Labyrinth of Touhou 4F

[IBakaChan]

Time to start playing this again.
Mainly for the purpose of

Spoiler:

Utsuho and Yuka being in the PlusDisk section, Kaguya, Eirin and Mokou being not that far away, and the fact that I'm pretty much done with 7F(Which wasn't so hard with a little map beside me...)

[Ghaleon]

true, this game is becoming an ass with the constant puzzles thrown at me
i'm more of a "rush to the boss, beat him down, go on" player...at F13, I just want to finish the game and go on.

how many lolmandatorypuzzle floors left?

IIRC, if 13F is that stupid fake-binary crap, that's the worst of them all IMO. After that there really isn't anything half as bad as it (or 10f-12f). I dunno wtf pesco is smoking listing all those other floors as puzzles. they're just mazes.. Except for 18F which is kind of a 1-way maze with a goback to start you took the wrong turn twist kind of deal...

Seriously though Pesco, how are those floors puzzles *boggle*.

the enemies 1 hit Tenshi and I barely escape randoms with 1 character?
what the hell whoever developed this game

Those fast-moving swordfish? Yeah they suck. They are my least fave trash in the game. There are other mobs with cheap things (blacknmels or whatever come to mind, or was it helbelmeres? I forget, one of them), but from this point on trash WILL be much harder. Personally I think that's what makes the game great. RPG games are too often completely pointless in terms of trash, no challege whatsoever. In laby I enjoy a good trash fight as much as a good boss fight in some games.

You should play Etrian Odyssey. :V

You know I played 1, and now I JUUUST reached the 4th zone in 2... I must say I prefer labyrinth much much more. Especially early game. It's pretty funny though, I just beat scylla with little difficulty, walk into 16F, try to take on one of those FOE turtles, it casts "fangs", and 1shots my entire party for 400+ damage (even my protector got 1shot). wut? I mean I know that FOES aren't really designed to be something you attack on purpose unless you're fairly high level, but I figure that a regular non-red foe 10 steps away from a stratum boss would be doable. but no. At least with laby when trash is brutal, it only 1 shots 1 character, or only does a huge nuke AFTER you get to do something to kill it/flee.

EDIT: fuck this game
up to F12 no problems

F13 has rape randoms and more retarded puzzles
So I skip F13

F14:
ether flare
game over

random battle
everything outspeeds me
game over

labyrinth of touhou
more like chore of grind

13F sucks. it's my least fave floor, I just cheat and use the wiki, you should too. Even when I do that it still sucks. The swordfish suck, the puzzle sucks, exploring is boring, and the encounter rate is annoyingly high. Stupid stupid floor.

14F is not easy but it should be doable. If you got 1shot by an ether flare the following is likely the cause:
1: You said you skipped 13F, which means you're probably below level, I don't know exactly what you mean by skip....You do not have to intentionally level up by 14F, but I rekon it hurts if you skip a floor.
2: Ether flare is actually the nastiest mnd-oriented generic spell in the game. Characters with high-mnd and decent hp (or maybe just high mnd like patch, it depends on her gear and skill levels though) should survive.  The thing is though at that point you really have to CHANGE YOUR PARTY FORMATION based on each floor, no more stock formations that you explore for every floor, you MUST re-balance your formation to accomodate for all the trash in that floor, is there an enemy that can rape your face? Find a party that can either survive it, or one that is capable of nuking that enemy right away.
3: Sometimes running away is the best option. See an enemy you can't handle? run. You should be able ot take it on when you're halfway past the floor...You really shouldn't have to though. But since this game has a 100% success rate on running, it's not a good idea to ignore it completely.

labyrinth of touhou
more like chore of grind

I never grinded until 16F on my first playthru, and that was before some facts were known about the boss, stat mechanics, etc. Some people who have played after the wiki got info got as far as 18F (who coincidently was easy as @%#@%#@ for me, might have been from the leveling I did for 16F though). Fact is you're playing wrong.

If you want an RPG to be easy, don't play this one, I think anybody could have told you that.

I spent no points on speed Ha ha, old chap!

That's like complaining that Dodonpachi is impossible because you refuse to push the up button.

Maybe you won't this time, if that special disk really drops the grind wall in the second half like they promised.

Man I'm so looking forward to seeing that.
I'm also interested in the new music selection. I really like the game's music, and I'd love to see moar form them. Those things alone make it well worth the cost it will be, but at the same time I expect they'll have something else that will make it even better. Screw the new portraits and junk. Boo.

[Garlyle]

You know I played 1, and now I JUUUST reached the 4th zone in 2... I must say I prefer labyrinth much much more. Especially early game. It's pretty funny though, I just beat scylla with little difficulty, walk into 16F, try to take on one of those FOE turtles, it casts "fangs", and 1shots my entire party for 400+ damage (even my protector got 1shot). wut? I mean I know that FOES aren't really designed to be something you attack on purpose unless you're fairly high level, but I figure that a regular non-red foe 10 steps away from a stratum boss would be doable. but no. At least with laby when trash is brutal, it only 1 shots 1 character, or only does a huge nuke AFTER you get to do something to kill it/flee.

That's mostly because FOEs in EO1 were actually not threatening at all if you were handling your party right - hell I started deliberately seeking out FOE fights in the aftergame stratum because they were long fights where I could safely use Relaxing to walk out with more TP than I started the fight with, even after heailng and stuff.

In EO2, they wanted FOEs to actually be threats, so they are, in most cases, as challenging as the bosses of a given stratum, and no longer give EXP - only parts drops (Which can be used to make stuff far above your current power if you should succeed, mind).  The hardest boss, from what I remember, is actually an FOE that appears fairly regularly on the bonus stratum; not the superboss.  @_@

Ah, but I guess this isn't an EO discussion topic, is it?

[Bananamatic]

so how high up should I level speed? so far no problems, but at F13 almost everything outspeeds me

[Gharlam]

so how high up should I level speed? so far no problems, but at F13 almost everything outspeeds me

Can't quite remember what I had, but I do remember using Marisa and Reimu, and having them sped up like fuck, usually was enough to deal with most trash in one turn and they had enough speed to at least take a turn before the normal-speed enemies. If speedy enemies are a huge problem, try using chen to deal with them, if she has enough ATK for it.

[Serela]

so how high up should I level speed? so far no problems, but at F13 almost everything outspeeds me

It really depends on the character. With Chen, for example, Atk and Spd are her most important stats, and should be leveled up with their SKP costs roughly equal. With Patch, since her spd growth is so terrible, the % bonus from SKP levels hardly amounts to anything, so you shouldn't put very many levels into it; although when it's comparatively cheap to level, you still should. Basically, the better a character's SPD growth is, the more helpful it'll be to put more levels into their SPD. That's how it works with all the stats, really.

Keep in mind boosting SPD makes a big difference at first, since having 200 SPD means you get to act TWICE as much as if you had 100 speed, and 300 means 2.5 times as much as having 100 SPD. After that the difference isn't as large (2.75x as fast at 400 SPD, etc), but still important for getting the first move in randoms.

Taking along a character with great SPD in your active party when you can is a great idea for this floor. If you can get one character to outspeed the swordfish (whether by equips and/or skillpoints in SPD) and can kill them before they move, you'll cut your losses considerably.

[LHCling]

As a general rule, you pump speed into the MookRolling Team until 3-4 of them can outspeed most enemies in battle. The ones that you shouldn't really be outspeeding (unless you say, invest for some extra speed with Chen; which I do) are the really fast ones. So put simply, you pump SPD with SKP until you start outspeeding them  :V

Chen is fast enough to outspeed most if not all enemies, but the problem lies in actually clearing multiple enemies in the same encounter. Chen unfortunately, isn't exactly good at doing this as her only multi-target Spell is a Row type, meaning that the damage to the enemy team will vary based on their position. Of course, this usually means those pesky 1-2 enemies in the "back" end up surviving. Picking off 1, maybe 2 is done easily enough though.

Cut: I don't think it's even worth investing into Patchy's SPD. Then again, I don't use her so I could be wrong here  :V

[Serela]

Oh, about Chen; you might consider giving her SP boosting equipment and having her just cast Kimontonkou (which lets her basically INSTANTLY move again) if she can't 0hko the desired targets. With her high SP recovery on focus/reserve, it's more affordable to do then you think.

I mean, such a strategy works wonders against bosses, I swear she has better DPS on the last few maingame floors then anyone else :derp:

[Bananamatic]

how exactly does F13 work anyways
I activate 1,2 and 4(which should be 11) and get warped into a completely different place

[Serela]

You might have one of the other switches still left on. They stay activated when you go to Gensokyo and such. Or perhaps where you were told 11 would go is just wrong, that happens sometimes. Although it's probably just a different switch accidentally left on.

[Bananamatic]

halfway through F14, levels 50-57

and some people were 90-100 at F16
how much grinding am I going to have to do ;_;

[Serela]

90 at 16F
what

Reimu lv80 is a rather high point to beat 16F boss at, you should beat her earlier then that, especially if you bring in NTR nukers, MAG/SPG debuffers, and

Spoiler:

Kaguya

. Heck, 18F boss can be easily handled at Reimu lv95, aka can be done at a lower level then that.

[Esoterica]

halfway through F14, levels 50-57

and some people were 90-100 at F16
how much grinding am I going to have to do ;_;

I've only got level 78 Reimu at 18F :V

[Bananamatic]

14F miniboss is already a bit too hard
lv48-58

paralyzing it with the F7 debuff works well while I F8 buff Patchouli and spam Silent Selene, he uses Cry of Anguish, Patchouli gets completely disabled, so I try to tank it with 10F while doing hit/run with Chen, but at some point F10 gets paralyzed, poisoned and finished with 300 dmg ether flare(100% buff, 3,3k magic resistance, 350 SPI resistance)

should I just F8 paralyze spam it to death?

[Gharlam]

14F miniboss is already a bit too hard
lv48-58

paralyzing it with the F7 debuff works well while I F8 buff Patchouli and spam Silent Selene, he uses Cry of Anguish, Patchouli gets completely disabled, so I try to tank it with 10F while doing hit/run with Chen, but at some point F10 gets paralyzed, poisoned and finished with 300 dmg ether flare(100% buff, 3,3k magic resistance, 350 SPI resistance)

should I just F8 paralyze spam it to death?

If your 8F has enough SP and ATK, go for it, cheap as hell if the boss is vulnerable to it but meh, whatever works. Also, a tip for such a strategy would be to bring Aya to speedbuff 8F so even if one PAR misses, you'll get a second chance at it. Worked very well for me on the floors before everyone got PAR and debuff immune, the pricks.

[Ghaleon]

You should NOT ignore patchy's speed stat. It's just too useful a stat to ignore. Not only that but because  the 100 speed from 100-200 is as significant as  the 400 speed from 700-1100, investing in patchy's speed for 10 levels will actually net you nearly the same bar-filling increase as it would chen.

Regarding the swodfish... I personally never am able to outspeed AND kill them until I'm far into the floor, when Marisa starts to outspeed them if I gear her up right.

[Serela]

Give 10F girl items to increase her status resistance, this makes her much more usable. There's a Ribbon on 13F, right? Use the wiki to grab that and throw it on her. Also, 8F Healer girl's heal will remove debuffs and status effects, so Patchouli being "completely disabled" doesn't mean she's useless. Unless completely disabled is codename for dead.

And yes, 8F Paralyze abuse is quite effective. Her PAR is 3 times stronger then Reimu/Cirno/16F's, and I think 7F's PAR is even weaker.

[Bananamatic]

the problem is, 8F drops way too fast or she gets paralyzed/silenced along with Patchy :V

[MysTeariousYukari]

Anyone who complains about grinding, go play a Nippon Ichi game, all of them involve mass grinding. Example, you might have a party of 40s-55s for the final boss of an NI game when you need 85s-100s, this is the point many people start using only 1-3 characters rather then 8-10, faster to grind(Exp is awarded upon killing an enemy, and only the person who got the kill gets the exp, in a SRPG). Then you need to go from that to 2500-3500 for the ultimate opponent. The variable in level is based on party and how many chars you will use.

Grinding 5-10 levels every few floors in thLabyrinth is not much in comparison.

[Bananamatic]

looked at these games, dunno what is with all the disgaea hype
overcomplicated huge number filled grindish clusterfuck

if a game doesn't offer you a way to get around at lower levels with a proper strategy, it's automatically a horrible game tbh

fuck, it isn't a game, it's a gigantic time drain with zero fun

[MysTeariousYukari]

looked at these games, dunno what is with all the disgaea hype
overcomplicated huge number filled grindish clusterfuck

if a game doesn't offer you a way to get around at lower levels with a proper strategy, it's automatically a horrible game tbh

fuck, it isn't a game, it's a gigantic time drain with zero fun

"huge numbers" is part of the reason people love it, along with the attacks being flashy, Marisa herself once said "Danmaku is all about power" and "it's not magic if it's not flashy"... now Disgaea isn't magic heavy like touhou, but the basics still apply. It's pretty nice for some people, to smack a demonic-penguin suit for multi-millions of damage while creating explosions comparable to a freakin Nuke!. The games also always give a method to deal with the massive grind, some better then others, and I'm certain that all of them provide a way to deal with the 50-100 grind, killings 99s(many NI games feature a glitch of sorts that makes Lv 99s gives the exp of enemies in the mid-upper 300s). The grind isn't outragous for the most part, but looking at the numbers, it seems insane and ridiculous.

[Bananamatic]

why is it a "strategy" rpg when it REQUIRES grinding

it's just an offline MMO lol

[MysTeariousYukari]

why is it a "strategy" rpg when it REQUIRES grinding

it's just an offline MMO Ha ha, old chap!

Requires, no. You can beat the final while in the 40-55 range, just grinding obviously helps when your foe is level 90. For the thousand range, thats post-game stuff, which is built on insane stats.

But on topic, I tired some more labyrinth and the game crashed due to freaking Master Spark! D:< I can't get anywhere without god mode lag D:<

[Bananamatic]

is Master Spark all that good? it can't compare to Silent Selene and it can be used only once in a few turns

so basically, is Marisa just a mook roller?

[Serela]

Master Spark is rape. If you use it right.

You're supposed to buff her MAG up 80~100% first, which she can do herself with Concentrate. This takes advantage of the MAG x 8 in the formula (most attacks have like ATK or MAG x2 or 2.5, with nukes being like x 3)

Plus, for every 180 SP Marisa has, the final damage is increased by 10%, up to a max of 200%.

And it only takes one turn. Then you can switch her out, and when she's recovered her SP, bring her out and she does it again.

Rape.

It's also nearly mandatory to finish off several bosses final phases.

[MysTeariousYukari]

Master Spark can easily hit for a large chunk of a bosses HP if she has the MAG buff in place and full SP. Yes it means she can only use is now and then, but when she can it will WRECK the enemy. At about 14F-16F(I forget when), their is a boss that seems MYS-weak, Spark being capable of 160k~ damage to it without any special grinding. If you are "on par" for level and such that dmg with Spark is easily possilbe. Now it's use does scream "Last-Ditch Nuke" because that is what it does best, your biggest attack

The formula for the dmg on Spark is something like "2 x ((MAG x 8 ) - (T-MND / 2))"... Now, I am no Math expert, but that clearly has a lot of potential in it by that alone when one of the strongest nuke spells(other then Spark) is something like "3 x ((MAG x 3) - (T-MND / 2))" Then once you toss in the MAG buff she can use, 5k MAG on Marisa with a +80% buff on a target with 1k MND and no resist or weakness to MYS, you will see around 143k dmg(side note, Magic Missle would deal about 17k in the same example) and the SP modifier just boosts that even further...

If your tl:dr, it's basicly Master Spark = God Nuke.

[Ghaleon]

Master spark is absolutely key really. At your point in the game, it is indeed pretty weak, but as you near the end, and as you progress into the plus disk, it basically makes Marisa a must-have character.  The thing about master spark is that it does more damage as you collect sp (to a cap of 1600 IIRC). So you basically just buff Marisa up, spark, and sit in the sidelines, until you have a good amount of SP again, at w hich point you spark again, repeat. What this does is it basically makes it so Marisa acts as a DPSER in your party without using up one of your 4 slots (for more than a couple turns). The amount of damage she does in those 1 or 2 turns of swapping is way over what anybody else can do in twice as much time.

That and it's pretty much mandatory for those "I'm at 20% health, and I casted focus, and I'll pwn your face if you don't kill me before my next move" bosses.

[MysTeariousYukari]

That and it's pretty much mandatory for those "I'm at 20% health, and I casted focus, and I'll pwn your face if you don't kill me before my next move" bosses.

^ This. Sadly, more then a few bosses will do that, and not all of them are Plus Disk, I can name off three or four that are within the 1st 20 floors that will do this, or something like, Critical HP OMGWTFHAX Nukes.

Spoiler:

Master Light Wings, an optional foe on 1F has Needle Parade as a standard move, and when you can 1st fight him, the start of 1F, it'll be hitting 12k+ easily, and his super move, when you actually are supposed to beat him, does like 15K~ to your party, who would be then taking 3-5k from Needle Parade. Master Light Wings only uses his super move when he is in Critical HP, and he will use it like it's his only move available, so you need to be ready to deal mass dps quickly.

SoYeah.

[Garlyle]

why is it a "strategy" rpg when it REQUIRES grinding

it's just an offline MMO Ha ha, old chap!

You only grind in Disgaea for the aftergame stuff, where yeah, it's built on huge numbers.
The actual main game gives you all the tools necessary to complete the game with a party that's half the level of your opponents, if you're playing smart.
I know someone beat the main game in D1 using a solo Cleric without ever using the shops or repeating stages/doing any extra grinding/etc for chrissakes and that's utterly ridiculous.  Because Clerics are terrible unless they've at least got pupils they can learn offensive magic from...


Also: You should be able to take down 16F's boss at roughly level 60-maximum if you're using your party right, and 18F's boss at about 80-90 maximum.
...And if you can I really suggest doing so.  They're going to make you rage and be hard as heck, but they become awesomely rewarding battles when you actually pull it off.

[Inactive person]

Finally completed the whole F16 map.  That took forever, since I die often from carelessness.  :V