Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 16F

[Validon98]

Well, the items in the middle of page 4 are the stat orbs, they increase stats that have already been boosted by gems to 10 up to 20. The items at the bottom of page 4 and in page 5 are further tiers of skill books. You need to have maxed out the corresponding stat boost skill before learning the next level, which goes as follows:

[X] Boost- five levels, 2 points per level
[X] Second Boost- five levels, 10 points per level
[X] Mega Boost- five levels, 50 points per level

Note that using a stat book like that will permanently move the stat boost skill up one tier unless you use a Tome of Reincarnation.

[Serela]

Yeah, so don't use them until you're ready to -only- have the new version; you probably won't want any Mega Boosts for a long time with that kind of cost!

Effect is doubled (and then tripled) compared to normal boost, so instead of +0.2 you get +0.4 and then +0.6. Same goes for HP boost except double the numbers (since hp boost is normally 0.4). They still aren't as strong as Rinnosuke's High Boosts, which are quadrupled, but Rinnosuke can't upgrade, so theoretically in super-endgame he falls behind- that's some crazy high levels though before the difference would matter at all.

[RegalStar]

His stats are still ahead of the pack though, and unlike in the main game there are subclasses with strong spells for him to use (Murakumo's Blessing gives him half of his LoT1 skillset back, and WINNER gives spells that are probably beyond those), so he really doesn't lose any viability. Not to mention that you won't have mega boosts for a LONG time.

[Nyxnyx]

Thanks for clearing all this up! I used some on Orin along with the awakening gem.

I've been investing in Orin since I like extra attacks and koishi is my fav character so I want to make them work, but not sure how the invest gonna hold up in the end.

What do you mean by not having mega for a LONG time? The item's not in this version yet or is it that rare of a drop?

Also, it seems that once you awaken someone, you can't take back the greater gem? If that is so, awakening someone requires a certain amount of planning before doing so since these gems are more or less really rare.

[RegalStar]

Mega boost cost 50 skill points per level. Maxing one out requires you to spend 250 skill points. Technically you can have a maxed out mega skill somewhere around the big 23-24F/B5-B6F period, but are you going to actually do it?

[elminster1372]

Sorry for going slightly offtopic, but does anybody have experience with Miko? I'm wondering if, with her Maintenance-like skill, she could made for a decent tank despite her inferior stats. I know Renko can be a proficient tank, but her base defensive stats are fairly higher (and I believe she also levels faster), so I'm not sure if Miko would work just as well.

[Serela]

That's not offtopic at all! XD Anyway, I'd compare Miko more to Nitori. Miko has the slowest leveling rate in the game, and her library isn't cheap either, so whilst she can get tanky, I'm a little dubious- especially considering how potent the other tank options already are. More importantly, she doesn't really have any particular talent in supporting, so even if she can match or somewhat surpass other tanks defensively, I'm not sure what the benefit would be... her heal is strange and has a rather steep mp cost, and whilst she boosts the party's buffs after awakening, it works at 50% in the back too (along with being a good bulky attacker who could stay out plenty, far as I can tell) so, why go for a tank?

Nah, she's moreso for bulky offense. Her set of attacks is a little small (at least before awakening boosts one of them into silliness), but that's what subclassing is for, and her awakening makes her REALLY nice looking for the role.

As for the one asking about Orin, she looks like she's got good potential after awakening, and Koishi looks pretty neat as well; if you're using both you might want to bring Utsuho in too eventually, once you can afford to awaken her. Assuming you don't change your mind about Orin, at least. Satori is... I'm not sure. I'm still wondering if using her in an HP build works or not? With the rest of the Earth Spirits team her stats are brought up enough to be good to keep just attacking as normal, I suppose. She's got high natural HP so maybe with a quartz charm and affinity gear she could be a somewhat bulk-ish attacker, and she can subclass for about any element attack for her awakening that heavily boosts weakness damage. Mmn, she just seems like a character you're mostly using because of earth spirits >.> She does do heavy damage with copying certain attack skills, but it's party dependant.

Just having 3 out of 4 earth spirits members is probably fine, though. >_>

[elminster1372]

Keep also in mind that Satori has a skill which lets her deal damage proportional to her HP automatically upon her action, so an HP build definitely suits her

[Serela]

That's why I consider it, but the question is whether it's enough to actually be worth having her in the party. It's hard to tell without actually being lv300+ with plus disk equips and seeing how realistically high you can get her HP vs. how much damage dealers are doing.

Although it's hilarious to imagine her using low delay moves like Grand Patriots Elixir after tweaking her MP super high, taking advantage of 25% recovery on swapout, etc.

[Nyxnyx]

Mega boost cost 50 skill points per level. Maxing one out requires you to spend 250 skill points. Technically you can have a maxed out mega skill somewhere around the big 23-24F/B5-B6F period, but are you going to actually do it?

Well, someone's gonna get to a thousand levels eventually XD

That's not offtopic at all! XD Anyway, I'd compare Miko more to Nitori. Miko has the slowest leveling rate in the game, and her library isn't cheap either, so whilst she can get tanky, I'm a little dubious- especially considering how potent the other tank options already are. More importantly, she doesn't really have any particular talent in supporting, so even if she can match or somewhat surpass other tanks defensively, I'm not sure what the benefit would be... her heal is strange and has a rather steep mp cost, and whilst she boosts the party's buffs after awakening, it works at 50% in the back too (along with being a good bulky attacker who could stay out plenty, far as I can tell) so, why go for a tank?

Nah, she's moreso for bulky offense. Her set of attacks is a little small (at least before awakening boosts one of them into silliness), but that's what subclassing is for, and her awakening makes her REALLY nice looking for the role.

As for the one asking about Orin, she looks like she's got good potential after awakening, and Koishi looks pretty neat as well; if you're using both you might want to bring Utsuho in too eventually, once you can afford to awaken her. Assuming you don't change your mind about Orin, at least. Satori is... I'm not sure. I'm still wondering if using her in an HP build works or not? With the rest of the Earth Spirits team her stats are brought up enough to be good to keep just attacking as normal, I suppose. She's got high natural HP so maybe with a quartz charm and affinity gear she could be a somewhat bulk-ish attacker, and she can subclass for about any element attack for her awakening that heavily boosts weakness damage. Mmn, she just seems like a character you're mostly using because of earth spirits >.> She does do heavy damage with copying certain attack skills, but it's party dependant.

Just having 3 out of 4 earth spirits members is probably fine, though. >_>

I'm already got a bad feeling about how much damage Orin is dealing, lol. The extra activation doesn't feel it's doing all that much, and while I don't have the 30% def ignore yet due to the lack of skill points, I don't know if she's going to be doing all that much, considering all other powerful damage options there are.

Koishi deals kinda ok damage, I guess her durability is average, she can take a hit or two if you put some defensive stats and when something misses her, her turn comes fast but her damage is nowhere near true damage dealers. By that I mean someone like Meiling, Kaguya and Patchouli etc. Her void attack also has high delay with average damage that I don't know why I'm still using it lol.

I don't think the whole earth spirit party is that good, since they seem to lack a reliable tank. Also their spells are mostly fire spells with no buff or heals without subclasses, making them kinda inflexible if I'm going to use them to run through the game. Having 2 of them in front can be ok, but more than that and your tank gotta be able to heal and buff and I really like my strategist Byakuren

That's why I consider it, but the question is whether it's enough to actually be worth having her in the party. It's hard to tell without actually being lv300+ with plus disk equips and seeing how realistically high you can get her HP vs. how much damage dealers are doing.

Although it's hilarious to imagine her using low delay moves like Grand Patriots Elixir after tweaking her MP super high, taking advantage of 25% recovery on swapout, etc.

Right now my highest HP is Byakuren which has something like 150k hp. If I really try to ramp up her HP it goes to 250-280k at level 300 and level 300 library. So 150k damage per turn doesn't sound bad for randoms but for boss you I'd better rely on millions of damage dealt by main nukers.

[Nyxnyx]

That reminds me, does "aliment" includes debuffs? If yes, then I could try subbing Orin a ninja to increase damage along with her passive final blow and see if it works well on a boss. Trash clearing's still gonna be Kaguya's job though.

[Serela]

I don't think the whole earth spirit party is that good, since they seem to lack a reliable tank. Also their spells are mostly fire spells with no buff or heals without subclasses, making them kinda inflexible if I'm going to use them to run through the game. Having 2 of them in front can be ok, but more than that and your tank gotta be able to heal and buff and I really like my strategist Byakuren

I had a feeling- it seems like they all need the big stat bonus from Family and Proof of Kinship (which is both awakening exclusive and 100 skp...) in order to really get anywhere. (Just one of them in front with Proof of Kinship gives +24% all stats!) Orin's main attack is actually her Row attack with a warrior subclass, although fire's her second best. Utsuho at least has sheer force and a bunch of fire boosters <.< Giga Flare and Hell's Tokamak were buffed up in Plus at least, on that note, and she can become a fairly durable attacker.

Orin does actually really need that defense ignore, because her offensive stats aren't particularly high. A lot of her damage gets stopped that way. I'd drop some other passives to grab it. And no, debuffs are not ailments; Orin really should be subbing Warrior anyway, both for Row Attack Enhancement on her best move and because Explosive Flame Sword is far better for bosses than blazing wheel (when elements dictate you aren't using needles). Plus, Extra Attack procs Tension Up each time to keep her atk buff topped out. No other subclass can compete at all on Orin.

They do all seem like kinda dubious characters if you aren't using them all at once >.>

[Nyxnyx]

I had a feeling- it seems like they all need the big stat bonus from Family and Proof of Kinship (which is both awakening exclusive and 100 skp...) in order to really get anywhere. (Just one of them in front with Proof of Kinship gives +24% all stats!) Orin's main attack is actually her Row attack with a warrior subclass, although fire's her second best. Utsuho at least has sheer force and a bunch of fire boosters <.< Giga Flare and Hell's Tokamak were buffed up in Plus at least, on that note, and she can become a fairly durable attacker.

Orin does actually really need that defense ignore, because her offensive stats aren't particularly high. A lot of her damage gets stopped that way. I'd drop some other passives to grab it. And no, debuffs are not ailments; Orin really should be subbing Warrior anyway, both for Row Attack Enhancement on her best move and because Explosive Flame Sword is far better for bosses than blazing wheel (when elements dictate you aren't using needles). Plus, Extra Attack procs Tension Up each time to keep her atk buff topped out. No other subclass can compete at all on Orin.

They do all seem like kinda dubious characters if you aren't using them all at once >.>

Other teams with proof of kinship seems more versatile. Considering team of 4, Scarlet team has Flan, Meiling and Sakuya that can heal, buff and damage, eventhough IMO Remilia is on the weak side and most of their damage is physical.
And then we have the kids on team 9 that has a large assortments of debuffs and elements to work with while building full defence on someone like Wriggle or Cirno won't really affect their ability to do their job, especially now that Cirno with corridor skills can debuff speed regardless of resistance. They're fine even by themselves!

And when we're including other teams like Eientei and Moriya and Yakumo, which all seem much more capable when you're using them for the whole game since they can much more other than having high damage, with elements other than physical and fire.

I still love Koishi though, pretty much why I'm pumping all these stats into them.

[elminster1372]

Yeah unfortunately Utsuho is one of my favourites, but the Earth Palace team seems to lack too much in variety to me without the endgame subclasses - and I'd rather give those subclasses to someone else.

Btw, I believe I finally settled on the following team after much theorymonning:

#1 Renko / Yuuka / Miko / Maribel
#2 Byakuren / Sanae / Suwako / Kanako
#3 Komachi / Tokiko / Reimu / Eiki

Reasoning for #1: Renko and Maribel have their amazing Sealing Club synergy. Moreover, Maribel's new corridor skill (and Renko's own skills) synergizes very well with Miko's ability to take extra buffs. Finally, Yuuka provides a decent stream of heals with Gensokyo's Reflowering + Extra Attack, and is just a very powerful attacker overall (and one of my favourite waifus alongside Mari)

Reasoning for #2: Byakuren + Sanae form a sick pair, even if Byakuren's buff was nerfed. Sanae also provides healing and TP recovery. Suwako and Kanako have a variety of elements at their disposal and have always been my favourite generic attackers for when I don't really know what I'm up against (together they cover just about everything except Fire and Dark)

Reasoning for #3: Reimu and Tokiko have some fun synergy, plus Reimu is still a great healer and MP battery for the whole team. Komachi is still a great tank, and has some minor synergy with Eiki. Finally, Eiki provides a source for piercing damage.

Do you think I'm missing something major, or is this a balanced squad?

[Serela]

It's definitely one of the more dubious teams. Earth Spirits' team specialty though is that it's as strong as the 9 team synergy- 4 members, 8% stat bonus per level, compared to other teams with 7~8% bonuses and only 3 members, or SDM with just 5% (in exchange for a whole lot of character issues; Meiling and Flan are the only ones who really work outside of a full sdm team, physical alltargets are far more common to kill Patch than lot1, and Sakuya/Remi are forced to sub for more attack skills because sakuya's single target does nothing against good-def enemies. Meiling can't heal other's HP and Sakuya's buffing is quickly outclassed, they're just small side benefits on bulky attack characters). But the Earth Spirits team has no support characters and the most durable is Utsuho, so, it's hard to really use the family boost until you're far enough into plus disk to awaken several of them... and actually afford to learn proof of kinshup.

The elements aren't a big deal, though, imo. Koishi has two other good attacks (even if her best for bosses is fire, the others aren't bad at all) and can sub sorc or archmage if needed, Orin has two strong elements as warrior and backup in SPI for element roulette, and Utsuho has so many fire boosts and sheer force to just sorta get away with it, along with a souped up Giga Flare. The issue is more that the team just doesn't work that well until you can awaken most of them.

But yeah, it's a dubious team. It doesn't look like it really works particularly well until closer to endgame. The other teams work better across the whole game. (SDM is still dubious but looks like it works out in the end, and Chen probably lags behind until later when you fix up her base atk and get her awakened, but, yeah)

Elminster, team looks good imo~

[Nyxnyx]

It's definitely one of the more dubious teams. Earth Spirits' team specialty though is that it's as strong as the 9 team synergy- 4 members, 8% stat bonus per level, compared to other teams with 7~8% bonuses and only 3 members, or SDM with just 5% (in exchange for a whole lot of character issues; Meiling and Flan are the only ones who really work outside of a full sdm team, physical alltargets are far more common to kill Patch than lot1, and Sakuya/Remi are forced to sub for more attack skills because sakuya's single target does nothing against good-def enemies. Meiling can't heal other's HP and Sakuya's buffing is quickly outclassed, they're just small side benefits on bulky attack characters). But the Earth Spirits team has no support characters and the most durable is Utsuho, so, it's hard to really use the family boost until you're far enough into plus disk to awaken several of them... and actually afford to learn proof of kinshup.

The elements aren't a big deal, though, imo. Koishi has two other good attacks (even if her best for bosses is fire, the others aren't bad at all) and can sub sorc or archmage if needed, Orin has two strong elements as warrior and backup in SPI for element roulette, and Utsuho has so many fire boosts and sheer force to just sorta get away with it, along with a souped up Giga Flare. The issue is more that the team just doesn't work that well until you can awaken most of them.

But yeah, it's a dubious team. It doesn't look like it really works particularly well until closer to endgame. The other teams work better across the whole game. (SDM is still dubious but looks like it works out in the end, and Chen probably lags behind until later when you fix up her base atk and get her awakened, but, yeah)

Elminster, team looks good imo~

Element roulette? What's that?

Koishi's spells problem are her high delay and average damage aside from the fire spell, at least according to what I see after I pump her magic on par with my main nukers. She can't really compare to Kaguya or Patchy since those two are glass cannons, but I which Koishi has more average damage-delay spell aside from the fire. Why give her two large delay spells while she's suppose to be on the frontline more than glass cannons

For the bright side though, it works with how her evasion passive works, especially after awakening. Using the high delay spell then dodge something and her turn is up again! Suddenly her design make sense lol.

Meiling can heal using "healer" spell, not much but not too bad since it cures aliments.

[Serela]

Yeah, Koishi gets better with her evasion stuff. But even without that, 40% delay on Ancestors isn't good, but it's not -all- that bad, and if you have the status effects up it's actually powerful enough to make up for it.

Elemental roulette is just how I refer to bosses having different elements they resist/are weak to. Even Sorceror's Penetrator beats out most main attacks if it hits weakness and the other attack doesn't, after row attack enhancement.

Also I went back and checked and, huh, Meiling's healing numbers are better than I recall >_> She does have to be in a full atk build for healer to be half decent for HP, though. (It's really for ailments either way, which is pretty good as it is). It's funny how all her move descriptions talk about her being a weak character and meant to tank, when they greatly buffed her atk and made her one of the best bulky attackers in the game. She can't even be in the first slot anyway... (You can't give up that 32% damage reduction!)

[Spiffspoo]

Nitori/Yuyuko -> Suwako -> Flandre -> Shikieiki (kept last because if she dies and WINNER uses Ball, it's generally over. Also, sometimes I replace Nitori with Suwako in phase 2 because Suwako becomes more useless in phase 3 with true resistance)

Does poison go through Ball?

[RegalStar]

Poison damage is complete poo poo when every turn interval is like 3 clockticks.

[elminster1372]

Does poison go through Ball?

I've never tried myself, but I'm pretty sure WINNER has a resistance or immunity to Poison. And even if he didn't have, I would prefer other, more reliable forms of damage.

[Serela]

Yeah, Poison is great in LoT1 until you beat the maingame, and during the 100 level burst to reach plus disk content it turns into total garbo. One person investigated it's damage in a plus disk fight and throughout an entire lengthy boss, reapplying often, it did about the damage of one Nitori Megawatt Gun.

Wonder if it'll be much better in LoT2 endgame? At least if nothing else it'll activate passives.

[Validon98]

From what I've seen of Poison in LoT2, it... exists? Like, during boss fights, I can kinda see HP ticking down, but much like LoT1 the ATB is flying by so fast that it's not too noticeable.

Speaking of LoT1, I've decided to do a dumb thing and replay it with an entirely new party instead of finding my save file from my last fixed party run and do that. This time around I've got:

Tenshi, Mokou, Renko, Maribel, Eirin, Flandre, Rinnosuke, Sakuya, Eiki, Kanako, Yuuka, Minoriko

Mostly a bunch of characters I've not really used, similar to ye ol' Team Underappreciated but not quite so since there's amazing characters like Eiki in there.

...I also used the power of image messing-around-with to mod the game to use LoT:Rebirth's UI instead of the default, as well as making the tileset for dungeons 10F's from that mod. Mostly because why not, partially because I prefer a darker palette for menus, etc. Maybe I'll make my own for fun in the future.

[Serela]

The painful thing of using lategame/plus characters mostly is just the sp costs... ow. Kanako at least finally brings the only CLD nuke into the relevant part of the game, though. (Which is good, because that's her main redeeming feature) Thank goodness lot2 doesn't have that problem, so they're actually fully viable for ng+.

Well, that and half the lot1 plus characters are pretty eh. Utsuho is hot garbage, Yuuka's stat layout is weird and whilst she works, it's not that -good- imo, Renko only really works in maingame (she can kinda be used postgame, but you're praying to land that 4% chance of status- charge's atb kill is BRUTAL), Keine isn't half bad but unless you're talking about overkilling winner 50 times I'm pretty sure Iku is the better choice with that mnd stat (and a strong single-target buff is generally more relevant in lot1)... Maribel and Shiki would be fine apart from the crazy sp costs. Maribel would actually be pretty good in maingame with her selfbuff and attacks that debuff on hit, but, rip sp, and Shiki does sorta suffer from one-trick pony since her other moves are MAG, but it's a good trick. Maribel is pretty fine in plus after all, it's just that her debuffs are resisted and she can't deal quite as much damage as other options, but still good damage. More than Kanako IIRC, at least. Kanako is only much good for having a CLD spell, and she came in a bit late for that. >_> Isn't it sad, Kanako? With her poor HP, the remi-equivalent defenses really are not relevant. Much better in LoT2.

And then Mystia is the one normal, solid character. Maybe it's because you can get her before you actually start plus content. She's a little unassuming for boss fight and might barely be able to take a hit in maingame, though (in plus she at least often survives non-major hits in a boss... which makes her fairly decent, either praying on PAR proc or just using ill-starred dive)

[elminster1372]

Yeah I still remember my feeling when I tried Kanako in LoT2 just out of curiosity, and found out that all her attacks hit like nukes :-O. Mad Dance in particular was a surprise, in LoT1 it was extremely underwhelming, but in LoT2 it's absolutely sick for its delay and mana cost.

Man, I can't wait to see this game (I mean, LoT2 plus disc) patched into English so that I can try it myself^^ I'm farming the final boss for gems and manuals atm because hey, they could come in handy later on right? Sadly, they don't all have the same drop chance (MP/TP gems drop much more than the others, and Def/Mnd gems seem to drop the rarest for me), but it can still be worked around. Once I've gem maxxed my 12 main chars (and prolly maxxed the MP/TP of a buncha more, as well as having poured dozens of training manuals on Byakuren), if the English patch is still not out, I'll prolly consider training on 20F - after all, even if my squad is already around lvl 250, having some levels "ready for use" when the game decides it's time to jump in difficulty (and from what I heard, there's a 100-200 lvl jump somewhere) can come in handy.

[Nyxnyx]

Is there anyway to skip the looooooooong cinematic of the first sword final boss? This really takes time when I rekt the boss in few hits and has to watch the cinematic every time just to find the gem

[Koog]

I've never tried myself, but I'm pretty sure WINNER has a resistance or immunity to Poison. And even if he didn't have, I would prefer other, more reliable forms of damage.

I definetely remember inflicting PSN to WINNER when I played LoT. So, let's call it resistance.

[elminster1372]

Is there anyway to skip the looooooooong cinematic of the first sword final boss? This really takes time when I rekt the boss in few hits and has to watch the cinematic every time just to find the gem

You can keep Z pressed to go through it as much as possible but that's about it, I believe - you still have to go through approximately 40 seconds of cinematic every time (which means you roughly should get 1 kill per minute if you oneshot it with Flandre's Lavatein like I do)

[Nyxnyx]

You can keep Z pressed to go through it as much as possible but that's about it, I believe - you still have to go through approximately 40 seconds of cinematic every time (which means you roughly should get 1 kill per minute if you oneshot it with Flandre's Lavatein like I do)

Well yeah, so 2 gems per minute at most I guess. Is this currently the only way to farm offensive stats gems?

Also anyone has any thoughts on Kokoro? She's also one of my most fave character but her skillset looks dubious as hell as far as effectiveness goes. There's no number indicated for the buffs on her masks and she refuse to stick with neither magic nor attack. Manipulation of Emotions also has this "user uses healing spell" but Kokoro has no healing spell and the rest of her skillset does not support her being a support.
Maybe she can inflict aliments but I guess we have better girls for that for each and any aliment.

She's designed to be used with Miko and to a lesser extent Byakuren, so as far as a party of Miko, Futo, Byakuren and Kokoro looks, it seems pretty solid physical team with characters that can stand and take hits while returning some.
Really wanna try all these teams out provided I have the resources for them lol.

[Axel Ryman]

From what I've seen of Poison in LoT2, it... exists? Like, during boss fights, I can kinda see HP ticking down, but much like LoT1 the ATB is flying by so fast that it's not too noticeable.

When you don't exactly have high damage, poison is pretty noticeable.


Of course, that's only if you don't grab the damage dealers, and not have the levels/equips to back their damage up.

[Serela]

Also anyone has any thoughts on Kokoro? She's also one of my most fave character but her skillset looks dubious as hell as far as effectiveness goes.

She does look a little dubious, but Invigorated Kagura Lion is a pretty solid attack and also adds on Fighting Spirit, at least, which her corridor skill prevents from going down much so she can actually maintain it. She also gets a 10% hp regen with corridor to help her be a good bulky attacker, and inflicts debuffs on her attacks. For randoms (and multi-part bosses), she's got an all-target dual elemental composite, which is nice.

The downside is her attack stats are sort of low, and her skillset doesn't do much other than her emotion gimmick, so she really needs fighting spirit (which will be hard to maintain before awakening) to get respectable numbers/durability. But at least she inflicts an irresistable debuff to enemies and buffs allies just by having an emotion up at all.

Once she awakens I think the consistent fighting spirit and the regen, combined with what she's got and her emotion gimmick, should make her a good bulky attacker, albiet strange. However, the problem here is, if we're talking about AFTER awakening you can probably find better options... unless you value the emotion gimmick a good bit. She should be good enough after that to use if you like her, though!