Labyrinth of Touhou 9F

[Ghaleon]

his post said MAG on Ran at the time of my response and I never said anything about raising Attack over Magic, so o:

*looks up*.. word.. I could have SWORN it said atk, and it doesn't say post edit. My derp, sorry.

[Validon98]

I would have posted this earlier if it weren't for the fact that my school now suddenly blocks MoTK. V_V
I decided instead of going straight for beating Floor 18, I would go back and beat up the bosses I missed and recruit some of the characters I didn't do before. Triomagen was a pushover, but then I got to Flandre... THAT was something. I was down to only Komachi as a damage-dealer (all of my other nukers were dead). Komachi and Flandre both had their gauges filled, but Komachi went first. I got off a Scythe That Chooses the Dead... and beat Flandre. THAT was too close for comfort. But regardless, I have Flandre now! Hopefully this will make grinding F18 easier.

[Ghaleon]

I didn't even know Triomagen was skippable.

[Validon98]

I didn't even know Triomagen was skippable.

It's only required if you want some treasure and Flandre. In fact, Great Stamp is also skippable.

[Raikaria]

It's only required if you want some treasure and Flandre. In fact, Great Stamp is also skippable.

Which means it's required to access +Disc content.

[I have no name]

Not sure where I should put this, if anywhere (maybe Akyuu's idk but it's relevant to this game only) but in somewhere around 10-11 hours I'm going to be streaming a speedrun attempt for this game.  We'll see how it goes, going from New Game to Maribel defeated as quickly as I can -without- gratuitous save abuse to manipulate things (like the segmented run I'm still working on albeit slower) will be an interesting experience.

If you're interested I'll be live here probably around 9 PM EST.


Oh, and if that's entirely off topic the draft run I took part in is right before the Iron Maze, I don't want to proceed into it yet since I don't remember when I'm supposed to fight Sanae's Foe and don't want to end up overleveled (Reimu is level 38 at the moment-should I be considering taking on Sanae's Foe now?)

[Serela]

Which means it's required to access +Disc content.

By this point, the "optional" bosses are painfully easy anyway.

[Validon98]

By this point, the "optional" bosses are painfully easy anyway.

Haha, yeah. I think at this point even though Great Stamp gave me trouble before, I should be able to cream it. I mean, I am Reimu 89 right now. I still don't think this is enough to take care of Rinnosuke (I haven't even really explored F18 yet, just used it for grinding), but I'm getting to that point. I think.
Also, even though I've been afraid of exploring the actual dungeon for treasure, I have a plan. That plan is to stick Chen in my party, load up on TP boosting items, and run like hell. It's kind of pointless to try to maintain a fighting party when I've been using said fighting party to grind (and said fighting party relies completely on Thundercloud Stickleback+Lavaetein, which only allows 1-2 battles per run, so... yeah).

[Ghaleon]

I just explore and the "Grinding" happens as a sideeffect...I thought that's what everyone does until they brickwall at a boss.
As for cootiesuke, he wasn't that hard for me. Just be aware that his very first phase is his most dangerous (other than the last, which is only a problem if he buffs). I forget the name, but that nuke he does also seems very powerful at the start, but it's composite, so reimu defensive buffs nerf its damage dramatically. Just hope he doesn't do that move right at the very beginning since that will happen before anyone moves.  After that, the only threats should be ratsetsu fist and Iai slash, neither of which are really scary by themselves so much as hope he doesn't spam them =P.

[DarkAtma]

how good is cirno? i need a water character to fit the motif :3

[Ghaleon]

Not good... Shes squishy, all her attacks are composite... And not strong to boot.
Shes pretty much only good for fast aoe trash paring, which reimu seems fast enough for, and mysia is simply better at. And boss spd debuffing, which is great when it works, but many resist so yeah.

[Nerv-Faktor]

Does anyone know the keystring DXAdecode needs to decode the .dxa files of LoT?
Or any other simple method to edit the game files and extract bgm.dxa and img.dxa?

I'm mainly trying to change the bgm filenames so I can create a mix of some bgms I like from the original game and take the rest from the special disk instead of having to choose one or the other.

[I have no name]

speedrun attempt for this game.  We'll see how it goes

and Eientei wrecked me.  Repeatedly.  It's been so long since I played that part I wasted an hour running around the Iron Maze, then couldn't work out a way to defeat Eientei.  So...how are you supposed to beat them without PAR-hax, again?

[DarkAtma]

Spam AOE nukes until kaguya or eirin dies, kill the other quickly and finish off reisen

[Serela]

Why wouldn't you have par spam anyway

Although, yes, you have to kill the other ASAP once you beat one, and you'd want to be using AoE mostly. Their differing stats make out Royal Flare to damage them proportionately, for example, but whatever you have. You certainly can't tank the nuke in a speedrun setting, I imagine.

[Validon98]

Man, Eientei was so long ago for me... Serela's right, though. If you kill either Eirin or Kaguya, kill the other one or you'll get nuked.
As for me I went back and grabbed all of the treasures I missed on F15-F18, beat Great Stamp, and I'm grinding BP so I can fight Kaguya's Foe. After that, I just need to take care of Orin and I think I'll be ready for Rinnosuke (I'm at Reimu 90 right now, so... yeah)!

[I have no name]

Why wouldn't you have par spam anyway

Although, yes, you have to kill the other ASAP once you beat one, and you'd want to be using AoE mostly. Their differing stats make out Royal Flare to damage them proportionately, for example, but whatever you have. You certainly can't tank the nuke in a speedrun setting, I imagine.

Implying you can PAR lock them the entire fight.
I even brought Cirno back and did try to PAR spam, but Eirin and Kaguya are too resistant for it to be reliable.  My main problem was surviving their attacks (3 AoE moves on my party wrecked it and my only choice was to bring in Komachi to spam Narrow Confines and pray for PAR lock on Kaguya).  Patchy was nuking very effectively until she inevitably got combo-ed to death.
Funnily enough Hourai barrage/Astronomical Entombing are survivable if Meiling or Komachi has a Zodiac Stone equipped.  Conveniently there's 2 available to be picked up before the fight, 3 if you count the Disgusting Malice drop.  I know this because I had one attempt where Kaguya used Hourai Barrage and it dealt 2.2k to Meiling, who had 3.5k HP.  I was able to take out Eirin on one attempt, but then I got wiped by Mind Starmine+Fire Rats Robe.

[Ghaleon]

the par is meant for reisen, notsomuch the other 2. If you par them, cool, but certainly don't count on it.
Also narrow confines debuffs stats doesn't it? I forget... Generally doing that is bad on entei cuz unlocks kaggy's stone bowl move which is uncool.

[Serela]

Yeah, you can't use Narrow Confines. Is it even a good idea to bother unlocking Komachi in a speedrun?

Cirno has a different helpfulness in Icicle Fall, in any case. They all have zero debuff resistance. You can inflict SPD -50% on two of them, and at this point in the game it should actually cut their speed in half (As opposed to later where it's a lot less then half in effect)

You can't use it on all of them or you start getting Stone Bowl spam, of course.

[I have no name]

I only started using Narrow Confines when I kneww if I -didn't- get ultra lucky with PAR spam I'd lost anyway, so it was trying to make a bad situation better by almost definitely hastening my demise.

I completely forgot about Icicle Fall.  This has given me a new strategy idea that I will totally work into the next attempt...which will also coe after I make more maps and stuff.  Flying blind past 16F in terms of where to go would really start to suck, and not knowing where anything was slowed me down a lot (especially on the Failsafe Locks, have an hour to save there on my partial splits lol)

[chirpy13]

Something I just noticed a minute ago, some 7F enemies are dying when they shouldn't and not dying when they should.  These guys in particular.  They have 1000 HP according to the bestiary in the database folder and Ran's usually hitting in the 950-1050 range on them, sometimes killing them with hits under under 1000 and sometimes not killing them with hits over.  Biggest difference I've seen is a non-kill at 1053 damage.  Is there some mechanic that randomly sets enemy HP within a certain range (maybe up to +-10%) when the battle starts or something?

[I have no name]

That might be it, I've had Ice Elementals on 2F survive a 400+ damage but die to a 393 Royal Flare.  I thought it was just the displayed damage value sometimes was incorrect.

[Serela]

I've heard that the displayed damage differing -slightly- from actual damage is a known glitch.

[Validon98]

I've heard that the displayed damage differing -slightly- from actual damage is a known glitch.

It's not "slightly." It's a variance up to 10% higher or lower than the displayed damage.
Also, I've beaten every single boss I could before Rinnosuke. I haven't checked Reimu's level, but I think it's like 92 or 93 or something. I'll keep grinding a bit on Floor 18 before taking down Rinnosuke. This is going to suck.
EDIT: Oh my god. How the hell do you do this? Just... gah. Kourin is a bastard. I've only been able to get him to a different form once. ONCE. How high of a level do you have to be to reasonably take him on?

[Raikaria]

Totally depends on your party.

He's completely immune to debuffs, which is a pain.

[Validon98]

Totally depends on your party.

He's completely immune to debuffs, which is a pain.

I know he's immune to debuffs, but, uh... define "totally depends on your party." This is a normal run, so I have every character you can get before him.

[Zil]

Isn't he like really weak? I recall him doing all 0's, all the time. Keep you're defense buffs high I guess. He also inflicts some ailments but you should be mostly immune by now, I should think.

[Raikaria]

I know he's immune to debuffs, but, uh... define "totally depends on your party." This is a normal run, so I have every character you can get before him.

Well, aside from characters with debuffs having issues:

You need the potential to quickly get down his no-elemental forms, as these are the most dangerous, they are effectively a damage race
You need good elemental resists
You need a variety of elemental damage to take advantage of his shifting weaknesses
Strong buffs are always a plus
You need a bit of luck that he dosen't use his most dangerous attacks.

Tenshi can have issues because he has a strong Def-Ignore nuke.

I guess it's better for you to post who you are using.

[Validon98]

Uh... for damage I've been going with Nitori, Suwako, Suika, Yuugi, Patchy, and Marisa. The thing is they all freaking die in the first form, and of course it's REALLY hard to pull them out there because then a Start of Heavenly Demise will come out of nowhere and fuck me over. For tanks I've used Meiling and Tenshi, but then I scraped Tenshi for Komachi. Not sure if that's the best plan. I also have Reimu for defensive buffs, Minoriko for healing (though I assume she's useless), Iku and Ran for buffing... and that's pretty much it. It's the best party I honestly have. Of course, I don't think being at Reimu 92 is enough, huh?
Also, he's NOT weak, Zil. How long was it since you last fought him?

[Zil]

Over a year probably.

But I'm sure I'm remembering right. Start of Heavenly demise always did 0, (cause it's composite, IIRC). I beat him the first time I ran into him, and I'm certain I wasn't overleveled or anything, since I never did any grinding.

I mean, my team was extremely defense oriented (which is ideal IMO). Reimu and Yukari with MND builds, using the defensive buffs. Meiling and Remilia, both DEF builds. The only character I lost in that fight was Patchouli, IIRC.

I remember a discussion about Rinnosuke coming up some time ago and a number of people also said Heavenly Demise should do no damage. I think his biggest threat is the fist thing that ignores defense.