I just got to Floor 2. Chen and Hong were bitchy bosses at first but I got through them finally. They're both great to have on my party. Chen is wtfspeedy and her 20 SP row attack is lovely. Hong's high HP and def is great to have around too.
I accidentally ran into one of Wriggle's super bugs and got ⑨ed though. =(
Chen's best part is her almost non-existant delay after Flight of Idaten (And actually non-existant delay after Kimontoku), which, added to her great speed, can deal out lots of damage in very little time on bosses. And Meiling tanks like nobody's business (I'm up to F10 and she's still my most resistant character), because she can actually heal herself pretty well and can remove ailments too (This will save your ass so many times, and makes Remilia's Curse of Vlad Tepes usable). Unfortunately, of the four or so actual "Tanks" I have by now... she also does the least damage output.
If you haven't caught on or read these yet, well, do so...
1. Evasion is a literally worthless stat. It never works. Ever. Sadly, this kinda nerfs poor Chen, who was made statistically to only be capable of surviving by dodging something flat out. Now she's one of the most fragile characters (At least Patchy has excellent MND)
2. Elemental affinities only affect the damage you take, not how much you dole out. It's 100/affinity that determine damage modifier - so numbers below 100 are actually very significant - as 75 is 1.3x, and 50 is 2x damage, and so on, but numbers above 100 slowly become less important (200 = .5x, 300 = .3x, etc., up to the max of 500 = .2x). Boosts at level up are +2, or from stat points are +3.
3. Characters swapped to the back recover a tiny bit of HP and SP each action. Now that you actually are gathering a bit of a party, know that for bosses, don't waste your time using Focus in general when you can swap in someone with a full SP stock and take advantage of that while the other recovers.
4. All non-affinity/resistance stats are based on (Value) * modifier - where Value is the character's base value for their level (Always the same), and Modifier is a % increase based on number of times it was boosted at level up (+2 each time), level via Stat Points (+3 each time), and added values based on equipment. What this means is that these continue to build up and effect things regardless of when you get em, and they're more effective on stats that are already high for a character. It also means a +30% Attack accessory is just a 30% higher modifier, not a 30% boost to the total, if you were wondering why they may have not seemed to be right.
5. Characters active at the end of battle get 100% EXP; those in reserve get 90%, and those back at the SDM (Including those who've returned to Gensokyo due to 0 HP/TP) get 80%. New characters get EXP equal to 80% of Reimu's total, so keep her around (She's awesome anyway), but other than that, don't worry about leaving people behind as they won't fall too far.
Anyway, as for the bugs? Kill them before they can act. They really have very little HP - Patchouli can knock em down with one shot, probably @_@
