how long Chen needs to hang around in my party so I can eventually recruit Yuyuko.

[Parallaxal]

Is there a way to track a character's BP? I need to know how long Chen needs to hang around in my party so I can eventually recruit Yuyuko.

Sadly, there's no way to easily see how often you've used a character. If you've never used a character before, you can track it based on the total battles listed in your save file. Alternatively, I personally set their TP to a specific number (using equipment), and just use that number to determine how many BP I earned per grinding session.

[spookedmoose]

Is there a way to track a character's BP? I need to know how long Chen needs to hang around in my party so I can eventually recruit Yuyuko.

Offset 0x0000004A in a character file is accumulated BP (C05.ngd is Chen's). If you're comfortable with a hex editor you can just set that to whatever you need. More beneficial to grind though.

[Janitor Morgan]

Offset 0x0000004A in a character file is accumulated BP (C05.ngd is Chen's). If you're comfortable with a hex editor you can just set that to whatever you need. More beneficial to grind though.

You can edit the character files that way?

Hmm...would it be possible to edit a character's attack list (i.e. give Cirno Fujiyama Volcano or something)?

[spookedmoose]

You can edit the character files that way?

Hmm...would it be possible to edit a character's attack list (i.e. give Cirno Fujiyama Volcano or something)?

I'm almost certain that you can't. C##'s are Stat values, skp bonus placement, currently equiped items, BP, XP, etc. A00.ngd has toggles for acquired members, current party, total game time, max floor reached, battles fought, and some other things. B00/B01 is item inventory (B00 is normal, B01 is Plus, if I remember right). DS01-30 are the floors obviously (switch triggers and encounters probably). E00 is cutscene triggers, and F00 is all 0's so who knows (possibly for expansions).

Also Pesco wanted more Flan-Flan. If you alter "who's in the party" in A00.ngd you can put Flan in the party four (or more) times, however if one of her selves loses HP/MP, or changes equipment, they all do. This is because the game just see's "-100 hp from Character: Flandre" and all four are Flandre. The only thing that's tracked separately for each is turn gauge (which probably means that turn gauge is tracked based on slot). I guess this makes the most sense story wise. I mean Four-of-a-Kind splits one pudding into four cups, but it's still the same total amount.

[Pesco]

One day I'll get around to modding a save file. One day...

[Savory]

Remilia has been showcased in my save file for quite while (at first it was Sakuya). What about you guys?

[Unassuming Squid]

Used to be Remilia, now it's Meiling. Pity, right when I made a portrait of her that I quite liked...

Also, where the hell are you supposed to meet Suwako? I'm sure I've collected all the frogs, but I still haven't run into her.

[Parallaxal]

Also, where the hell are you supposed to meet Suwako? I'm sure I've collected all the frogs, but I still haven't run into her.

She should challenge you as soon as you pick up the 8th frog. You sure you have all of them?

Remilia has been showcased in my save file for quite while (at first it was Sakuya). What about you guys?

Team Unappreciated had Keine as the save file portrait for the longest time, but once I started grinding 27F, Orin took over (she can 1-shot everything, including Nightmare Cancers, so she was all I needed for grinding there).

For my other teams, I had Mystia for one of them, and for my current team, it was Youmu for a while before changing to Ran.

[Unassuming Squid]

She should challenge you as soon as you pick up the 8th frog. You sure you have all of them?

I've checked the maps, and each point is blank.

Do the frogs show up in your inventory when you pick them up? ...is it possible to sell them by accident?

[Esoterica]

Remilia has been showcased in my save file for quite while (at first it was Sakuya). What about you guys?

Like I said a page or two ago:

First file was Ran but changed to Tenshi
Second file went from

Spoiler:

Maribel

to "Shizuha" (Minoriko), but I expect it to change to Sanae soon.

You can edit the character files that way?

Hmm...would it be possible to edit a character's attack list (i.e. give Cirno Fujiyama Volcano or something)?

We've discussed this before, survey says no.