Labyrinth of Touhou discussion thread #2

[Serela]

Well, who is your team currently? Stating which characters you definitely want to keep right now will also help.

[AlexX Unlimited]

Well, who is your team currently? Stating which characters you definitely want to keep right now will also help.

I'll just spoiler the whole thing then. List is in no particular order:

Spoiler:

Reimu: Spam her barrier in boss fights. Also occasionally heals if everyone really needs it and the buffs are good enough/Ran is present.
Marisa: MASTA SPAAAAAAAARK
Ran: Spam Eighty Billion Holy Boards until her SP runs out. Occasionally toss in a Banquet of the 12 General Gods.
Sanae: Small-time buffer and full-time healer of HP and status effects. Fights well if she ever gets a moment to attack (and usually has more than enough SP to spare).
Yuugi: Physical tank and physical hitter. Occasionally poisons/paralyzes with Irremovable Shackles.
Meiling: Tanks. Heals and restores status if others need it, otherwise she's focusing or healing herself.
Tenshi: Backup tank for Meiling. Generally uses State of Enlightenment since she can't fight for crap, but I can't drop her since, unlike Yuugi, she can also tank magic attacks.
Patchy: Nuker.
Nitori: CLD specialist, NTR specialist, and the occasional Megawatt.
Eirin: Designated slot 2 character. Generally just heals or focuses for more healing, because her attacks are crap and her debuffs don't happen much.
Chen: Swap in, buff, Itaden, swap out. Can usually Itaden about twice before the boss gets a turn.
Mokou: Gave her a try and loving her so far. Fujiwara Volcano is like a second Royal Flare and Rising Phoenix is the same thing in single-target form (making it good for bosses). Wu is good for when the boss resists fire (like Orin).

EDIT: Personal preferances:

Spoiler:

Reimu, Marisa, Patchy, Tenshi, and Nitori I will not drop no matter what. Meiling can't be dropped because I don't have anyone capable of replacing her since she's the only who can both tank and heal. Eirin and Sanae I really like the characters of (not to mention are my main sources of healing), Yuugi is my only tank capable of actually fighting, Chen and Mokou have surprised me and been incredibly been useful since their introduction, and show no signs of slowing down.

[Serela]

Whichever of the last five you want to switch would be good. The upper characters are fairly important for the balance of your party setup, and would best only be switched out for a similar purpose character.

[AlexX Unlimited]

Whichever of the last five you want to switch would be good. The upper characters are fairly important for the balance of your party setup, and would best only be switched out for a similar purpose character.

So taking personal preferances into account, it looks like a choice between either Chen or

Spoiler:

Mokou

.

EDIT: Or

Spoiler:

Eirin

if the fact her sole redeeming feature of being able to heal by percent (even past their max) doesn't compensate for the impressive damage output the new girl is capable of. She's one of my favorite characters, but then again, so was

Spoiler:

Reisen

and I was forced to drop her.

[Serela]

So taking personal preferances into account, it looks like a choice between either Chen or

Spoiler:

Mokou

.

Chen is extreme glass cannon (Which is both good and bad), while the other is one of the more durable caster characters, although with bad damage against stuff with FIR resistance.

With your party, you might be a little better off ditching Chen so you have one less glass cannon and get to keep the durable caster. But it's all up to you, of course.

[AlexX Unlimited]

Chen is extreme glass cannon (Which is both good and bad), while the other is one of the more durable caster characters, although with bad damage against stuff with FIR resistance.

With your party, you might be a little better off ditching Chen so you have one less glass cannon and get to keep the durable caster. But it's all up to you, of course.

Actually Wu does just fine against enemies with high FIR res (granted, not the best damage, but usually not bad), not to mention her own FIR res is pretty impressive, which was what appealed to me in the first place.

However, I HAVE noticed that durability is something my team seems to have issues with (if one of the four characters I use for the top two slots goes down, I often find myself struggling to figure out who to fill the slot with while the others are busy restoring HP/SP without risking pain or death). I thought it might be neat to have both of them on the team at once, but all things considered dropping her is probably my best bet. It was a great run while it lasted though... And at least now my team is almost completely immune to instant-death attacks (though I still hate that I used up ~45 levels' worth of skillpoints each into her attack and speed only to drop her like this).

[Serela]

(though I still hate that I used up ~45 levels' worth of skillpoints each into her attack and speed only to drop her like this).

Blah, this second run of mine is going to be doing an awful lot of that as I try out new characters and go "oh, they're cool but I'd rather not keep them forever".

I've already kicked out a few chars with a big plenty of skillpoints invested... and I'm going to be doing a lot more as I get past the 10~12F puzzle RAAAAAAGE@THESE FLOORS

[Garlyle]

You may want to consider kicking out

Spoiler:

Eirin, as your party isn't exactly on the high end of the HP scale, so her % heal isn't quite as important.  If you had Komachi, dropping Eirin would be the worst thing you could do, but you don't use her - only Meiling on your party will really benefit from the percentage/overhealing effects, and even then, Meiling can heal herself.
...So Yeah.

[Serela]

You may want to consider kicking out

Spoiler:

Eirin, as your party isn't exactly on the high end of the HP scale, so her % heal isn't quite as important.  If you had Komachi, dropping Eirin would be the worst thing you could do, but you don't use her - only Meiling on your party will really benefit from the percentage/overhealing effects, and even then, Meiling can heal herself.
...So Yeah.

This is a good point; and if another 2nd-Spot character is the main reason you keep her, there are better replacements anyway.

Remi would be a great replacement. Her HP/Atk/Def/Mnd/Spd are all wonderful, and she has a +60% Atk/Def/Mnd self-buff. Meiling or resistance equipment can take care of it's side effects.

Another great idea would be the 16F girl you'll be beating in around 10 levels or so.

Spoiler:

She comes with great stats all around as well, and has a Multi-hit that lowers SPD and causes PAR. Plus she has another Reimu-esque DEF/MND buff, and a skill that lets the other 3 characters act immediately.

I'd recommend using her level-up bonuses on her MND, or perhaps her DEF, if you decide to use her by the way; her attack meant for dealing good damage is only good if you use both Chen and Ran, who boost it's damage formula when in reserve, and even more when in the active party. The other two attacks are hampered by sub-par damage formulas and her slowish leveling rate.

[mlkio]

I'll just spoiler the whole thing then. List is in no particular order:

Spoiler:

Reimu: Spam her barrier in boss fights. Also occasionally heals if everyone really needs it and the buffs are good enough/Ran is present.
Marisa: MASTA SPAAAAAAAARK
Ran: Spam Eighty Billion Holy Boards until her SP runs out. Occasionally toss in a Banquet of the 12 General Gods.
Sanae: Small-time buffer and full-time healer of HP and status effects. Fights well if she ever gets a moment to attack (and usually has more than enough SP to spare).
Yuugi: Physical tank and physical hitter. Occasionally poisons/paralyzes with Irremovable Shackles.
Meiling: Tanks. Heals and restores status if others need it, otherwise she's focusing or healing herself.
Tenshi: Backup tank for Meiling. Generally uses State of Enlightenment since she can't fight for crap, but I can't drop her since, unlike Yuugi, she can also tank magic attacks.
Patchy: Nuker.
Nitori: CLD specialist, NTR specialist, and the occasional Megawatt.
Eirin: Designated slot 2 character. Generally just heals or focuses for more healing, because her attacks are crap and her debuffs don't happen much.
Chen: Swap in, buff, Itaden, swap out. Can usually Itaden about twice before the boss gets a turn.
Mokou: Gave her a try and loving her so far. Fujiwara Volcano is like a second Royal Flare and Rising Phoenix is the same thing in single-target form (making it good for bosses). Wu is good for when the boss resists fire (like Orin).

EDIT: Personal preferances:

Spoiler:

Reimu, Marisa, Patchy, Tenshi, and Nitori I will not drop no matter what. Meiling can't be dropped because I don't have anyone capable of replacing her since she's the only who can both tank and heal. Eirin and Sanae I really like the characters of (not to mention are my main sources of healing), Yuugi is my only tank capable of actually fighting, Chen and Mokou have surprised me and been incredibly been useful since their introduction, and show no signs of slowing down.

For bosses, first find out if you can poison, par or stat debuff them and use the appropriate character. Use wiggle for poison and suwako for par. There is a huge difference in power between wiggle's poison and yuugi's poison. Suwako is really really good and I regret not using her for most of the game. Consider using morikko or what her name is instead of erin or sanae.

[Deranged]

You might also want to consider having separate parties for exploring and for boss-fighting, because some characters are definitely better at one than at the other. For example, Marisa slowly loses her worth at random encounters as you encounter tougher ones that resist MYS, and you need your whole team to be launching effective attacks to beat them before they can land a hit; being a single-element user makes that hard for her. Despite that, nothing beats her for bosses that you need to take down quickly after a certain HP threshold, so she sees a lot of action then. Similiarly,

Spoiler:

Orin

absolutely wipes the floor with most random encounters with a really powerful multi-target attack and a decent backup if it's not effective, but she's quite lacking for bosses. It eventually got to the point where for me, my boss-fighting team and exploring team only shared 2-3 members between them (usually Reimu, Chen and maybe another DD).

This worked well for me since I liked quite a lot of characters and gladly took the opportunity to use them all and give them some battle time where it be for exploring or for bosses. The only pain was constantly reassigning equipment, but you need to do that for most bosses anyway. YMMV of course, but it could be something to consider.

[MysTeariousYukari]

NeoSerela

Spoiler:

I personaly disagree for the 10F girl, her SPD/PAR causing move actually does great damage for me while keeping foes locked down somewhat while her Chen/Ran related move is nigh on useless for me unless I'm fighting 1 foe and even then I prefer the SPD/PAR move for dmg-to-cost. 2000~ or so for an extra, what, 38 SP? I don't find that worthwhile. I thought I should mention my personal experience with using that char.

Spoiler:

Is the 1st Bloody Seal boss something that needs spoiler marking, or no? I mean if I were to call it "1st Bloody Seal boss". It's fought on 1F, but is optional, thus why I am asking.

[Serela]

NeoSerela

Spoiler:

I personaly disagree for the 10F girl, her SPD/PAR causing move actually does great damage for me while keeping foes locked down somewhat while her Chen/Ran related move is nigh on useless for me unless I'm fighting 1 foe and even then I prefer the SPD/PAR move for dmg-to-cost. 2000~ or so for an extra, what, 38 SP? I don't find that worthwhile. I thought I should mention my personal experience with using that char.

Spoiler:

Is the 1st Bloody Seal boss something that needs spoiler marking, or no? I mean if I were to call it "1st Bloody Seal boss". It's fought on 1F, but is optional, thus why I am asking.

Her SPD/PAR move will do good damage against low-MND stuff, yes, but what is more important is how she does against bosses, where she'll probably get more usefulness out of a defensive-stat boost. Random floor trash isn't what should be giving you trouble, after all.

Also, the Ran/Chen move has variable damage formula based on whether Ran/Chen are in the party or not, and if they are in active 4 or the reserve. It's a big bad nuke when both are in the active party, and pretty strong with at least one. Its okay if they're both in reserve, and sucky compared to other moves if you don't use both Ran and Chen.

Either way, in bosses she'll probably just be needed to tank, buff, and use PAR/SPD down all the time anyway.

[mlkio]

You might also want to consider having separate parties for exploring and for boss-fighting, because some characters are definitely better at one than at the other. For example, Marisa slowly loses her worth at random encounters as you encounter tougher ones that resist MYS, and you need your whole team to be launching effective attacks to beat them before they can land a hit; being a single-element user makes that hard for her. Despite that, nothing beats her for bosses that you need to take down quickly after a certain HP threshold, so she sees a lot of action then. Similiarly,

Spoiler:

Orin

absolutely wipes the floor with most random encounters with a really powerful multi-target attack and a decent backup if it's not effective, but she's quite lacking for bosses. It eventually got to the point where for me, my boss-fighting team and exploring team only shared 2-3 members between them (usually Reimu, Chen and maybe another DD).

This worked well for me since I liked quite a lot of characters and gladly took the opportunity to use them all and give them some battle time where it be for exploring or for bosses. The only pain was constantly reassigning equipment, but you need to do that for most bosses anyway. YMMV of course, but it could be something to consider.

Spoiler:

You might want to just use cirno, reimu, iku and kaguya/patchy. The mass majority of enemies can be double par and the ones who can't will already be slower then kaguya.

[/quote]

[AlexX Unlimited]

You may want to consider kicking out

Spoiler:

Eirin, as your party isn't exactly on the high end of the HP scale, so her % heal isn't quite as important.  If you had Komachi, dropping Eirin would be the worst thing you could do, but you don't use her - only Meiling on your party will really benefit from the percentage/overhealing effects, and even then, Meiling can heal herself.
...So Yeah.

Its not just the healing effect, its the fact that it can also heal ABOVE that character's current HP count. Sure, my party isn't on the high end of the HP scale, but I can get them that way with the character in question.

If I don't use her my only other options for slot 2 are another one of my tanks (one of which can still get slaughtered there due to weakness to magic), or one of my two main defense-buffers (since they're my most durable casters). The girl in question has the resources to stay there and keep everyone at full speed, including herself. Furthermore, not using her means greenbitch has to do the heavy healing all by her lonesome, so if I end up losing her I'm left with Meiling as my lone source of healing, and she can't heal other people if she's busy healing herself.

Remi would be a great replacement. Her HP/Atk/Def/Mnd/Spd are all wonderful, and she has a +60% Atk/Def/Mnd self-buff. Meiling or resistance equipment can take care of it's side effects.

Rest assured if I wanted to use Remilia I would be doing so.

Also, I have no plans to use the 16F character you mentioned. I know she's great and all, but keep in mind I seem to be the only one not using the 15F one, either.

There is a huge difference in power between wiggle's poison and yuugi's poison.

Is there a way to tell how effective poison is? If there is I haven't figured it out, yet...

Consider using morikko or what her name is

Minoriko can't heal status effects, nor can she do anywhere near the damage greenbitch can, not to mention her affinities are a lot worse. Her main appeal is cheaper spells and lower delay, but the green one doesn't run out of SP much these days and I have more than one healer to deal with the delay.

[MysTeariousYukari]

When it comes to healing I use Reimu or Meiling or

Spoiler:

Sanae

but mostly Reimu and Meiling, all of which can heal decent amounts of HP with their healing moves. Yes this includes Meilings Healer, which heals my chars for sumthin like 2500~ HP.

[AlexX Unlimited]

When it comes to healing I use Reimu or Meiling or

Spoiler:

Sanae

but mostly Reimu and Meiling, all of which can heal decent amounts of HP with their healing moves. Yes this includes Meilings Healer, which heals my chars for sumthin like 2500~ HP.

Unfortunetly, my Meiling is loaded up on equips that increase her defenses and status resistances, so mine only heals 900 HP on a good day.

Compare this to the green one, who can easily heal 3500-4500 HP (and what do you know? Most of my party's max HP is in that range).

EDIT:

You might also want to consider having separate parties for exploring and for boss-fighting, because some characters are definitely better at one than at the other.

While a great idea, skillpoints are running pretty short right now since I had to spend quite a number to get my two new party members up to par. Training some more characters is going to require a lot more time and effort when I'm probably already behind with my current party (most are in the 40-45 range for their best stats, but nobody is higher than that).

[MysTeariousYukari]

Well, for the record the number I gave was from my file which is at 19F. My Meiling is equiped for HP ATK and DEF, focusing on HP and DEF mostly.

Something I noticed:

Spoiler:

When I went to level Rinnosuke up from level 1 to level 88, I saw that the level up lady said "lady Rinnosuke", in fact the exact ingame line right now is "I'm terribly sorry, to level up, lady Rinnosuke still needs 159368 more EXP..."

The point of this? "lady Rinnosuke"

[AlexX Unlimited]

Something I noticed:

Spoiler:

When I went to level Rinnosuke up from level 1 to level 88, I saw that the level up lady said "lady Rinnosuke", in fact the exact ingame line right now is "I'm terribly sorry, to level up, lady Rinnosuke still needs 159368 more EXP..."

The point of this? "lady Rinnosuke"

Spoiler:

Give the woman a break. Its like 49 girls and one guy. =|

[Serela]

Spoiler:

Give the woman a break. Its like 49 girls and one guy. =|

Spoiler:

Maybe Rinnosuke is secretly a woman, and just has an exceedingly flat chest.

[mlkio]

Is there a way to tell how effective poison is? If there is I haven't figured it out, yet...
Minoriko can't heal status effects, nor can she do anywhere near the damage greenbitch can, not to mention her affinities are a lot worse. Her main appeal is cheaper spells and lower delay, but the green one doesn't run out of SP much these days and I have more than one healer to deal with the delay.

Trial and error on how much hp a mob has and then trying out everyone poison to see how fast it takes to kill them. It shouldn't be that important for minoriko to heal status effects since hong can. The main appeal of minoriko is that she is more durable and faster. In addition, because her spells are cheaper, she's more effective against dijinn storms. Also you really should consider the fl 15 girl. She's like a more powerful more durable patchy.

[Serela]

Also you really should consider the fl 15 girl. She's like a more powerful more durable patchy.

That girl does as much damage as your other nukers will with a 100% Atk buff, except she doesn't need any buff at all to do it. And I'm not talking about her Action-Gauge-draining nuke either. And if you DO buff her Atk, its just... damn.

[AlexX Unlimited]

Trial and error on how much hp a mob has and then trying out everyone poison to see how fast it takes to kill them.

I'll take your word for it, but I don't really have any interest in using either of those girls, so I'll just forget about status effects.

It shouldn't be that important for minoriko to heal status effects since hong can.

Multiple healers are important, because Hong might have to heal herself first (since odds are she's in the first slot) while the other, who is likely to be in the back row, can take care of others first.

The main appeal of minoriko is that she is more durable and faster.

My stats seem to indicate she has better MND, but less DEF. She has clearly less magic though, and she's not faster, she just has less delay in her moves.

In addition, because her spells are cheaper, she's more effective against dijinn storms.

Haven't run into those yet. Don't they just deplete the SP of the current active party?

Also you really should consider the fl 15 girl. She's like a more powerful more durable patchy.

Wiki states that her MND is nowhere near as good as Patchy's, and her defense is about as terrible. =| I also don't like moves that damage the user or reduce the team's active gauges. She has no stable attacks whatsoever.

[Serela]

My stats seem to indicate she has better MND, but less DEF. She has clearly less magic though, and she's not faster, she just has less delay in her moves.
Haven't run into those yet. Don't they just deplete the SP of the current active party?
Wiki states that her MND is nowhere near as good as Patchy's, and her defense is about as terrible. =| I also don't like moves that damage the user or reduce the team's active gauges. She has no stable attacks whatsoever.

About Minoriko's MAG stat; it doesn't matter that its lower. Her heal recovers a significantly larger amount of HP anyway, and her Falling Leaves of Madness ignores almost all MND, making it good for attacking things that take 0 damage from everything else.

Also, the two of them have the same speed, but Minoriko's delays will make a pretty big difference in how much they get to act. A really big difference.

Djinn Storm drains everyone's SP to 0. EVERYONE.

And the thing about 15F girl is that in the amount of time she spams her attack that hurts herself (For the love of god don't use the others outside of random trash nuke), she'll likely do more damage then any other single character will do for the rest of the battle. She also has quite great HP, so she still takes hits okay despite her stats; if you have someone healing her she can last quite a while. Not that you NEED to use her or anything, but she's pretty awesome.

[Milkyway64]

Haven't run into those yet. Don't they just deplete the SP of the current active party?
Wiki states that her MND is nowhere near as good as Patchy's, and her defense is about as terrible. =| I also don't like moves that damage the user or reduce the team's active gauges. She has no stable attacks whatsoever.

First, Djinn storm does exactly that, plus the 8 in reserve, too. :/

Second, fl15 girl is PLENTY stable and contender for best character in the game. Active guage reduction doesn't mean much when everything is DEAD,  and it the sheer power of the bottom one especially makes it more than worth it for bosses if you're sure you can live. However, her first spell I find is better. With a healer on board, say, Reimu, there is very little penalty for it since most things that hit her will either kill her off outright or barely scratch her provided she's in the back. With even just three castings of it + a 100% buff, you'll do so much damage that including her in the party will be more than worth it.

She is so much better when you see her for what she is, a suicide bomber, rather than trying to look at her like everyone else.

[AlexX Unlimited]

About Minoriko's MAG stat; it doesn't matter that its lower. Her heal recovers a significantly larger amount of HP anyway, and her Falling Leaves of Madness ignores almost all MND, making it good for attacking things that take 0 damage from everything else.

Are you sure it recovers that much more? The moment I got greenbitch on my team I noticed she was healing everyone for a lot more, even without much skillpoint investment.

Djinn Storm drains everyone's SP to 0. EVERYONE.

Then I'll need to give everyone a decent SP recovery rate, won't I?

And the thing about 15F girl is that in the amount of time she spams her attack that hurts herself (For the love of god don't use the others outside of random trash nuke), she'll likely do more damage then any other single character will do for the rest of the battle. She also has quite great HP, so she still takes hits okay despite her stats; if you have someone healing her she can last quite a while. Not that you NEED to use her or anything, but she's pretty awesome.

I don't like her instability, low defenses mean her HP is going to be dropping like a rock (hence one of the reasons I chose to drop deathbitch), and the character has never appealed to me anyhow.

That said, I do think the creators probably favored her when they designed her. Why does she have more base fire defense than BOTH my most recent party members COMBINED? Especially when one is associated with fire much more than she is (and that's REALLY saying something).

EDIT:

She is so much better when you see her for what she is, a suicide bomber, rather than trying to look at her like everyone else.

I DO see her that way, and that's percisely why I don't like it. I want a character who can last me the whole fight, even if they're weak (hence why I was using Chen for the longest time, and only dropped her because the one replacing her is someone I've wanted since before I started playing).

My goal here is to avoid as much casulty as humanly possible. 15F girl isn't really good for that.

[Serela]

That said, I do think the creators probably favored her when they designed her. Why does she have more base fire defense than BOTH my most recent party members COMBINED? Especially when one is associated with fire much more than she is (and that's REALLY saying something).

She also has basically the worst affinity in the game on everything OTHER then FIR  :V

Are you sure it recovers that much more? The moment I got greenbitch on my team I noticed she was healing everyone for a lot more, even without much skillpoint investment.

Yes, it definitely should be. Green's will be healing for about 3/4 of good-hp-growth characters max hp around the final boss, so it doesn't matter a ton then, but it probably becomes more significant in Plus Disk.

[AlexX Unlimited]

She also has basically the worst affinity in the game on everything OTHER then FIR  :V

They're terrible, I admit that, but I've run into a number of bosses that use exclusively fire and only recall Cirno being an exclusive-element boss specializing in something else, so she seems to specialize in the one that matters most.

That said, I admit she's still not very durable overall, though I still object to the statement she's more durable than Patchy since Patchy can tank magic attacks just fine.

Yes, it definitely should be. Green's will be healing for about 3/4 of good-hp-growth characters max hp around the final boss, so it doesn't matter a ton then, but it probably becomes more significant in Plus Disk.

Luckily skillpoints fix everything. =V Naw, I'm just playing around, though I doubt I'll be doing too much plusdisk stuff anyhow, if only due to the sheer amount of grind required, though if I do I should be able to do a number of things to keep her a reasonable healer. Admittanly, if I had room I'd be using both, but since I really don't I'd rather go with the one I like.

[Serela]

I'm a bit sad to say I didn't really do any Post-game stuff except a handful of Mark.2 bosses, after my first playthrough... but I hear that there isn't a whole bunch of grind until you hit 30F in Plus Disk, and that its okay until then.

Blah, I'll probably be replacing a third of my team after I beat the final boss this second playthrough. All the skillpoints... ;-;  At the 12F boss now, so the most agonizing part is behind me... I guess. 18 and 19F by themselves are nearly as bad as doing 10~12F, both taking forever and one being quite irritating about it, but at least at that point I'll be like "YEAH ALMOST AT THE END!".

[AlexX Unlimited]

Who did you use first playthrough and who are you using now?