TGOS Weekend No Early Characters tips?

[goldenyoukai]

I'm planning to do another playthrough of Weekend, and this time I want to try going through without obtaining Byakuren and Mokou early. Anyone have some tips on making it through the first half of the game without these two characters? Mainly I'm worried about the chapter 4 and 6 boss fights.

[RegalStar]

You can nullify Giga Flare with Marisa's 3-bomb commander, and for Yuyuko a RES buff might help?

[Sophilia]

Ch 4 - Bring Reimu.  At first, play defensive and kill Orin first, since her status can be annoying.  Then blast on Okuu with Fantasy Heaven and all your strongest shots - she should die before being able to fire her nuke.

Ch 6 - Bring Nitori and all magicians.  First priority is to kill Youmu, since she's doing crazy damage every other turn she's on the field.  Luckily, she's weak to elemental magic.  On the other hand, Yuyuko is weak to physical attacks but is also very evasive.  This is what Nitori is for, her chasers go through evasion.  When Yuyuko is about to die, pop one of Alice's blocking spells, so your whole team doesn't die from her counter.

[RegalStar]

Kills with chaser (and posion damage) don't trigger counterattacks. If you limit yourself to purely using magic to activate them (they will do 0 to single-target damage to Yuyuko), you don't have to worry about Resurrection Butterfly at all.

[goldenyoukai]

Appreciates the suggestions, I managed to blitz past Giga Flare with Fantasy Heaven+Final Spark, chasers made short work of Yuyuko and London Dolls saved me from Resurrection Butterfly.  I'm on Stage 9 now and I have to admit that despite not having Mokou or Byakuren, the game seems much easier this time around.

I do have a few questions regarding Satori. As someone who loves blue magic users Satori never leaves my party, but without Byakuren I'm not entirely sure how to go about learning Heal from the chapter 10 boss, and my next chance won't be till Stage 20 iirc. Also, what's the best way to build Satori for physical attacks and skills?

[RegalStar]

I have never used that single target Heal skill since Area Heal outclasses it for the most part.

Physical Satori is not really worth it for most of the game; most physical attacks she can get are really low damage, and of the few that can actually be good, the only one you can pick up early is Tentacle, and then it's only good on low defense targets; its low attack high damage multiplier attribute also makes it not work well with her eye weapons so you're better off picking up something for raw attack value if you want to use it. Vacuum Wave and Acala Sword are good attacks that ignore defense, but those aren't available until much later. For most of the game she makes much more of an impact in your team with her ailment skills (Art of Chaos, Petro Breath and Death Zapper are wonderful for randoms)

[Serela]

I haven't tried physical satori much, but it's mostly just to either apply ailments (death zapper, etc, with weapons that also carry innate statuses so you can try to inflict 2 at once), or so that you can use an MP Drain staff/knife to regen mp whilst using physical statuses or breaths for chasers.

If you use Tentacle and apply elemental enchants via Byakuren she probably does pretty well against many targets, but the less defense-reliant weapon skills as mentioned all come fairly late in, at which point she could be using her better magic attacks and/or support skills instead.

Just focus on status effects and, if you want damage, poison/magic. Good in a chaser party with Patchouli/Nitori. And no matter how you're using her, make sure to get Mad Thunder from Iku! It's got end-of-postgame power yet you can obtain it so early, it's amazing and combos great with elec chaser due to 3 hits.

[goldenyoukai]

Thanks for the replies.  I guess I'll just get Heal later, I remember how great Area Heal is in comparison and it'll be available soon anyway. Mad Thunder I remember using quite a bit before so I'll definitely being aiming for that.

I think this playthrough is easier for me mainly because I'm not being stingy with bombs; my first playthrough I rarely used skills that required bombs aside from boss fights and even then I conserved them far too much. This time around I've also been making frequent use of Chasers and boosted Poison Art for randoms and both are pretty useful.

Kinda sucks about the Physical Satori issue, I love doing physical blue mage builds in games with the enemy skill class type and I managed to pick up Drill, Holy Zapper and Samidare Slash.

[RegalStar]

It's kind of just that Satori never really gets spell card level physical attacks. Most of the physical attacks she's got have like basic weapon skill level of power, except they cost way more MP and thus don't really get to shine much even in randoms. She does get a few skills that have better damage, maybe on par with some physical people's nonspells, but that's are as far as they go. In the mean time, on the magic side she's got nukes like Mad Thunder and Medoroa, then she gets actual bomb using spell cards like Dark Giga Flare and such. Her physical skills just can't really compare at any stage of the game.

Then again, given that the game put some physical damage boosting passives on her Variety/Permanent tree, it's possible that it's just designed that she's never meant to be a physical nuke, but her array of physical skills are simply used to inflict status while doing some damage at the same time, which she does have a decent number of.

[Serela]

Then again, given that the game put some physical damage boosting passives on her Variety/Permanent tree, it's possible that it's just designed that she's never meant to be a physical nuke, but her array of physical skills are simply used to inflict status while doing some damage at the same time, which she does have a decent number of.

Yeah, her physical status skills are fairly useful postgame when she's got more MP to sustain them, especially because you can either use an upgraded cherry blossom dagger at that point for good MP drain/damage, or that both of her final Eyes inflict status effects on physical attacks so you can double up with stuff like Death Zapper. The damage they do is pretty alright. But yeah, she never really gets anything to write home about physical-damage-wise, just "alright". It's good to take -one- of the "heavy" damage skills when you're using physical status Satori, but the damage/mp cost ratio on them is pretty meh.

It's too bad, because stuff like elemental physical attacks would be neat, but they really just don't have enough power behind them, and they aren't cheap.

[goldenyoukai]

Thanks for the input regarding Satori's physical skills. I'm up to stage 15 now and I have to admit, setting her up as a physical debuff/elemental support hasn't been too bad. Freeze Ray/Cold Breath and Venom Zapper were pretty useful in stage 12, and Poison Hand/Poison Breath/Petro Breath rocked through stages 13 and 14.

I'm not quite certain though, how to gauge which skills are "better" than other similar ones, for instance Hellclaw Assassination vs Venom Zapper or Drill vs Headsplitter.

[RegalStar]

Thanks for the input regarding Satori's physical skills. I'm up to stage 15 now and I have to admit, setting her up as a physical debuff/elemental support hasn't been too bad. Freeze Ray/Cold Breath and Venom Zapper were pretty useful in stage 12, and Poison Hand/Poison Breath/Petro Breath rocked through stages 13 and 14.

I'm not quite certain though, how to gauge which skills are "better" than other similar ones, for instance Hellclaw Assassination vs Venom Zapper or Drill vs Headsplitter.

Navigating the JP wiki is the only option, really.

Hellclaw Assassination: 100% ATK, 125% damage, 120% accuracy, 100% speed, poison is 50% base chance, 20 base damage at level 6 (I think this means 200 damage at max IND/RES difference)
Venom Zapper: 100% ATK, 133% damage, 100% accuracy, 100% speed, poison is 50% base chance, 20% base damage at level 4 (I think this means 120 damage at max IND/RES difference)

Drill: 100% ATK, 125% damage, 100% accuracy, 100% speed, defense down is 50% base chance and reduces DEF by 50% for 6 turns base
Helmsplitter: 125% ATK, 101% damage, 100% accuracy, 100% speed, defense down is 50% base chance and reduce DEF by 50% for 6 turns base

For comparison, Poison Art can hit up to 500 damage at max IND/RES difference (doesn't do damage though obviously), and Soften has a 50% base chance with 50% base magnitude too, though IND/RES difference can increase it to up to 62% (I think), though it only has a base duration of 3 turns.

[goldenyoukai]

Thanks for the info, it looks like Venom Zapper and Helmsplitter have a bit of an edge over Hellclaw and Drill, I'll have to check out some of the other formulas on the JP wiki. In the meantime I'm feeling rather lucky, I managed to get Energy Hand and a Devil Heart when I went back to stage 8 to grab Leaf Shield.

On my OP subject, I feel like overall there isn't much incentive to wait on getting Mokou or Byakuren. Story-wise the scenes aren't really all that big, and gameplay-wise the only real noticeable "challenge" aspects was the inability to obtain a healing skill for Satori, and the lack of a commander for one of the parties in stage 9.

[RegalStar]

Wow lucky you on the Devil Heart. I've never seen those dropped normally in all of my playthroughs, and Spirit World Challenger is so boring to kill when all I have is a Doujigiri and it takes 20 turns to take it down.

[goldenyoukai]

Wow that final battle is crazy difficult(only made it to stage 20 in my first playthrough so this is my first time). I turned it down to the easy difficulty setting and I'm still unable to win.  Also got some incredible bad luck with Instant-death-aoe Chihiro as the first summon six times in a row,

My problem seems to be getting through the first phase of the fight without using up all of party 1's resources. Evasion Aya seems to work wonderfully as a tank, but neither Skydance or Poison Shield seem to do a very good job at making her a target most of the time. By the time I finish phase 1 my entire first party is completely drained, and as a result I have the choice of wasting resources of my second party or not passing phase 2 within 9 turns. Minus also is a pain since it seems to one shot whoever it hits(Even Alice)

I've tried keeping Sakuya with enough MP to Private Square during Phase 2, but she usually dies before turn 3 and overall she doesn't seem to do much damage unless I use her stronger skills which burn through her low mp pool.

I have everyone's Trapezohedron weapons and armor, and my party is in the early 70s. Any suggestions on getting through this fight?

[Serela]

Minus is a problem; equip mystic resist on your tank to fix it. Poison Shield is a good choice, but your other party members will still get hit here and there, so they need to be able to not get one-shotted by stuff like basic physical attack. (Buff, debuff,and/ or evasion; since you're using Aya, her spellcards are important for living through Anastasis' turns)

If you want to time stop phase 2, then Sakuya won't be able to do a whole lot else, there's not much of a way around that. Her super cheap skills aren't awful but if you aren't using nuke skills you won't get nuke damage, of course- plus the slash-weak sister has the highest pdef of the three. As for overall issue of the party being drained, hard to say without knowing what your first party setup is.

[goldenyoukai]

I've been trying with the example setup listed on the wiki:

Aya
Reimu
Marisa
Mokou
Sakuya
Satori Commander

Alice
Youmu
Sanae
Byakuren
Patchouli(From what I understand she's practically mandatory for party 2)
Nitori Commander

I don't have anything with Mystic resistance at the moment aside from some shields, what would be the least tedious method for getting one?

[RegalStar]

Shields don't provide resistance (or weaknesses), the icons are just used to denote that they have better/worse chance to block attacks from those elements. A shield "weak" to an element is still than not having that element listed at all, because it means a reduced chance to block instead of no chance to block at all. Unfortunately Minus ignores shields so they won't help.

The easiest way to get MYS resistance at this point is via accessories, but unfortunately they're drops. The 50% resistance ring drops from Hell's Gatekeeper in stage 5, and the 75% resistance ring drops from Gelantinous Matter in stage 13/14. (There's also a 10% MYS enhance amulet with 75% MYS resistance that drops from Golden Scarabs in stage 7 but that comes with some physical weakness so I can't recommend that.) You can use the "save anywhere" trick to farm one up without much trouble. There are also some weapons and armor that provide MYS resistance but I can't really remember; getting a ring is good enough anyways.

[Serela]

It skipped my mind, but craft Alice's Rainbow Greaves if you don't have them, it's really late to make them but they're still one of the best things she can use by granting all elemental resists including MYS. Even when you're using the massive resist accessories (resist all magic, weak to phys, and vice versa) the resistances it grants will counteract the induced weaknesses and help you out, so you use them basically forever 'til the mega rainbow greaves open up at the very end.

HOWEVER, that will only help Alice. If you want it for Aya you'll need to farm one of those drop rings as RegalStar said. THE FINAL PHASE STILL CASTS MINUS, so you still need Alice's greaves. Also please equip either a big permanent resist or mega petrification resist item on Alice, she'll need it. If your first party is fighting Phase 2 you might also consider earth resist in any spare slots, because Stone Shower hits everyone and hurts. Sanae's MDef buff can work instead, too.

I'd recommend shifting Sanae to party number one. Having both Sanae and Byakuren in the same party severely gimps the other, and in streams/videos+both my own playthroughs I think that's how I generally see it done (sanae party one/byakuren party 2, that is), unless they were attempting lunatic form final boss. This will make your first party survive a lot better and deal a lot more damage.

Keep in mind this means you do want Amplifying Scroll and multiple heals on Byakuren (DEFINITELY the permanent healing one) and some additional avenues for support. Nitori commander as you're already doing works for her 3-bomb- Satori in the opened slot in the main party is also very helpful if you have her relevant support skills like Reflect Wall, Area Heal, Starlight Barrier, etc. Satori is also really good in party #1 if you have mad thunder, which deals sick damage on Anastasis and solid dps for phase 2, and Shield Wall works if you really need it on Anastasis turns. Really, considering you're a fan of Satori, I'm surprised you dumped her in the commander slot, she's VERY good in either party if she's learned the relevant skills. (Your new commander might be Reimu, if so, use that exorcism bomb on Lithos turns- 40 divine barrier is no joke and Mokou's fujiyama will melt her)

The only thing is that you won't be able to revive in Party #2 unless you put Mokou in the commander slot. This isn't necessarily a problem, Nitori's a good commander too, it's just something to consider. You might also want Byakuren to bring Perfect Resist and cast it on Youmu so she'll resist Vortex, because Youmu losing manussya+patk+dark enchant sets you back several dangerous turns. (It's nice on Alice if you get a spare turn for it) You also want to make sure you've got 6 bombs and Moon-Reflecting Satellite Slash (lv60) on Youmu, but 7 or even 8 bombs means you have spare spellcards you can have Youmu cast in phase 2, which you might need (or otherwise gives you time to buff Youmu before the final phase). Getting stances to 5 pow grants a bomb.

(There's also a 10% MYS enhance amulet with 75% MYS resistance that drops from Golden Scarabs in stage 7 but that comes with some physical weakness so I can't recommend that.)

Uuughhhh I'm having flashbacks from my second playthrough where I got every item drop. These things have Yukkuri encounter mechanics. Each time you encounter a scarab on a specific map, it's encounter rate goes down, christ that drop took me literally 6+ hours I was so unlucky ughhhhhh. It might have been 10 hours but that was years ago. After I farmed down it's encounter rate on every map to where it took 5+ minutes of constant running to encounter one, things got really painful.

[RegalStar]

I can't imagine trying to farm monsters without the save anywhere trick. It can still get pretty unpleasant even with it sometimes (15% drop taking 50+ tries to get? sure why not)

[goldenyoukai]

OMG thank you so much Serela and RegalStar, I went back with some modifications and I beat her on the second try! I switched Sanae into Party 1 as suggested with Reimu as Commander and stuck Satori as active in Party 2 with Shadow Flare and support skills. I went and got the Rainbow Greaves, Galaxy Ring and Perseus Shield(somehow missed it) for Alice, gave Youmu the Kusanagi and boosted her bombs with the Awakened Soul.
First try I didn't realize Peerless Wind God didn't apply the turn it was cast and Lithos petrified the entire party before Private Square activated. Second try I managed to not only beat the first two phases with Party 1, but I even managed to beat phase 2 before the first prayer thanks to Private Square and a lucky Sakuya World. Phase 3 went relatively smooth thanks to Perfect Trigger protecting Youmu's buffs, but then Alice got KO'd by a Legion'd Flame, Patchy went down the same turn from a follow up Minus and then one of the bomb specials took out everyone else but Youmu. Her buffs wore off the next turn and she only had 91 hp left but that same turn Satellite Slash went off cooldown and it managed to be the killing blow.

With how hard that fight was, I'm spooked about Hina and the final boss of the expansion.

[RegalStar]

Hina's a big joke

[goldenyoukai]

OMG lol that's crazy, is that using Satori's Reflect Wall? I've had that skill since stage 14 but I don't think I've ever used it.

[Serela]

It never occurred to me that a lot of the telegraphed boss nukes might be reflectable >_> Although Reflect Wall is fairly useful in general just because it has 1 turn cooldown and a non-massive mp cost, wow!

[RegalStar]

It's mostly useful for reflecting Hina's counternuke and Spirit World Challenger's Dark Giga Flare spam (though you have to do something else for its cooldown turn), or reflecting Existence Hater's Abyss Wind (no effect on Tsunami of Hades, unfortunately). There are a couple of character quest boss fights it could help on too (like Marisa or Remilia), but I didn't find the need to use them. You could try it against Abyss Dragon too; though it'll only work 50% of the time (Medoroa is reflectable but Comet isn't).

[goldenyoukai]

On the expansion, are the monsters that spawn during the recruitment quests permanently missable  once I've recruited everyone?

[RegalStar]

You can find all of them in the B5F rooms of mass monsters in stage 22.

[goldenyoukai]

Coolness. I wasted ~45 minutes in Muenzuka getting the accessory off of a godly catfish because I wasn't sure, but since they have a recurring spawn point there's no rush to get any other equipment drops.