Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 16F

[Kirin no Sora]

Akyuu already has concentration before attacking, 3 base mp regen, and 1 mp regen per turn; she don't need no orb of earithin. But Super Incantation is holy wow. If you invest mag gems into her then, uh, damn. And that's one hilariously low library cost- the cheapest in the game was 40 or 41 before.

Serela, I was taking the high cost of Southern Cross(10 MP) and Execution(12MP) into account when I said that. Running out of MP is a situation that I don't want to run into is all, and Orb of Earthin just barely covers the cost of Execution. Since library costs are so low, maybe it's possible at that point to level up Akyuu's low affinities to 100, as well as throw a level in each of those 198 affinities to make them an even 200.

Also, the cheapest Library cost before Akyuu is Parsee at 38.

[nyttyn]

Serela, I was taking the high cost of Southern Cross(10 MP) and Execution(12MP) into account when I said that. Running out of MP is a situation that I don't want to run into is all, and Orb of Earthin just barely covers the cost of Execution. Since library costs are so low, maybe it's possible at that point to level up Akyuu's low affinities to 100, as well as throw a level in each of those 198 affinities to make them an even 200.

Also, the cheapest Library cost before Akyuu is Parsee at 38.

It's not like anything's stopping you from grinding out all affinities for anyone else either - Akyuu can probably just do it a lot sooner.

Anyway, Akyuu use is probably going to fall into one of two camps. Camp one would be to use her as a buff bot and gamble for Desire for Greater Wisdom procs to make everyone immune to the next hit, with the passives she has carrying her otherwise. Honestly, this isn't a worhwhile use at all - her passives alone aren't strong enough to justify her existence, it's a very RNG reliant strategy, and you need some sort of TP battery just to sustain it because holy hell is it expensive. You could throw in a subclass to give her something to to, but, um. Almost all the subclasses are really bad insofar as "active skills" go so...

  Camp two is to abuse Super Incantation and use her as a ultra nuke. This is going to entirely depend on what the formula is for Archmage or  Ame-no-Murakumo's Protection's skills, but even if they're bad she's looking at, at worst, a 4.5x damage multiplier on any subclass offensive skill (practically speaking this is about half that thanks to concentration's delay). Her starting MP's really good for this, which lets her use a TP equip to basically game her resurrection skill. Looking at the various subclasses, if Ame-no-Murakumo has physical scaling, and if Archmage has bad formulas, she's stuck with Sorcerer's Aspriation Surge, which is (196% mag - 70% t.mnd), and locks her into Mystic. While Hexer and Toxicologist could be potential options as sub-ins to abuse boss weaknesses, that's also kind of a pain so let's just compare her to Marisa for now.

When we compare Akyuu to Marisa for a pure damage output mage, we see that Marisa has better formulas, can attack from the word go, has access to the amazing Mystic Spark, has a much better time against multiple enemies and trash encounters, a buff, and basically higher damage over-all. At that point you're banking on Akyuu's supporting abilities, of which one's a gimmick, one's only relevant against bosses an only if you can be bothered to always abuse boss weaknesses, the ability to passively remove debuffs and status conditions at a fairly slow rate (which is still pretty nice), and better!resurrection. She's pretty sticky for a glass cannon and has a somewhat cheaper library cost, but all things considered and otherwise she's just a crappy Marisa, unless there's some seriously good formulas on the new subclass skills.

Most of this applies to everything before access to Archmage for ingame purposes, an as such Akyuu's probably going to dethrone Byakuren as "single worst person to take into a NG+." She's worthless before sublclasses and outclassed by absolutely everyone even after that. She has the same issue Rinnosuke has - sure, there's a decent library level and super high stats at play (in his case, via the high-boosts), but it's ultimately pointless because sub-class spell cards suck. I guess you could use her as a dumb slot 1 gimmick tank?

It's really disappointing, I was hoping to make a new run with Akyuu but it's gonna have to be a challenge run I guess. Hopefully Execution and Southern Cross have sufficently high values to make her worth it, otherwise she's going to fall into the same trap that Youmu and Offensive!Reimu did (The Concentrate --> Attack, Repeat loop being absolutely not worth it in light of more reliable options that can act from the word go and do more sustained DPS anyway).


Edit: Across the board the plus disc cast is kind of super weird in that they're all built around basically exclusively really long boss battles they can stay in and use their gimmicks on. Unless Endless Corridor random encounters get really rough, it feels like they were all made for a meta that this game frankly isn't in 90% of the time. I guess it's a sign of what kind of encounter types we can expect in those 999 floors.

Sadly from the perspective of NG+ this means that most of them are pretty boring, since their gimmicks that take so long to execute, and cost so much SP to get online...Even for the ones who have good skills outside of that, there's still very much a problem with them just being outright awkward to use.

It's kind of reinforcing a problem the game already had - so many abilities and skills are balanced around fights that simply do not make up the vast majority of play time. I guess that's why he made the endless corridor, and I hope that it winds up having battles that consistently go on long enough to actually utilize the new characters in their intended fashion, and not the usual "just spam your high powered skills in the most TP efficient way possible at the endless trash and wait for the few boss battles to use half your party."

[Ghaleon]

It's up on Melon DL. http://www.melonbooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=IT0000192607

Also there's now an 1.100 patch for plus disk, to nobody's surprise I'm sure.

EDIT: 1.100 actually added some gameplay changes apparently. Bishamonten's Wrath is now capped at 100 and Overheat is capped at 5.

I'm late for the party, but yay, dling as we speak... Kind of a dumb question that may have been answered earlier but I didn't see it within the last few pages. But does this expansion rebalance the 'old' parts of the game at all? I'm kinda hoping it does but if not oh well. Does it provide new content during the normal portions of the game? Or is it all post game stuff only? Last, is it possible to play with the expansion with the old content remaining translated? I haven't played laby 2 for some time and I think I'll need the old translations in order to function since I completely forget what each spell does, what skillpoints are located where, etc.

Thank you for hunting down and sharing the link... err I had 52 melonbook points and it asked if I wanted to spend them but I couldn't figure out what they were for so I just didn't use em. I was guessing they were worth 52 cents or something since I almost never use melonbooks  (in fact thlaby2 is the only time I DID use it I believe).

[Serela]

Serela, I was taking the high cost of Southern Cross(10 MP) and Execution(12MP) into account when I said that. Running out of MP is a situation that I don't want to run into is all, and Orb of Earthin just barely covers the cost of Execution. Since library costs are so low, maybe it's possible at that point to level up Akyuu's low affinities to 100, as well as throw a level in each of those 198 affinities to make them an even 200.

Yeah, but you have to keep in mind you also have max mp. She already starts with a whopping 30, not to mention it'll be over like, 50 from the initial levelups. Concentrate+next turn with only her innate abilities will give her 10 mp. You're really not gonna keep her out so long she'll run out of mp using Super Incantation- that's only 2 mp every two turns from Execution, a move you'll likely want to switch her out after using anyway! (When elements allow she'd really want to sub for Start of Heavenly Demise, though)

At that point you can do more than turn her 198 affinities into 200, easy :P But yeah with her cheap library, raising her affinities shouldn't be too hard. Along with of course, equipment, since if you're going in on offense Akyuu you'd probably give her some of your sweeter gear too. If you really go in, Akyuu should be pretty awesome, but it'll be costly on gems. I'd probably just stick to using a normal glass cannon over a glass cannon that needs to concentrate before nukes. (You could swap her out after the concentrate too, I suppose, but now you're doubling the turns used for swapping her and it's like, why aren't you just using someone else)

You can also just dump a big TP main equip on her and resurrect through everything as she blasts away, but she'll only last so long. The resurrection is the main thing that makes her potentiallydurable after tweaking- if she can generally take hits, and resurrect the big ones, she'd be golden.

Last, is it possible to play with the expansion with the old content remaining translated?

I imagine you can throw in the translated img1 but that's probably it. The only thing that's been in any patch notes I've read about old content rebal is just that a few characters have new skills from the get-go; Kogasa, Cirno, Meiling, Keine, Youmu, Alice... and Utsuho's moves were powered up, along with Cat's Walk, Knock Out in Three Steps, and Flandre's first two moves were powered up whilst Lavaeteinn was powered down. Plus some bugfixes, like Fighting Spirit's damage reduction didn't used to work.

Edit: Across the board the plus disc cast is kind of super weird in that they're all built around basically exclusively really long boss battles they can stay in and use their gimmicks on. Unless Endless Corridor random encounters get really rough, it feels like they were all made for a meta that this game frankly isn't in 90% of the time. I guess it's a sign of what kind of encounter types we can expect in those 999 floors.

Whaaaaa? This only really applies to Shou... I don't know what you're talking about. Miko looks -awesome-, Futo looks pretty great, Mamizou's fine enough (only -special- after the corridor, admittedly), Koishi is solidly good looking (and wonderful if you're using earth spirits), Kokoro... a bit more confusing but she seems nice, and Tokiko looks very useful.

The only one who has a gimmick reliant on long fights is Shou. :S Futo only really needs at least 1 plate broken at any time (assuming defensive stance) and Miko synergy+infinite corridor skills let her start the fight near max plates almost immediately later on. So yeah, it's pretty much only Shou that needs a long fight. Mamizou has an 86% delay normal attack to get her elements with, should probably sub Sorc which makes that normal attack actually pretty nice DPS -anyway- with it's speed and Empowered Normal Attack, and once she lands on a boss weakness element (usually there's more then one, which means 25%+ chances) she never loses it for the rest of the fight.

In response to the wall about Akyuu... Akyuu is really weird but that's just to be expected. Also, we already have data on subclass attacks- Southern Cross and Execution are like 200~240% mag and Execution should have good mind piercing. Start of Heavenly Demise is like 350% mag which is amazing if she's fine with being locked into SPI. If you tweak Akyuu up a lot she would be pretty great, taking minor hits and resurrecting through big ones whilst blasting with big skills, and works well with Renko's Start of Assault or whatnot for another 25% damage (As renko will be great for any single-big-nuke attacker). Buuuut you'd really need to invest into it for her to be worth any hassle compared to just using Marisa or Suwako or something for glass cannoning, it's true. (Hmm... Start of Heavenly Demise could even give Suwako an alternate nuke when NTR is resisted.)

Meanwhile her support might be pretty useful in boss fights with telegraphed evil moves ("Oh no, it concentrated- lets make two people invincible and Akyuu tanks it herself with 12 tp"), and her status invincibility skill looks pretty useful overall- cheap, targets the whole front row, only 10% chance to wear off... you could have that up a lot in a fight where it was necessary. Irresistable PAR effects have been mentioned a lot, now that'd be something you want to resist- or megapowered DTH attacks.

There are still some tough nuts to crack in plus like Diamond Knight or Grandgon (although the former resists SPI), and Kaguya could be helpful against those. Also until you hit the plus disk postgame, pretty much every basement floor is filled with SPI-weak enemies and Kaguya could do major damage to them. Outspeeding things is a concern but you could have Aya or Rinno with SPD bonus or a brigade of Monks to switch her in.

Party design is hard with this ridiculously huge cast. ;_; Although I'm not worried about "it's weak to SPI!", I'll just keep in mind someone -else's- SPI attacks will get plenty of use, I don't want to use Aya and my party slots are in extreme high demand as it is @.@ I could always keep Kaguya's library levels as they are instead of Reincarnating them off and swap her in for a resistant boss here and there, I suppose. I'm NOT the kind of guy to swap my party around for specific bosses or areas in ThLaby, but people with a glass cannon build can do it with minimal investment, so I could do a couple characters for that.

[Validon98]

So if nothing changed with what Validon mined a while ago in the trial, there's

Spoiler:

B8-11F and 27-30F

left for postgame and of course the endless corridor, assuming its not just filled with pushovers.

I don't have access to the Plus Disk fully yet, but since the .exe is included in the 1.101 patch, I looked through that and 27-30F and B8F-B11F are still there, unchanged name-wise from what I've seen. Gonna assume those floors are the postgame floors.

I also kinda want to have a look at the bgm files just to extract/listen to the new music, but eh, I'll probably be able to get it soon (I just have to figure out how to use Melonbooks, dunno if I can buy anything on that with an American credit card lel)

EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out, oh boy here we go.

[Serela]

Hmm... for those who wish to use Moriya Team, Sanae's spi damage boost might work pretty well with Start of Heavenly Demise... although with it's delay it doesn't entirely outclass her natural SPI skill, but if you can soon swap her, it makes Sanae look more worthwhile of a character to keep using after Byakuren and Renko outclass her support. Actually, that's an amusing thought; corridor already gives her MP regen for the whole party, if she used Murakamo's MP suck the rest of the party would at worst break even (if lower mp, still regaining some) whilst Sanae became the infinite mp fountain. :V That would be funnier if she had better ways to spend it, but Byakuren already buffs with infinite mp and Start of Heavenly Demise is pretty high delay. At least she could afford to use it freely. If you -really- wanted, Support!Sanae could probably replace Byakuren like that... it seems workable if you're running Moriya Team so she's got increased stats; using a buff every turn on the rest of the party means she could even afford to use Murakumo's buff sucker to keep her own buffs up without a turn... and occasionally, World Shaking Military Rule.

...why am I doing this and why does it sound like it'd work perfectly fine. Of course, it's certainly easier to just use Byakuren, but if you wanted to be different it actually sounds nearly as good. Can always mix n' match Murakamo passives like have Sanae just rely on her own mp regen- boosts up to 2 when she's below half mp and she's got expansion of consciousness, so she'd be the tank that slowly pumps the party's mp whilst buff spamming still, boosting SPI damage, super youkai buster, etc. Hmm. Doesn't seem half bad, actually, and she could even get away with subbing something else... (Although I think Murakamo is her best option)

[Validon98]

So, my run of LoT2+ begins with my old Team 9 file. Probably what I'm gonna do is have it be "Team 9 + Plus Disk party members", which will be... tricky, but doable. Managed to get past the Shadow Onis fight, so now I'm on to B2F. Haven't cleared the trial content myself so I'm looking forward to see what the rest of the first Depths stratum is like.

[RegalStar]

AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH

[Validon98]

In the depths of the flesh stratum, no one can hear you scream.

...Meanwhile, just beat Shadow Kogasa, good god why that gimmick. Took Healer on Rumia and Wriggle and lucky procs of that 50% chance "cure all status effects on heal" thing off of Demarcation to win. I imagine that is much easier to deal with in a full party of 12, eheh.

[RegalStar]

Ooops, I forgot about Akyuu's new active spell from corridor. Yeah the group boost spell is still there; it's 34% at level 1 and 50% at level 5. Postuse is 6000.

[Kirin no Sora]

Anyone else with active spells from corridor? It would be nice if there was a list of active spells that you can get from the endless corridor. (Apologies if I sounded selfish, I'm just really curious and longing for a single spot where people can look to for the info is all...)

[RegalStar]

I posted the info for everyone's corridor skills on page 6 I think. Kasen gets a weird self-buff, Remilia gets an target all DRK attack, and Yuuka gets MASTER SPARK (although its power is different from Marisa's version and also doesn't drain extra MP). I also checked the four other non-trial plus members and they don't get new active skills.

Also even more AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH

[Validon98]

The name of B9F is "The Altar of Carrion that Hates Everyone", or something to that effect. I wonder if that's supposed to mean "this is the floor where we piss you off". :V

Meanwhile, got through down to B5F and started up on 22F. Futo was painful but Team 9 pulled through as always... kinda. I dunno how painful it's gonna be continuing on with a synergy run like this but it's been working so far.

[RegalStar]

That reminds me of EO1's 29F which had a Japanese floor name that means something like "Those who scream in despair from doubts in their own memories" (the English version cut that down to "Half-mad from Self Doubt". Honestly I think this floor is worse since I can't see anything other than the tile I'm standing on; EO at least always gives you vision of what's in front of you...

EDIT: I just found out that once you have obtained the first copy of a corridor item, you can trade for more of them with infinity gems (at a rate of 12 gems per item). So this is probably meant to be how you collect 50 copies of all items you need instead of going through like 9000 floors of endless corridor (which was even worse at jewel of awakening rate than I thought; it seem that every 30 floors you encounter a non-shadow boss that drops some equipment instead of jewel of awakening so you'd have to go through 170 floors to get skills for your entire party)

[Axel Ryman]

That moment you look up the 12F Tenshi fight theme and then decide to see how things are going.



So it's finally out eh? Nice, might rekindle the fire to play this again...if I find time that is.


Edit: Are there any new music tracks added into the Plus Disk? Curious to see if there's any new good tracks for this game.

[Kirin no Sora]

I posted the info for everyone's corridor skills on page 6 I think. Kasen gets a weird self-buff, Remilia gets an target all DRK attack, and Yuuka gets MASTER SPARK (although its power is different from Marisa's version and also doesn't drain extra MP). I also checked the four other non-trial plus members and they don't get new active skills.

So that thing about a Spell called Precise Information that heals and sometimes cures status ailments isn't in there? People said that it was a Rinnosuke Spell, but from its very name, I would think that it would be one of Akyuu's spells instead, meaning that she would get a healing spell, and considering that she has Super Incantation to super-charge it in the same way that Reimu could use Grand Incantation with her multi-target heal, maybe this leads into more of a support Akyuu if it was there?

EDIT: I just found out that once you have obtained the first copy of a corridor item, you can trade for more of them with infinity gems (at a rate of 12 gems per item). So this is probably meant to be how you collect 50 copies of all items you need instead of going through like 9000 floors of endless corridor (which was even worse at jewel of awakening rate than I thought; it seem that every 30 floors you encounter a non-shadow boss that drops some equipment instead of jewel of awakening so you'd have to go through 170 floors to get skills for your entire party)

Well, that's a major relief. Now earning skills is more a matter of getting those infinity gems after you get the first item and all that. That's good to know.

[Serela]

So that thing about a Spell called Precise Information that heals and sometimes cures status ailments isn't in there?

It is indeed a Rinnosuke spell. It heals 20% max hp at max, so even if you sub healer or enchanter, it's not that strong, and it costs a good chunk of mp. I say enchanter, because his other skill makes support skills buff by 15% all stats. If that makes Battle Command a 30% buff, that's fairly useful for it's delay, and in postgame he'll have atk/mag boost for First Aid to heal decently; he could become pretty nice support, the only problem is Keine is stealing his thunder with 9999atb swaps.

Also, yeah, that's a major relief about the 50 item copies.

[RegalStar]

Earning skills is still about obtaining Jewel of Greater Awakenings from corridor bosses. You can only trade gems for the specific items which you already have, so obtaining 50 copies of those items (for the damage infliction and reduction bonus) is about spending gems instead.

[RegalStar]

Aaaaand I'm done with what we have of the plus disk right now. There's still half of B10F that I haven't explored yet (because it's a huge teleporter maze) and of course infinite corridor, but that's it so far since I haven't seen an up staircase on 27F (which I explored completely) or down staircase on B10F.

[Serela]

How far are you in the corridor anyway? And what levels are the monsters there, as a reference point? o:

[nyttyn]

I feel like I'm playing a different game than you are, Serela, since everything outside of bosses looks like "Use one, maybe two nukes, swap out those nukers when they run out of MP, repeat for 20+ battle chains consistently whilst exploring" for me.  I don't even get the single turn in 99% of fights to actually use any buffs, much less a turn to say, set up a plate and then another to break it, the 1500 delay that Kokoro needs to swap to her first (3000 to swap to the second if you're using her in a mixed party) mask, etc.

Maybe I'm just playing the game the wrong way...? I'm not getting much use out of most subclasses either, the only attractive thing about any of them to me is the passives, I don't think I've used any actives aside from shield bash Kogasa...? And even then some of them just see no use at all in my parties, like Herbalist.

[RegalStar]

At 63F corridor I'm seeing things in the range of around 330-430 or so.

[Kirin no Sora]

Earning skills is still about obtaining Jewel of Greater Awakenings from corridor bosses. You can only trade gems for the specific items which you already have, so obtaining 50 copies of those items (for the damage infliction and reduction bonus) is about spending gems instead.

Oh. Oops...  :blush:

It is indeed a Rinnosuke spell. It heals 20% max hp at max, so even if you sub healer or enchanter, it's not that strong, and it costs a good chunk of mp. I say enchanter, because his other skill makes support skills buff by 15% all stats. If that makes Battle Command a 30% buff, that's fairly useful for it's delay, and in postgame he'll have atk/mag boost for First Aid to heal decently; he could become pretty nice support, the only problem is Keine is stealing his thunder with 9999atb swaps.

Personally, I think that Precise Info is a waste of a skill for Rinnosuke, and it should of been given to Akyuu instead. That way, she can turn it into a 85% Max HP heal at max level, and that's before subclasses(Healer comes to mind here), which could easily raise it to a 100% HP cure, which would be very nice if you focused on raising her speed and defenses.

I feel like I'm playing a different game than you are, Serela, since everything outside of bosses looks like "Use one, maybe two nukes, swap out those nukers when they run out of MP, repeat for 20+ battle chains consistently whilst exploring" for me.  I don't even get the single turn in 99% of fights to actually use any buffs, much less a turn to say, set up a plate and then another to break it, the 1500 delay that Kokoro needs to swap to her first (3000 to swap to the second if you're using her in a mixed party) mask, etc.

Maybe I'm just playing the game the wrong way...? I'm not getting much use out of most subclasses either, the only attractive thing about any of them to me is the passives, I don't think I've used any actives aside from shield bash Kogasa...? And even then some of them just see no use at all in my parties, like Herbalist.

The sort of sounds like how I play the main game(minus the plates and Kokoro, since I don't have the demo for plus disk, and would rather want until the full plus disk is available to play that part). Spells like Flame Sword, Iron Mountain Charge, Herb of Awakening and the spells in Enhancer and Healer are all that I use, really.

[RegalStar]

Well, Precise Info does synergy with Real Original Owner of Ame-no-Murakumo, so it's more about giving an entire party 15% all buff, and the heal is just something on the side like enchanter character's group buffs.

[Serela]

I feel like I'm playing a different game than you are, Serela, since everything outside of bosses looks like "Use one, maybe two nukes, swap out those nukers when they run out of MP, repeat for 20+ battle chains consistently whilst exploring" for me.  I don't even get the single turn in 99% of fights to actually use any buffs, much less a turn to say, set up a plate and then another to break it, the 1500 delay that Kokoro needs to swap to her first (3000 to swap to the second if you're using her in a mixed party) mask, etc.

...yeah but aren't these characters nearly as good as the others when it comes to basic random fights? Futo gets to start with plates after awakening and that gives her the durability+damage bonus in randoms, Mamizou has plenty of strong alltargets and won't easily go down before her turn, etc.

Yeah, most tactics are only used in boss fights. But random battles aren't terribly difficult either, you can use most characters for them just fine. Randoms aren't that hard, but if you can't beat the boss you're not gonna progress in the game. Nothing really changed there :S I thought you were talking about shorter boss fights vs. longer boss fights, or just characters that needed a lot of time to get ramped up in bosses.

[yamkari]

How do I get past the rock on B5F that's near the relay circle to access the boss and how to go past the rock on B6F?

[Validon98]

To confirm with what RegalStar's said in terms of what's there postgame-wise, there is no data currently for floors 28F-30F or B11F in the files, so yeah, that's more or less it for the time being. Well, we didn't exactly get the main game's postgame fully until a later patch, looks to be the same here. We'll probably get them sooner or later.

One thing I am curious about is where a lot of the music in the new bgm file plays. I can only place like ten or so songs, 16 of which I don't know where they play at all. Not sure why there's so much music, but there we go?

[Thata no Guykoro]

could be that some of them haven't been used yet? the main theme for the shadow bosses was in the game ever since the beginning, but wasn't used until plus disc

do you plan to upload them later?

[Serela]

While it makes sense that several themes would be for super postfinal bosses/floors or really far in the infinite corridor... even so, 16 is a surprising amount. Well, can't complain about more music <3

[Battler]

About what level do you need to be to start the Plus Disk stuff? I am wondering if I should bother doing all the vanilla Post-Game stuff first, or if I can just dive in and use the Plus Disk stuff as an excuse to level up.

e: Oh also, is there anywhere that has compiled all the changes to the main game? Character skills, subclass skills, etc. I can vaguely remember a few but I cant keep them all in my head at the same time, so it'd be nice to have them all in one place.