Labyrinth of Touhou 7F

[Starxsword]

Kaguya can hurt it.

[Zil]

Kaguya can hurt it.

Eiki can also deal massive damage; she's basically how I dealt with that thing. Technically, Rumia can hurt it too :derp:

[Kamil]

Each round it charges up Rankain, its defense, mind and debuff resistance drops so use the time for that to wail on it.  It has notably less health than the other two part, making it very ideal to pull out nukes on it.  It has lower wind resistance so use Aya's Peerless Wind God, Suika's Throwing Atlas for good effect but its other resistance is normal so basically anything with high numbers works as well (coughnitoricough)

Alternatively you can use defense ignoring abilities namely Kaguya's Hourai Barrage.  Rumia's Dark Side of the Moon's damage is too crappy to be effective in this instant.  Okuu's Gigaflare and Eiki's Last Judgment (probably the best of the four) are def ignore as well but those are 21+F characters. 

If you cannot be able to defeat it on time, make sure you have a lot of spirit resistance on your current roster.

[Shin Rokuren]

Nitori, Flan, Eiki, and other high damaging charactrers are good. Especially if they're fully ATK buffed. <3 Ran.

[Trickster-kun]

Man, I just got to 10-12F and I feel like I climbed a MOUNTAIN.

How many more mountains until I hit 20...?  :ohdear: Are these floors good enough to grind for battles against Suwako and Nitori? Or should I postpone until later on? Bear in mind I JUST got to them, so I haven't explored a lot... 9F gave me a headache. 

[Zil]

IIRC the floors just keep giving out more exp and skill points the closer you get to 20, so you may just want to continue. I know thats's the case with floors 17-20 anyway; each one is almost twice as good as the previous.

[Brocknoth]

Ugh I am getting so sick of grinding on 16F. Average party level is 67-72 now and I still can't make any headway against any of my currently available bosses. I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing wrong or if I just need to grind more till I hit 80ish. Really considering using cheat engine to speed up the grinding. It's not something I usually do but in this case I might make an exception.

[Zil]

Ugh I am getting so sick of grinding on 16F. Average party level is 67-72 now and I still can't make any headway against any of my currently available bosses. I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing wrong or if I just need to grind more till I hit 80ish. Really considering using cheat engine to speed up the grinding. It's not something I usually do but in this case I might make an exception.

You may, in fact, be doing something wrong. I went through the whole game without grinding until the last floor, but even that was minimal. I explored every floor completely, which might mean I was higher level, but I never felt that the game required much grinding.

[Trickster-kun]

Could it be something like, 'the style of play'? Like knowing when to swap who, what to equip to which char, and what kind of specialty your chars are using, *which* chars you're using, etc etc.

I'm trying to not follow the guide but I gave up a couple times, and I've beat a few bosses in a couple lvls below the 'recommended' threshold...

[Shin Rokuren]

Could it be something like, 'the style of play'? Like knowing when to swap who, what to equip to which char, and what kind of specialty your chars are using, *which* chars you're using, etc etc.

I'm trying to not follow the guide but I gave up a couple times, and I've beat a few bosses in a couple lvls below the 'recommended' threshold...

For character setups, you can pretty much determine what the specific equips they're best at depending on their stat distribution and skillset. In battle, switching's necessary if you want to get the best damage and survivability out of your characters. This is important if you wanna spam nukes with your glass cannons, such Suwako and Patchouli (not a good idea to bring both in the party), as their best skills leave them with an extremely low guage. Better to swap them and bring in another nuker as swapped in characters have their gague set at 80% or so. There's also party positioning - tanks and sturdier char on the left side (and get attacked more often) and fragile chars on the right side. Imo, it's not good to leave a healer, as long as it's not Reimu (too valuable to swap out most of the time in the main game), on the field for too long.

Also, Suwako and Nitori can be beaten if you've beaten Reisen on Floor 9. They're easier than her, imo. And I think for me at least, floors 10-12 were the nightmare and the rest were breathers, including post game, haha.

[Brocknoth]

I think I know what it might be. I was looking at my skill point distro and I realized that I haven't done much of anything to elemental resistance in a long time. For a good chunk of my party those skills are still under lvl10.

In retrospect Zil what level did you take the boss of 16F at? It's where I'm stuck currently.

[Zil]

In retrospect Zil what level did you take the boss of 16F at? It's where I'm stuck currently.

Unfortunately reaching levels of 600+ in the post-game has caused me lose any concept of what levels should be during the main game. So basically, I don't remember what level I was. The 16 floor boss is Yukari right? As I recall, I beat her on my first try with no problems, so again, I don't really remember the strategy I used, since I spent no time on her. My general strategy for bosses was to keep my defence buffed by Reimu, keep my speed buffed by Sakuya, and have Cirno slow and paralyze when possible. My tanks were Remi and Meiling, no Tenshi. No single target healers either. My only offensive buffers were Ran and Kaguya. I also had Alice for debuffs and because she's just a sturdy character. Nukes were Patchy, Nitori, and maybe Suwako or Marisa or someone. I think that was my team. Can't say if this is an ideal build, it's just what used when I went through the game, and like I said, I never had any problems. Only one that ever gave me trouble was Eintei group, but that was a matter of strategy, not levels.

About the skill distribution, I'm not sure if increasing elemental affinity is important at that point, I don't remember, but as a general rule you should be sure you use them to improve the characters strengths rather than trying to compensate for weaknesses (Exept for when boosting affinities. In that case boost weaknesses.) and never put anything on evade obviously. Also, and I don't know if I started doing this there or later, but I found that the best use of equipment was increase status resistences. Making characters like Reimu, Meiling, and Remilia immune to ailments became pretty important as some point.

[Shin Rokuren]

Yukari's damn annoying. Strategy-wise, all I can say is that you need a durable party to survive 2 Djinn Storm. IIRC, I used Tenshi the first time to get rid of her buffs as well as having Reisen and/or Komachi for debuffing. Aside from that, the only resistances you need is MYS, WND and SPR for her. I had like 20-30 that time. Dijinn Storm's the only massive threat, imo. Rumia's a decent secondary group healer as well if you've even bothered with her.

[yoshicookiezeus]

Also note that Yukari has no resistance to debuffs at all, so spamming Discarder or some other similar multi-debuff spell will make the battle a ton easier.

[Zil]

Well then apparantly I was't exactly using the right strategy, seeing as my only debuffs came from Alice and Cirno. Maybe my maxed out speed buff and Yukari's maxed speed debuff enabled me to recover from djinn storm easily. (On a side note, my love for this game practically tripled when I saw that Golden Sun reference ) So yeah probobly listen to these other guys since my team maybe was just overleveled somehow. :V Only other advice I can give is that I think she's weak to nature, so Suwako is probobly a good nuke if you aren't already using her.

[Trickster-kun]

About to go through that one 10-12F phase where you have to switch, switch and switch without stopping or saving. Ogod I hate those Tops.

Hopefully once I'm done and ready for the final 12F battle I'll be at decent levels... maybe get Tenshi, too...

[Pesco]

13F is its own barrel of fun :V. Take your time to explore everywhere and get the levels from it.

[Trickster-kun]

13F is its own barrel of fun :V. Take your time to explore everywhere and get the levels from it.

Update: just got Tenshi (and she dropped her armor) and beat the Eientei battle after 5 tries-- first two times everyone got buffed by Stone Bowl and my PAR effects weren't landing, third time I got too hasty and forgot to change the character setup for the first couple turns, fourth time I ate Eirin's ultimate and wiped... hurting Kaguya to force Eirin to use Elixir made it so much easier for me, and the PAR effects landing as often as they could was a big plus as well. I got Reisen's drop out of it.

Now let's see what this 13F+ is all about! SUIKAAAAAAAAAA

[Brocknoth]

Finally got that twit. Turns out I just wasn't being stubborn enough about it. I keep forgetting that this game has a random tendency to be mean to you and in those cases you just try again. Though I did need the levels I got between my first attempt and the subsequent ones later on. I was under leveled when I first got to her because I spent a fair amount of time running from the enemies on floors 15 and 16. I usually make a rule to do my darnedest to avoid doing that in RPGs but the enemies on those floors were just irritating. 16F particularly between the mandragoras and the gold sorceresses ugh.

I had a lot of bad luck with Flying Insect Nest spam took me what felt like a good 14 tries to finally put her under. Used Reisen and Komachi to keep her debuffed and then used Ran and Iku to buff up my party and then just tore her to shreds best I could. The one thing I hate and love about this game is death since there aren't any revive spells of any sort. So if someone dies due to bad luck or a misplaced switch or something it can really hamper your efforts. Though some of my best battles have come down to the wire with only 2-3 people left and I still win.

Blazed straight through 17F. The random encounters on that floor are not worth it ATM. Exploring 18F and leveling for the awful confrontation up ahead. I haven't even found him yet so there's still time to prepare. I also have a few characters I need to go back and get but I haven't worked out a strategy for that yet. Flandre's damage just seems so freaking random at times. One minute I'm fine the next half the front line is dead. Part of the fun I suppose

[Zap]

13F is its own barrel of fun :V. Take your time to explore everywhere and get the levels from it.

Jeez, that floor going to make my head hurt.
Finally beat team Eientei myself after getting hit by Eirin's nuke a handful of times. Finally it came to my attention "Oh hey! Her nuke ignores MND!" :colonveeplusalpha:
Now I gotta wait a couple floors for Mokou. :3

[Shin Rokuren]

Boss 18 is more of a long fight than a major threat. Easier than Yukari, imo. As long as you're more or less in the recommended levels, you can take it down. The original BGM for that battle is also better than the Plus Disk one, for me at least. I recommend switching to it, haha.

[Brocknoth]

I know I'm going to be beating a dead horse here but I'm getting so sick of fighting 18F. Reimu 91-92 give or take and I still can't win. The stupid thing is it's not a matter of not being strong enough or bad tactics or my line up it's just bad luck. Luck based fighting in RPGs irks me to no end. I understand the creators wanted to make this fight challenging but when I can't swap in my better damage dealers without them getting raped by Heavenly Demise at RANDOM what's the point? I'm about ready to just cheat engine my party up another 10 levels just to get this over with. I'm going on 30+ attempts here. X_x

You know what would make this fight more bearable? If you could actually debuff/disable the stupid pest to a point. I think that's the glaring flaw with this battle. Debuffing/Disabling is so important to battle strategy in this game that having an enemy be completely immune to it for the ENTIRE battle is frightening. I mean ok fine make him resistant but not immune.

[Zil]

I know I'm going to be beating a dead horse here but I'm getting so sick of fighting 18F. Reimu 91-92 give or take and I still can't win. The stupid thing is it's not a matter of not being strong enough or bad tactics or my line up it's just bad luck. Luck based fighting in RPGs irks me to no end. I understand the creators wanted to make this fight challenging but when I can't swap in my better damage dealers without them getting raped by Heavenly Demise at RANDOM what's the point? I'm about ready to just cheat engine my party up another 10 levels just to get this over with. I'm going on 30+ attempts here. X_x

You know what would make this fight more bearable? If you could actually debuff/disable the stupid pest to a point. I think that's the glaring flaw with this battle. Debuffing/Disabling is so important to battle strategy in this game that having an enemy be completely immune to it for the ENTIRE battle is frightening. I mean ok fine make him resistant but not immune.

No man, you're doin' it wrong. I beat that boss on my first try too, and if I remember correctly, Start of Heavenly Demise does crap damage if you buff your defense. He's got nothing but raw damage multi-target spells, and none with good piercing. Start of Heavenly Demise is actually one of his weakest spells IIRC. Just use Reimu and Yukari to keep your defense maxed out.

[J.O.B]

I built my Tenshi so that she only got damaged by 2-3 of his attacks (one in FIR phase and two near the end).

But maybe you should level up more. I was around the 120's (I think) when I finally beat him.

[Brocknoth]

No man, you're doin' it wrong. I beat that boss on my first try too, and if I remember correctly, Start of Heavenly Demise does crap damage if you buff your defense. He's got nothing but raw damage multi-target spells, and none with good piercing. Start of Heavenly Demise is actually one of his weakest spells IIRC. Just use Reimu and Yukari to keep your defense maxed out.

I'm sorry I wasn't entirely specific. I am doing that. Reimu, Yukari, Meiling, and Ran are all on buff and support duty the rest of the roster is there to pummel him as fast as possible. It's the stray GSS or other shenanigans taking out my weaker high dmg dealers at the worst times that's the problem. If I lose my glass cannons the fight is more or less over because I can't output enough damage to kill him with so few characters. Even if I can they'll get wiped out by the time I reach final phase thanks to World Shaking Military Rule. Losing Nitori particularly is a huge hit to my damage capability. I've already grinded from Reimu 83 to about Reimu 93 I guess 100 wouldn't hurt but 120? Forget it.

[Starxsword]

I dunno, he doesn't do that much damage. Other than Reiastsu Fist, some fire move, and poison, he is fairly harmless. Even if he
uses World Shaking Military Rule, then Start of Heavenly Demise, you should be taking manageable damage to slowly poke him to death.
I did remember something annoying in his Mystic phase, but I don't quite remember what it is.

[Ghaleon]

Aside from like his first two turns, and if he decides to use world shaking on his first available turn, that fight is like completely no luck based.
As for rebuffing being key, I personally never rely on debuffing 99% of the time (cosmic, bloody papa, yukari are the only exceptions i can think of) because so many hard bosses resist it far too often. You complain you hate luck based RPGs but you are forcing yourself to rely on luck based strategies!? Anyway, his offense is poor after the first phase, if you can't afford to lose any more nukes before the final phase, don't use any. You can probably 3 woman that fight with just Reimu, china, and remi excluding the first  and last phases. Just go slow and steady for the rest.

[Brocknoth]

Manageable damage? How in the heck is 7000 -10,000 dmg party wide manageable? Mind you that's SHD after world shaking military rule once. Even Meiling can't survive that. Either you folk are grossly over leveled or I'm doing something horribly wrong. That or we're talking about different versions of the game here patch wise.

I suppose that last phase is all about the timing and taking him out before he can use anything. Most of my party can handle his damage just fine but characters like Flan, Marisa, and Patchy can't varying. Nitori can take one stray hit if she's lucky varying on element. That's mostly what I mean by luck. The computer decides to use the wrong move at the wrong time and kills someone before I can swap them out. And then there's the random Golden Scarlet Sword to the face. Hate it when he hits the back slots. X_x

I apologize if came off sounding rude or anything I'm just frustrated is all. I do actually appreciate the advice so thank you. Either way I'm not strong enough clearly so it's back to grinding. Just you wait MANnosuke your days are numbered!

[Zil]

Flan is a terribad character in my opinion, but anyway neither she nor Marisa should be in the field when he uses a powerful attack. Getting OHKO'd is standard fare for those characters, so swap 'em in and swap 'em out. I'd expect Patchy to survive anything that isn't a composite attack though. I know people trash-talk Sakuya, but her speed boost can help characters like Nitori who can only take one hit without dying by speeding up Reimu. Kaguya also helps with her baton pass. Have you considered using some bulkier attackers like Alice, because honestly I can't imagine using Flandre in anything but some kind of challenge run. If Meiling is getting OHKO'd then something is terribly wrong. Even if your whole party is underleveled that shouldn't happen. (You aren't spending points on evade are you?)

Speaking of challenge runs... I'm thinking of doing a second playthrough using only final boss characters. It leaves me with two empty slots, but I think the team is decently balanced. Any comments, glaring weaknesses I'm overlooking, etc.?

[Eilaris]

Manageable damage? How in the heck is 7000 -10,000 dmg party wide manageable? Mind you that's SHD after world shaking military rule once. Even Meiling can't survive that. Either you folk are grossly over leveled or I'm doing something horribly wrong. That or we're talking about different versions of the game here patch wise.

I suppose that last phase is all about the timing and taking him out before he can use anything. Most of my party can handle his damage just fine but characters like Flan, Marisa, and Patchy can't varying. Nitori can take one stray hit if she's lucky varying on element. That's mostly what I mean by luck. The computer decides to use the wrong move at the wrong time and kills someone before I can swap them out. And then there's the random Golden Scarlet Sword to the face. Hate it when he hits the back slots. X_x

I apologize if came off sounding rude or anything I'm just frustrated is all. I do actually appreciate the advice so thank you. Either way I'm not strong enough clearly so it's back to grinding. Just you wait MANnosuke your days are numbered!

Both of my runs have had lots of trouble with him, so don't feel too discouraged.  I think I was 93 when I took him down this time.

As far as I know, he doesn't pull out World-Shaking Military Rule until he's in his final phase, and that phase is basically just a DPS race by design; with luck, you should only need 2 or 3 good hits to drop him, so it's just a matter of surviving long enough to get them off.  Tenshi and Meiling can help in that regard.

Also, I've found that counting damage helps a LOT in that fight.  If you know how much damage you've done to him, you can do predictive switching to give yourself an advantage in initiative (by, for example, switching your big nukers in when he's about to pop his final Form Destruction).  (For the record, each of his elemental forms has around 200-240k HP, as I recall)