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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1. Version History
2. What is an SSCC?
3. How does this work in Star Ocean: Til The End of Time?
4. General Strategies
5. Character-Related Strategies
6. Thanks
7. Disclaimer
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VERSION HISTORY
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Version 1.02 - All SSCC's completed. Hoping to get more Post-game sections
for the next update.
Version 0.99 - All SSCC's have been completed except for Sophia.
Version 0.95 - Cliff SSCC updates posted, a bit of Fayt and Adray post-game is
complete, and Trowa finished Maria post-game SSCC with no IC and on Full
Active. Fixed a few spelling errors here and there.
Version 0.9 - Fayt and Maria SSCC's complete, added a General Strategy, fixed
up a few errors, and posted Mirage Post-Game.
Version 0.8 - Level Caps changed again, Adray, Mirage, and Nel SSCC's complete.
Only 4 SSCC's are left to finish (CaptainK will soon post his updates, we
hope). Only Sophia, Maria, and Fayt SSCC's left (How...ironic). I'm in the
middle of the Peppita one as we speak.
Version 0.3 - Roger SSCC complete, Level caps updated yet again, location for
"Anti-Freeze Amulet". We can only hope CJAYC accepts the FAQ this time around,
seeing how the SSCC's are nearly 1/3 done.
Version 0.2 - Albel SSCC complete, strategies for him posted, Level Caps
changed.
Version 0.1 - Completed SSCC guide, but not all SSCC's are actually complete,
and no specific strategies have been posted thus far. It'll change in the
next version.
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WHAT IS AN SSCC?
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A Solo Straight Character Challenge. And no, that "Straight" has nothing to
do with sexual preference.
Originally started by MunkiBleedsGreen in Final Fantasy Tactics as an
SCC (Straight Character Challenge), it was then changed by Overrated and his
fellows on Board 4694 (go see if you want) to an SSCC, which is what we're
after for Star Ocean.
It involved using ONLY Ramza, and ONLY allowing him the use of ONE job. It
also implemented level caps to avoid overleveling.
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HOW DOES THIS WORK IN STAR OCEAN: TIL THE END OF TIME?
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Glad you asked (even if you actually didn't). I assume you've already beaten
the game so that you know what all the places are. Of course, there's
spoilers in this FAQ most likely. :p Not the best place for a beginner.
Anyway.
Play through the game using only 1 character. Level caps are implenented,
which I will explain later if one is interested in this. IC is allowed, but
not recommended for the main game. If in the case you want to do a Mirage
SSCC, for all of Disc 1/half of disc 2 you'll have to use her carbon-copy,
Cliff. Gutsy Bunny is optional as is Full Active, though for people like
Mirage, Full Active may not be a good idea.
NOTE: IC is not allowed during the Main Game, but if you find an item that
is technically an IC item without using IC/Buying it, you can use the item.
Also note that you aren't allowed to buy IC items from shops. Yes, I
stated the same points twice, but it has to be said for people not to
abuse IC.
If you have a "Carbon Copy" in your party, you MUST use him/her unless you
have the actual SSCC character, which in that case means you MUST use that
person. If neither the "Carbon Copy" nor the SSCC character is in the party,
you must still use only one character, however, it can any character you want
to use.
And yes, this means during the Sophia/Adray SSCC that you're going to have to
fight The Proclaimer at level 1. Good luck.
Of course, this also means in the Battle Simulator that you have to use
Sophia if doing a Sophia/Adray SSCC, Fayt if doing a Fayt/Albel SSCC, or
Peppita if doing a Peppita SSCC. It's rather obvious, but it's easily
overlooked since the Battle Simulator is so easy.
Level Caps for Galaxy Mode:
Before Peterny: Level 9 Cap
Peterny-Before Entering Bequerel Mines: Level 14 cap
Bequerel Mines-Before Entering Kaddaan: Level 21 cap
Kaddaan-Before Urssa Lava Caves: Level 26 cap
Urssa Lava Caves-Crosell: Level 29 cap
Biwig: Level 31 cap
Moonbase-Before entering the Time Gate: Level 33 cap
Time Gate-before 2nd visit to Shrine of Kaddaan: Level 43 cap
2nd visit to Shrine of Kaddan-Before defeating Stone Golem: Level 50 cap
Firewall-Before reaching Floor 10 of Spiral Tower: Level 65 cap
Luther: Level 70 cap.
Maze of Tribulations: Level 110 cap
Sphere 211 Floors 101-169: Level 180 cap
Sphere 211 Floors 170-209: Level 200 cap
Sphere 211 Floors 210+-Freya: No cap.
Urssa Lava Cave Temple: Level 110 cap (Before Gabriel)
or Level 200 cap after Gabriel.
SUGGESTION: These caps are very tight, and enforce the least amount
of non-forced battles possible. Try to not purposely level up, but we're
always changing these caps to accompany to your needs.
Also, during some cases, characters are forced into your party for certain
fights. If this happens, put them on manual and turn off any and all
tactical skills they have.
Forced Battles:
-Incapacitator Vaas Fights 2 and 3 (Pepitta joins. Or in a Pepitta SSCC
player's case, Fayt/Sophia remains). There isn't even any AAA's at this point
anyway, so it's not like it matters.
-Norton (Cliff joins, or in Cliff/Mirage's SSCC, Fayt does).
-Black Brigade Soldiers x3 (Nel Joins, or in Nel's SSCC, Cliff/Fayt joins)
-Moonshadow Clan Thieves at Duggus Forest (Roger joins, or in Roger's SSCC,
Cliff/Fayt/Nel joins).
-Sophia during the Convictor fight (Sophia joins, or in the case of a Sophia
SSCC, whoever you used for Proclaimer/Enforcer joins).
And yes, you're allowed to recruit Optional Characters even if you're not
using him or her for your SSCC. I figure that Health Berry in Roger's
sidequest is pretty useful. :p
Keep in mind that you cannot put items on dead characters that would benefit
the whole party or the SSCC character. Until you get 7 characters, always
swap out the characters who you don't use. After you get 7, just have 2 dead
people in the party.
The "4D no movement" trick shouldn't be abused, but there's really no way to
stop it, since most people do it by accident. So it's allowed for now if you
ever do a 4D SSCC.
Fayt and ???: While you're allowed to get any ending you want to fight Fayt
and ???, you should probably try for the Alone ending, since Luther is usually
the toughest for most people.
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GENERAL STRATEGIES
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-Buy those Clone Generators as soon as possible. Remember that Fresh Sages
aren't needed anyway.
-Once you get the Ring of Disentegration, go get the Anti-Freeze Amulet in the
Airyglyph Aquaducts. It helps. Also the Amulet of Freedom is in the Bequerel
Mines, and you can get it WITHOUT the Ring! Awesome Vs. The Chimera!
-Learn how to become good at soloing. When fighting 1 Vs. 1, it's best to
usually try and get the enemy to use a minor attack. Run around while at 100%
fury to increase their chances. Then when the enemy gets stunned, smack them
and run. These hit and run techniques work very well for 1 on 1 fights.
-Your formation should pretty much always be set to "Escape". Gives you
time to get up your fury if you get ambused, and time for spellcasters to
actually USE A SPELL WITHOUT DYING.
-When fighting groups, No Guard is VERY helpful, since usually groups rely
on stunlocking to kill you. Of course, early on this won't help. For group
battles, deke them all into using an attack (Hopefully a Major one) and then
smack them with a VERY QUICK ATTACK, followed by running. In these types of
battles, the enemy is screwed when they get down to only 1 character.
NEVER try to guard all the enemies attacks unless THEY ALL use a Minor Attack.
Otherwise you'll get hurt, and with group battles, one hit is all it takes for
you to lose due to stunlock.
-It goes without saying, but keep up to date with armor and weapons. Cliff
gets the roughest job here, since he gets to buy the Damask Gauntlet which is
ridiculously overpriced. Well, if you're doing an IC game, you can make him
the Gatling Gauntlets...
-If doing a Sophia/Adray SSCC, buy the Magician's Staff at Moonbase. Please.
-The security service in Arkives can each be OHKO'D by Fire Crystals, won from
Dire Tarantulas in Kirlsa Caverns or the first type of Brass Dragon in the
Bequerel Mines.
-It's generally a good tactic to use CTRL + F to find something in this FAQ.
This is where the guide is very incomplete, due to the fact that very few
SSCC's for Star Ocean: Til The End of Time have been done yet, and that anyone
who completed one hasn't posted updates. For now I'll post descriptions for
the SSCC's, and my current work with my Albel SSCC.
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FAYT (First completed by Marty81, post-game by CrOnOKiD)
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I guess I'll update my Fayt SSCC in the master topic then.
The first bit of this is copied and pasted from my other topic.
The beginning stuff was really easy - I just used short weak attacks at
opportune times. I don't remember if I completed all 3 of the battle
simulator battles or not =/
Norton's henchmen - Short Weak
Norton - Set Cliff to manual and disabled his AAA. He distracted
Norton a bit but ended up surviving the fight with about 500 hp left.
I'm embarassed that I used 2 blueberries here. Ah well, I'm still
learning how to do this. I was level 3, so no Aerial yet.
Inquisitor and henchmen - Short Weaks for the most part. I was still
getting the hang of things at this point. I used a few more blueberries
and ended up killing the inquisitor by dodging his strong attacks and
hitting him in the back in the middle of them with weak attacks.
Giant Crab - I leveled up to 6 in the cave. Aerial and blazing sword
finished this guy off in no time.
Earth Smasher - Aerial
To quote Master Epyon, "Went and bought the Holy Sword and Masterwork
Plate." (money raised by selling map completion bonuses)
Continuing the quote: "Lots of Black Brigade Soldiers (0 resets):
Could only inflict 0 damage to me.
Shelby (0 resets): See above.
About 5 trees in Duggus Forest (0 resets): Blazing Sword, whack
whack, dead." - I used two strong aerials per tree instead. My
way was probably worse.
Legion Dragons - Stunned them with AAA, then followed that up
with strong aerial. It was a good fight. I cast healing a few
times to stay alive. Leveled to 14 here.
Brass Dragons - MP killed with Aerial
Cockatrice - MP killed with Blazing Sword. Leveled to 15 here,
so now I have side kick.
Demitrio's soldiers - MP killed with aerial. Very easy. Leveled
up to 16 here, so now I have No Guard (and lightning blast)
Demitrio - MP killed his dragon buddies, then air-juggled him with
short strong (just on the inside of short range) and 2x short weak.
Leveled up to 17 from this fight.
Albel - MP Killed his cronies with Aerial, then 175%-sidekicked him
down. It probably would have been better to MP kill his buddies with
blazing sword and then do big sidekick chains on him, but oh well.
Leveled to 18 from this fight.
Vox - Sidekicked his ass into the ground. I just looped the
following: cancel-chaining up to 250% (that's where my fury ran out),
then running off to a corner and casting healing. I had a
regeneration symbol equipped to regen my MP. Leveled up to 19 here.
Flying Knight - I don't know if this one was optional or not,
actually. I sidekicked him to death quickly. Leveled to 20 here,
so now I have ice blade.
Crystal Statues - MP killed with ice blade. Leveled to 21 - got Berserk.
Crystal Cerebrus - Combination of side kicks and aerials took him down.
It was annoying, but easy. By the way, there are mad pathing issues you
can exploit in this fight if you need time to cast healing. Leveled up
to 22 and got Increase HP Damage.
Vendeeni Soldiers (~10 resets) - Finally a hard fight, but only because
there's 4 of them, they shoot quickly, and they have a chance of
one-hit-killing you. I eventually gave up on MP killing them. Equipped
No Guard, Berserk, and Side Kicked the crap out of them. It only took
1 reset once I had the right setup. Leveled to 23. I have to say that
I find it telling that I received my 5 hours in battle BT this battle,
after having clocked some 40-odd hours between my previous save and
this one.
I found the Aquatic dungeons of Surferio and got OWNED by symbology
in the first random fight inside, so I'll be skipping that area for
now.
Schweimer - I just spammed side kicks. He died about the same time
his dragon buddies did.
Blue Dragon Zombie - Side Kicked him and leveled up.
Robin Wind - Annoying little bastard. Is there any way to avoid
thunder flare? Anyway, I used a handful of blue and black berries
here. Leveled twice and got shotgun blast.
Now I'm in the Lava Fields.
SIDE NOTE FROM EPY: Fayt can "Dodge" Thunder Flare if he does Long-O
just as Thunder Flare is cast.
Proclaimer - This was a joke. I side kicked the living crap out of
her (it?), and even managed to collect the "defeat in under 1 minute"
battle trophy. LOL.
Security Service - Side kicked down.
4D Security Guards - Something about sidekicks and shotgun blast
(I was just messing around with it)
Azazer - More sidekicks and shotgun blast.
Berial And Belzeber - Jammed out to the phat tunez and kicked some
ass. This was actually a hard fight, especially since it was the
first time I'd ever seen them. I should have had my targeting set
to manual so that I didn't keep automatically targeting Belzeber
when I wanted to smack Berial around. I used sidekick chains on
each - it's annoying since it kept missing, too. I used 20
blueberries and a couple of physical enhancers here, but I know
I could have done a lot better if I'd tried again. I also forgot
that I had a clone generator equipped (and 19 more in reserve),
so all in all it wasn't TOO bad.
Proclaimer #2 (0 resets): Sidekick
Enforcer (0 resets): Sidekick
Convictor (0 resets): Let him OHKO Sophia, then sidekicks. He was
very pansy. Leveled to 41, so now I get to see what Air Raid is.
Anyway, update on Sidekick, er, Fayt:
Lesser Eye (1 resets): He can petrify (hence the reset), and he
can also freeze, apparently. I played defensively, dodging his
strong beams, and when openings arose, I combo-sidekicked the
crap out of him. Leveled to 43 here. These level caps are way
too tight =/
Dark Armors - Sidekick, as expected.
Crystal Knight - Claimed my 1000 battles trophy here, and basically
used side kick. Again, there are pathing issues to exploit here if
you want, but it's harder to do this time since he's quite fast.
Dark Eye - Yawn. I don't know if he can petrify or not. Anyway, I
did a combination of long strong attacks (when he was done with that
silly circle attack thing) and sidekick combos.
Chimera - Equipped amulet of freedom and clone generator. Broke
2 clone generators and used about 7 blueberries here.
Main attack? You guessed it - sidekick.
Stone Golem - Quite easy, especially since he's so slow - you
can just run off to a corner and cast healing whenever you're hurt.
Broke a clone generator once when his fire attack hit me twice for
6000 each (since my max hp is about 11999). I gained 3 levels from
this fight, leveling me to 51, so TECHNICALLY I'm over the cap
("2nd visit to Shrine of Kaddan-Before entering Firewall: Level
50 cap"), but taking two steps forward put me into Firewall, so
I'm not too worried about it. In fact, has anyone even shown that
it's possible for the Fayt SSCC to be level 50 or under after
this fight? I haven't done any leveling since I leveled to 6 in
the aqueducts, and I've fought about 3 non-forced battles since
then. Meh.
Anyway, I have dimension door now. It's pretty cool.
Battle Copter - What the hell is up with this rap song? Sidekicked
this guy down, but I busted a clone generator in doing so.
Pseudo Blair - I'm embarrased that I broke a clone generator here
too. Death howl kept catching me, even though it's a weak attack,
and I kept missing with sidekick. Still, she's a weak boss, so she
went down without too much trouble.
EPY NOTE: Actually, it's set to Strong. :(
Ruktogias - He does a lot of damage when he hits you, but all of
his strong attacks are slow and easy to dodge. I just AAA'd him
and chained sidekicks.
Death Monster x2 - Sidekick! Sidekick! Is that all you got?! Sidekick!
Chimera Hawk x3 - NO RESETS. Don't hate me. I didn't even know this
fight was coming up when I got into it, so I blindly charged in
and started spamming sidekicks. I was lucky in that I caught all
3 of them in most of the kicks, and ended up not technically
stunlocking them, but making it so that they couldn't retaliate
in the middle of the chain (or if they could, they chose not to).
One of them got hit by every single kick and went down almost
immediately after the first chain was over to another half-chain.
About this time I realized that I was in the infamous Chimera Hawk
fight, and I was already down to just two of them. Heat impact hurts,
and Blizzard impact actually froze me once (broke a clone generator
here), but I was able to eliminate one of the remaining guys, and
then the last one was easy. (Note: I have a save right before these
guys, and I'm going to go back and try it again to see if this was
really just some freak-of-nature occurence)
Setup for Luther:
Short weak - Sidekick
Short strong - Increase HP Damage
Long weak - Didn't use it
Long strong - Increase HP Damage
First Aid
Common Support Skills
Best Armor/Weapon
Regeneration Symbol
Bunny Shoes
Luther - Form 1 - Joke. AAA'd all of his weak attacks, sidekicked
when he did his strong spear attack, and cut him apart with strong
hits when he did Laser Beams.
Luther - Form 2 (4 resets) : Switched the regen symbol for a clone
generator here.
Pattern 1: Sidekicked during his strong attack. AAA'd expansion
force and countered with strong attacks. Did the usual thing with
Laser Beams.
Pattern 2: AAA'd Flaming Divide, and immediately short strong'd him.
Fayt's short strong includes him stepping forward, and Luther would
usually immediately use Flaming Divide AGAIN. Just stood still. The
first part of the attack sailed over my head (while I regained fury),
and the second part was AAA'd and countered with short strong again.
Dodged Perfect Symmetry when applicable, and used Healing, Blueberries,
and Blackberries for recovery.
Pattern 3: Insanity Prelude killed me every time - the first two times
because I didn't understand what the attack did yet and got caught on
the branches that come out of the ground (the first time I saw it, I
was like, WTF! Branches just come out from underneath your feet and
kill you! That's lame). Kept my clone generator on, even though it
wouldn't have helped if I'd gotten caught. Basically I dodged Insanity
Prelude and Perfect Symmetry and just waited for him to use Flaming
Divide or Laser Beams, and then I countered those in the usual way.
Eventually he went down. It was quite a long fight.
Hardest Battles:
1. Luther
2. Vendeeni Soldier x4
3. Lesser Eye
Most used skills:
-Healing
-Aerial (early on)
-Blazing sword (early on)
-No Guard
-Increase HP Damage (only against Luther)
-First Aid
-Common Support Symbols
Final level: 62
Oh yeah, I used sidekick a bit too.
Render (1 reset): I tried to take advantage of his weakness
against fire, so I tried out shotgun blast and I paid the price.
Slow moves like that are a no-no against Render's ice beam. So I just
spammed sidekicks and didn't get touched once. :)
Succubus (0 resets): Sidekick. Watch out for her attacks, she got me once
and I nearly died. I was also confused once, but I lucked out. Pretty easy,
but you have to be careful.
Basilisk King (0 resets): Sidekick, watch out because he can petrify you.
But he goes down extremely quickly so it shouldn't be a problem at all.
Finally got 2 tri-emblems from santa's boots... it probably would have been
faster for me to just get the 12 million fol to buy them... :\
Aqua Wisps (1 reset): wow... I think i overestimated them. With tri-emblems
equipped, they dropped like flies. Now Fayt has a bunch of useful skills to use
for the aqua wisp battles. You can get close to them and air
raid them at short range, then cancel into a dimension door (175% or 200%)
to finish them off. I used this until
the 5th battle where I got paralyzed and died. :P The next time, I
found an easier
way to beat them, spam sidekicks. Yes, just jump into short range and start
spamming those sidekicks and Fayt will dodge nearly everyone one of their
attacks. Just watch out not to trigger their AAA. Pretty neat stuff.
Earth Dragon (0 resets): Spammed those sidekicks, after going through
aqua
wisps, i certainly didn't expect to die here.
Mighty Vox (0 resets): Reflecting Plate made me invulnerable
to his fire breath attack.
Anyway, i simply spammed sidekicks here as well.
Sootie (0 resets): Arghh... this one was frustrating. Sidekicks
missed quite a bit here so
i used air raid. Although i couldn't get it to stop using sootie
blast all the time >_<
I got the Divine Avenger and Divine Blade BS now. It helps
boost the attack quite a bit. :)
Vile Chimera (0 resets): Sidekick and air raid, not as tough
as it seems... just watch
out for his triple attack.
Tri-chimera (0 resets): Nothing much to worry about here.
Watch out for his lunatic
attack, although you can AAA it easily. Again sidekick and air raid.
Gaurdian Haunt (0 resets): Spam sidekicks, they're quite
strong but they shouldn't
cause much of a problem.
Shadow Savant (0 resets): Sidekicks and air raids, any of
those will work well here.
Fayt's level: 87
Gabriel Celesta (2 resets):
A bit frustrating. Lightning feather is just crazy. I had to make
sure my fury was
always full to AAA it. Gabriel has three phases. In the first phase, he'll
just use
his weak attack where he thrusts his spear (easy to AAA), strong attack with
his spear (easy to dodge), and another weak attack which drains guts (he rarely
does this). In his first phase, cancel those 200% and 300% air raids to
deplete his HP fast.
When 1/3 of his HP is depleted, he will move onto his
second phase. This is where
i had my 2 resets. Now he'll start to use lightning feather...
so forget cancelling air
raids for a while. The trick here is to try to get him into a
weak attack and then
AAA it (Standard). Now when he's stunned, wait for his
fury to build up then use
a strong air raid to knock him out of stun and shatter his guard.
Now when he gets
up he will use a weak attack again (even if your fury is full),
then use air raid again
when his fury builds up. Sometimes he will use lightning feather
instead of a weak
attack but thats fine, you can AAA it as well.
Now he moves onto the third phase. He will start using Dragons now,
so move into
the southeast corner and heal yourself up. After he's done, get him
to use a weak
attack again, and AAA it. Then wait for his fury to fill up before air
raiding him. Not
too long after, he should fall. It's not as long a battle as it seems.
The MoT all in all, was quite easy. Fayt has a lot of nifty moves,
which can allow
him to dodge attacks or knock down the enemy. Anyway, i
got out and stocked on
healing items. Then i headed for Sphere...
Norton Redux (0 resets): A bit annoying with shooting spree.
I used air raid as my
weak attack here to knock him down quickly and then i
cancelled into dimension door
for some big damage. It was quite easy, just don't get caught
into any of his nasty
attacks.
I grabbed the berries and the huge folio on floor 114. So now
I have Ethereal Blast. :)
Enraged Crosell (0 resets): Very, very quick battle. I used air raid
as my weak attack to knock him down first then i cancelled into a 200%
ethereal blast and landed all the hits for insane damage. After only two
ethereal blasts, he went down quickly.
Fayt's level: 95
I won't beat the reigning champions just yet, although i might get
to it soon. I don't really need the victory trophy that much. I think
i'll just keep moving on in Sphere. Shadow Dragon (0 resets): Same
as enraged crossell. Just knock him down with air raid
and charge up ethereal blast as he's getting up. A few EB's will
take him down easily.
Vengeful Shelby (0 resets): He's a bit tougher because he has a
lot of stunlock resistance,
meaning you may have to eat a hit or two from him after pulling
out an ethereal blast.
Other than that, he's not that tough. He doesn't have any
anti-air attacks to knock
Fayt out of ethereal blast.
Biwig (0 resets): Same as vengeful shelby but a lot easier.
Just air raid him and pull
out ethereal blast. He will never strike you in the air. Later
he'll start pulling out
elemental guns with illusion rifle, this is a good chance to
use air raid on him. He'll
keep doing the same move even after he has an elemental
gun. >_>
Green Majora (2 resets): First of all, you definitely don't
want to pull out ethereal blast
here since his ice beam and his spinning attacks will easily
knock Fayt out of ethereal
blast even when he's in the air. Just use the same strategy
for
Render, spam sidekicks on him. It will take quite a while, but
he won't
get a hit on you if you're careful. I won the first time using
this strategy.
Level 102 now.
Archdemon (6 resets): Wow, he was even harder than I expected.
Anyway, like a lot of bosses, there are three phases to this battle. This
first one is pretty simple... just watch out for his strong attack. Don't
get caught in it, I died a few times like this. Crimson sword and his weak
attack are pretty easy to AAA otherwise. In his second phase, he'll now
use Sword of Darkness. The trick to dodging Sword of Darkness is to
sidestep behind Archdemon when he's using it. It hits a very large area
in front of him... but if you stay behind him you will be safe. After sometime,
he'll begin to use Flashing Sword. This can get annoying if your fury is low,
but it's easy to dodge otherwise. AAA this when your fury is full and
just keep attacking him (note that Fayt can go through Archdemon's
strong attack with long major as well as Sword of Darkness I think).
I used blade of fury to cancel into air raid because it cancels very quickly
allowing me to disrupt Archdemon's attacks quicker and doing some nice
damage as well. Also I highly recommend having standard AAA. The boss's
AI has a pattern of always using weak attacks after you shatter their
guard and knock them down when they are stunned.
Belzeber & Azazer (2 resets): The annoying part of this battle is Azazer. Just
get them to use a strong attack, dodge it and use a weak air raid on
them to knock them down. If you want to take a risk, you can go ahead
and cancel into an ethereal blast. This will eliminate Azazer immediately
if you manage to land enough hits so you won't have to worry about
Crystal Prison and his Sniping shot. Belzeber is a joke without Azazer.
Just use a weak air raid and cancel into an ethereal blast. None of his
attacks can knock you out while in air so you will easily land all hits from EB.
Berial (0 resets): Use the same setup as Archdemon. Air raid is the
key to winning this battle since he loves flying up in the air a lot. Get
him to use weak attacks, and AAA it. Then cancel air raids to take
him down. Soon he'll start using auto-aim and fire dance. You can
sidestep to dodge fire dance or you can simply outrun it if you're far
enough. If he uses auto-aim, AAA it to stun him. Wait for his fury to
fill up then attack him with blade of fury -> air raid combo. When
he gets up, let your fury build up and he will use a weak attack, and
AAA it. This pattern has worked against nearly all bosses for me so far.
Super Blair (6 resets): I had 5 resets at level 108... then I decided I
needed to level up more. So then I came back at level 170 and had to
reset only once before I beat her. :)
Ok first of all, Fayt's HP has to be over atleast 30000, you have to be
able to eat a death howl or eddy of light. Have 20 physical enhancers
and blueberries. Here's the setup I used:
Short O: Air raid
Long O: Air raid
- First Aid
Equip a tri-emblem and bunny shoes. The first part is easy. Just watch
out for southern cross. Lightning strike is a pain, but I got used to
dodging it all the time with sidesteps (or you can use long major). Just
pull out air raids on her, and as you can see, you won't be cancelling
here so it will take quite some time.
When she gets to about 1/3 or so of her HP down, she will start using
eddy of light and death howl 90% of the time. This is where the bunny
shoes come in. You HAVE to be able to outrun super blair so you can
heal yourself with items. When you're at long range, trigger air raid and
fayt will run up to her automatically and air raid her as quick as he can
(FAM not recommended). This way Fayt will get a chance to interrupt
her before blair can pull out her deadly moves. There is a little chance
that blair will withstand an air raid, so you will be taking damage then. If
she
does hit you, run away as quick as you can and heal yourself up. Keep in
mind, whenever you run to use an air raid from long range, make sure your
HP is high enough (25000 or above). You can dodge both of her attacks
with bunny shoes but it is quite difficult...
Eddy of Light: Avoiding this is very difficult, I gave up on sidesteps
so I just decided to outrun it. Try to run up to her so that when you just
get to short range you can get away quickly because she will
startup eddy of light just when you get to short range. When this
happens, run quickly to the side and you will be able to avoid it
completely. If this moves manages to hit you after air raid, sidestep
so you can dodge the second hit.
Death Howl: This doesn't have a very large range but don't
underestimate it. It's damage is what you have to worry about.
This is why you need to keep you HP high when you run in to pull
out air raids.
Just hang in there and she will die... then again, it's not like this battle
will be short... it'll take about 100 air raids or so before you defeat her. :)
Reigning champions (0 resets): Level 184, i used a combo of air raid and
ethereal blasts and Solon went down quickly. Watch out when using
ethereal blast though, since his sword wave can knock you out of it. I
also had a reflecting plate on so Dirna didn't use explosion or firebolt
(lucky me). Avoiding laser beams is easy so just use ethereal blast to
finish her off. She doesn't really have any anti-air attacks to knock Fayt
out of the air so it's pretty easy... yeah.
Lenneth (4 resets): Level 225, used up HP berries and MP berries and
reached max HP with around 14k MP. I highly recommend doing this
because you'll have to eat Lenneth's attacks since you'll be using air raid
here again. Equip two tri-emblems, you don't need bunny shoes here.
Ok, so in Lenneth's first phase she will use her weak slashing attack
which drains fury and a strong attack that will hit you around 20 times.
Be very careful of her strong attack, although with max HP you should
be able to barely survive it. Just don't take too much risks, I only got
caught
in it twice I believe. AAA her weak attacks, you can avoid it if you want
but it is much better to AAA it especially in the next phase. She has one
more weak attack that is much stronger than her slashing attack. She won't
use it that much but AAA it. Oh, and keep AAA on standard. Ok, so
basically you'll be using the same setup you used against Super Blair.
Whenever Lenneth starts casting magic, quickly knock her out with air
raid. If it fails to do so, sidestep to dodge lightning strike or just run out
of range if she uses stone rain. Make sure you don't get caught in stone
rain and be right beside Lenneth! Lenneth will recover quick and pummel
you with whatever she likes while you are stunlocked in the stone rain.
If she uses her strong attack, just run out of range and just wait for her to
come to you again. AAA her weak attack and use air raid on her when her
fury bar is full. This will shatter her guard and she will most likely use a
weak attack again. Keep this pattern up and you'll be air raiding her most
of the time. Keep in mind, if you fail to knock her down with air raid, she
can easily start up her strong tornado attack and catch you in it. If this
happens, you will survive if your HP is not low. Run away quickly and use
your healing items. You probably don't have to worry that much about it
though since she will be getting disrupted out most of the time.
During her second phase, after about 2/3 of her HP is down, she will begin
using NV. Ok, now it gets a lot slower since you will have to be careful
when to pull out air raid. Run to a corner and wait for her to approach you...
if she starts up NV, quickly run to the opposite corner (you won't need
bunny shoes for this) to avoid it. If you somehow screw up or she catches
you with NV off guard, you'd probably have to equip bunny shoes and run
fast as hell to avoid it. If she decides to use her strong attack, simply avoid
it by running out of range. The only time you will be using air raid on her is
when you AAA her weak attack or when she starts casting spells. If you air
raid her and fail to knock her down before she uses NV, try to run as fast as
you
can to the opposite corner but you will probably be get hit a few times. If
your HP is high enough, you can survive some hits from NV but don't rely
on it. I got hit by NV twice and survived both times. And since Fayt is so
fast, you'll be able to dodge most of her attacks easily. Just don't take any
risks by using air raid at a wrong time or you might end up dying. The key
to winning here is to keep your HP at top notch. I didn't let it fall below 60k
whenever I had the chance. So just use up those blueberries or physical
enhancers or whatever. Just be patient for the rest of the battle and attack
her carefully and you will win eventually.
Ethereal Queen (0 resets): Level 225... Not that hard, I can actually cancel
combo on her unlike the last two bosses. I used blade of fury to cancel into
air raid. It was still quite a long battle but simple. Try to keep your fury up
to AAA all her attacks. Her strong attack is extremely slow, so just pull of
BoF and air raid to knock her out of it. You might want to keep an amulet
of freedom equipped just in case. She has one strong attack where she
swings her spear which she rarely uses... just watch out for it but it's not
that dangerous. Soon she'll start using more attacks which you can AAA
as well. Recover your fury as she's getting up after knocked down from
air raid, and don't get caught in Binding Field.
To avoid Celestial Star, I used
trowa's tip to run to the top and move around while dodging the
explosions.
Fayt & Luther (1 reset): Level 226... I was careless the first time around and
didn't heal myself and ended getting killed by air raid (how ironic). Anyhoo,
I went for Luther first so he doesn't distract me while I take out Fayt. I used
a simple combo of sidekicks and air raids. If one of them begins casting Laser
Beams, dodge it and pull out a sidekick and air raid combo to take them out.
It's a bit annoying since your attacks can be interrupted by parrying enemy
attacks (thanks to my agility). Oh and try not to get smacked by
ethereal blast,
it's probably the most damaging move they have... though it's nothing
compared to what I have already been through (i.e. Eddy of Light, NV).
Freya (unbeaten): I tried many times, but failed... FAM would solve this
problem though which I don't have(yeah, i'm not a BT fan). I guess
Ethereal Blast could work in FAM but the most hits you can get from
the last part of the move is around 4 hits, and freya has a big chance
of not getting knocked down from it. Fayt also has a slow recovery time
from the move which will give freya time to catch up to him and pull out a
move.
Without FAM, so far Divine Blade has worked the best for me. I used
Increase HP Damage to go along with it on short weak. What I do is
start up divine blade then run towards freya and wait for her to use a
weak attack or symbology. When she uses a weak attack, I used AAA
and then a long major attack on her, and if she flies up, I follow it up with
a short O, then short X. One round of this does about 150,000 damage in
total. If she starts using symbology, I use long major again to dodge
lightning strike and stone rain. I can dodge her strong attack easily by
running around her in circles, she will usually miss (trying to run away
from it is risky). Now if she uses Ether Strike, I simply equip bunny shoes
and run out of range as fast as I can... or if it's too late, I get into long
range and use a long major attack to avoid it.
This strategy works well until:
- Freya spams ether strike
- Fayt get paralyzed
- Fayt get confused
- She uses her weak attack while i'm recovering from my long major
attack and then pulls out an ether strike.
- I somehow get caught in stone rain when near her, and she pulls
out her strong attack/ether strike while i'm being stunlocked.
Anyone without FAM playing a no IC game with Fayt solo is welcome to
try, but I didn't really see a way around it. If anyone manages to pull a win,
i'll be glad to hear about what strategy you used. =)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CLIFF: (First completed by Captain K/Dark Lord Seifer, post game
by Marty81)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the way to Norton: Not a single battle with Fayt. I even made his friends
run away.
Norton: Set Fayt to Manual and inflicted stab...err punchity death with Cliff.
Fayt got to level up twice though. Levelled to 3.
Inquisitor and homies: Quite tough actually. I almost got stunlocked to death.
I was level 4 and Sphere of Might sucks. You'd do better using far X attacks.
One thing to get used to with Cliff: Early on he has about enough MP for 2
shots of Healing. Therefore, I'd suggest investing SP on his MP stat. It'll
save you a ton of trouble later *cough*Azazer*hack*
Aqueducts: Levelled to 5. Cliff actually has a harder time early on,
which is why getting Masterwork Plate should be a priority. His damage
output is excellent without the Damask Gauntlet anyway.
Giant Crab: Followed CronoKid's advice. AAA, then O attack. Bought the
Masterwork Plate after this.
Kirlsa Caverns and Earth Smasher: Levelled to 7. The brute offshoot couldn't
even hurt me. Punched him to next Tuesday.
Got the bunnies from Bequerel, Aire Hills, Granah Hills, and the Multi-Flask
from Arias. All that sold for 38K Fol so I went to buy the Damask Gauntlet.
Shelby and the black brigade: Punch/No damage to Cliff. Levelled to 8.
Duggus and the trees (1 reset): First gameover due to the Homing AAA from the
trees. AAA, then 2 Hammers of Might should do it. Levelled to 12.
Mudman: AAA, then Hammer of Might. He does heal a lot so the battle
could last a while. Levelled to 13.
Legion Dragons: Cake...Hammer of Might up to 200% showed them who's boss.
Cockatrice (1 reset): Got stoned here (not that kind of stoned). Anyway,
Hammer of Might cancels should do the trick. You may have Electric
Fists at this point (I didn't...got it after the fight) so that can work too.
Demetrio: Hammer of Might cancels.
Albel: Killed his cronies using minor attack -> Hammer of Might ->
Electric Fists -> Hammer of Might then beat down on Albel using a
combination of the above combo and normal attacks.
My level after that fiasco was 18.
Vox: See Demetrio. Levelled up to 20 in the Sealed Cavern.
Flying Knight: With Berserk on, this fight was over so fast it wasn't
funny. Same ol' Hammer of Might.
Crystal Statues: Wow, a step up in difficulty. Hammer of Might doesn't
work on these guys for some reason so cancel bonused Charge should see
you through. Levelled to 21.
Crystal Cerberus: Easy fight. Spammed Charge till he was gone. Levelled to
22.
Vendeeni Soldiers (2 resets): The trick here is to use strong Hammer
of Might. Cancel bonus doesn't help because you might get shot or AAA'ed
which means you'll either get stunlocked to death or petrified. Don't even
try this battle without No Guard.
Schweimer: Hammer of Might cancels. Next...
Blue Dragon Zombie (1 reset): The "reset" was because I forgot to unequip
Hammer of Might. I didn't have Aerial Assault (You can and barely get
by without breaking the cap as long as you're early in level 25) so
Charge cancels saved the day. You might want to put in a Regeneration
Symbol to nullify the MP damage. Levelled to 25 and got Aerial Assault.
Robin Wind (1 reset): Equip the Wind Charm and a Clone Generator. Based
on his attack, you can either AAA him (minor attack, Rising Stream),
evade (major attack), or soak it up (Thunder Flare). For the former 2,
hit him with a strong Aerial Assault and repeat. For the latter, just
soak it up and use a Blueberry when your HP gets low.
Crosell: I actually had a tough time here, using a lot of healing items
till I realized all his attacks (except his major one) can be AAAed.
Thus, best way to go about it is to AAA then strong Aerial Assault.
From what I noticed, he'll keep using Doom Raid when you AAA him so
you can repeat this till he dies.
I actually ended up levelling to 30 after the battle (18K EXP is a lot),
but since Urssa is done then it's legal. Finally got Fists of Fury.
Biwig: Actually troublesome when you've only got 1 person. Aerial
Assault should pronounce you victor though.
Proclaimer: Aerial Assault canceled into Fists of Fury makes short
work out of her. Careful, cause she can teleport and her strong attack
damages MP and juggles (not good for Cliff at all).
Security Soldiers: No Guard is important! Use all the Fire Crystals
you have (I had 1. You can get up to 3 BTs here...Defeat in 1 hit,
exact damage, and both) and pummel 'em with any attack.
Set Cliff up with the following Battle Skills and accessories:
Short O: Hammer of Might
Long O: Fiery Tackle
Support: No Guard and First Aid
Accessories: Clone Generator (replace when broken)/Bunny Shoes
(replace with Anti-Freezing Amulet for Azazer)
4D soldiers (2 resets): Be prepared to break a lot of Clone
Generators here (I broke 2 total in both fights). No Guard and
First Aid are invaluable in this battle. The trick here is to
use fast skills (Kudos Deus Mortem for telling me about Fiery
Tackle, it fits the bill). Aerial Assault and Hammer of Might
are out of the question.
Azazer (1 reset): Equip the Anti-Freezing Amulet to prevent Crystal
Prison from freezing you. This battle is not easy thanks to Cliff's
low MP (hopefully you took my advice earlier and bumped up his MP...
even at level 5 I had some trouble). Avoid his attacks and use Hammer
of Might when you see an opening. He'll drop quickly enough.
Belzeber and Berial (9 resets): Hardest battle so far, if not
the hardest overall. Berial does ludicrous amounts of damage and
Belzy just loves to petrify you in the direst moments. No Guard
is useless because of the sheer damage, while First Aid is your
savior. If you went through the trouble of maxing it, it'll make
the fight infinitely easier.
Best thing to do is wait for an opening and use Strong Aerial
Assault. Don't bother Chaining because they love to AAA you (Belzy's
got Regeneration while Berial's got a painful Homing). While Belzy's
petrification spells instant death, Berial's juggling makes him far
deadlier, so try to focus on him. The good thing is his most powerful
attacks, Auto Aim and Fire Dance, are weak attacks so use that 2-way
AAA. You'll most likely be too far for Standard to work and 2-way has
a great chance of stunning both of them.
Once Berial's gone, Belzy's a joke. Just make sure to avoid his
attacks otherwise you might get petrified (As I have been 6 out of
those 10 times) and all that work goes to waste.
Levelled to 36.
Convictor and friends (1 reset): Fists of Fury. Got petrified once
by the Convictor. Hey, what're you laughing at? You probably cheated
and got yourself an Anti-Stone Amulet.
Aquios: Bought Crest Gauntlets (Face it, it's the best weapon in the game)
and made another save for a Mirage SSCC.
Lesser Eye (8 resets): Man, this bastard was tough. His major attack
is fast and petrifies. He also kept healing himself with his circles.
Aerial Assault cancels help, but with 230K HP this battle can drag on.
Dark Armors: A LOT easier. However, better safe than sorry. Use a strong
Aerial Assault then run back and heal (you'll most likely be gangbanged).
Repeat till one of them dies, then go ahead and cancel Aerial Assault.
Levelled to 43 after this. HP and MP are now maxed. It's kinda ironic
how Cliff says "I'm a one man wrecking crew".
Crystal Knight: AAA, then Aerial Assault. Easy.
Dark Eye (2 resets): Not as tough as his "inferior" due to the fact that
he rarely uses his major attack and it rarely petrifies. Equip an Amulet
of Freedom. He loves to use circles, especially Misery Circle so that's
your chance to Aerial Assault him. Yeah, you have to shed blood (Or a lot
of Enhancers) to win this battle.
Chimera: Well, his tail's not as annoying as Master Epyon says. In fact,
it kept triggering First Aid for me which minimized my healing (Told you
that skill was useful). His major attack's deadly, doing 6K damage.
Canceled Aerial Assault is the way to go. When he started flying, it
was all over for him (AAA Pyroblast).
Stone Golem (5 resets):
Setup:
Short X: Aerial Assault
Short O: Fists of Fury
Support: First Aid/Common Support Symbols
Accessories: Bunny Shoes/Clone Generator
Phase 1: Getting hit by Flaming Blow means bye-bye. Thanks to FB's ability
to juggle, no amount of Clone Generators an save you. You can AAA Flaming
Blow though. AAA, then Aerial Assault canceled into FoF (to stunlock) gets
you through this.
Phase 2: Flaming Kick hits for 6K, 8K on critical. Cliff can barely escape
with the Bunny Shoes. Once he's recovering, hit him with FoF. Repeat.
Phase 3: Now he starts spamming his minor attack. AAA, then Aerial Assault
(Don't cancel into FoF)
Battlecopter (1 reset):
Setup:
Short X: Aerial Assault (Only for the rare cancel)
Short O: Uppercut
Support: First Aid/Common Support Symbols
Accessories: Bunny Shoes/Clone Generator
First Aid is of tremendous help here. The Battlecopter's attacks stunlock
and are multihit, so First Aid keeps you safe (Saved me a lot even at
level 3...at level 10 I don't think I'd be using Healing as much as I did).
Bunny Shoes helps you fall back and heal when the going gets tough.
Uppercut was very useful in juggling. I put in Aerial Assault because I
sometimes got lucky and canceled (Although you'll most likely eat a
Homing AAA). This battle lasted long.
Pseudo Blair: A moderate battle. First Aid kept me safe. Uppercut kept
juggling her. Be sure to AAA Eddy of Light and watch out...she tends
to spam Death Howl a lot. Acrobat Locus, Cliff's "ultimate" skill, is
just a gimmick that does squat. Don't be tempted to use it like I did.
Because I'm an idiot and I accidentally reloaded/forgot to save whenI killed
her, I had to fight her 3 times!
Ruktogias (1 reset): Dark Eruption owned me. Cancelled Aerial Assaults is
the way to go. Be careful of Explosion.
Death Monsters: Joke fight. Cancelled Aerial Assaults made short work
of them.
Chimera Hawks (7 resets): The only reason I took so long is because I kept
trying to convince myself that Acrobat Locus is useful. It is, to some
extent, but it ends up damaging all of them to the point that you eat three
Heat Impacts in a row. So I took CronoKid's advice and spammed Hammer
of Might.
Luther (2 resets):
Setup:
Short X: Aerial Assault
Short O: Uppercut
Support: First Aid/Common Support Symbols
Accessories: Clone Generator/Bunny Shoes or Amulet of Freedom
1st form: Easy. Wait for Laser Beams, then Aerial Assault cancelled
into Uppercut. Repeat till he dies.
2nd form: Depending on the attack, here's what you do:
Normal attacks: Just evade.
Laser Beams: Unlike his first form, he uses this rarely. Aerial
Assault cancelled into Uppercut does nice damage.
Perfect Symmetry: Run as far away as possible. Heal while you're
waiting for it to finish then run up to him and wait for a chance
to AAA him when h uses Flaming Divide or Expansion Force.
Expansion Force: AAA, then Uppercut
Flaming Divide: AAA, then Uppercut. He tends to spam this a lot.
Insanity Prelude: Hide between 2 pillars and put on the Amulet
of Freedom. Heal up and pray you don't get hit. When it's done,
equip Bunny Shoes and do Aerial Assault cancelled into Uppercut.
One more tip: Make sure you have a LOT of healing items. This battle
will drag on.
Closing notes:
Level when beating Luther: 65
As soon as you get to Gemity, go to Vanguard and get the Bunny
Shoes. Please.
Make sure you get the Amulets of Freedom and Anti-Freezing
before you enter Spiral Tower.
Although I didn't do it for the sake of finishing quickly, level
First Aid as soon as you can. It'll make battles like Belzy and
Berial and Chimera Hawks much easier.
No Guard is good too, but not as much as First Aid. It also costs
a lot of CP.
Acrobat Locus is a "gimmick" skill. Never use it. On the other
hand, Uppercut is invaluable. It's Cliff's answer to Mirage/Maria's
Crescent Locus and Triple Kick.
Recommended way to spend SP: MP to 5, HP to 10, MP to 10, Defense,
Attack.
Most used skills: Hammer of Might, Aerial Assault, Uppercut.
Cronokid (used a lot of your strategies)
Deus Mortem (Letting me know Fiery Tackle's actually useful)
POST GAME
Unless otherwise noted, assume FAM was on.
I beat up the Biochimera atop Spiral tower until I got 5 million fol. I ended
at lv 87.
First stop - Urrsa
I leveled First Aid to 4 along the way by (ab)using the porcupines in Traum.
Gained 400 proficiency in about half an hour as I was preparing dinner. For
reference, I had 428 defense, Berserk on, and their strong attacks did 1-2
damage a pop. Inside Urrsa, I picked up the Raven Gauntlets, bumping my
attack up to about 2400.
Nel and Zorto (0 resets), lv 87 - I even got paralyzed (by Lightning Chain?)
and didn't die. Setup:
Shorts - Charge
LWeak - Hammer of Might
First Aid and Common Support Symbols (CSS)
Berserk on
Quite easy. I didn't get caught by Divine Wrath though, so I might have
been lucky. I took out Nel first, mainly while she was casting Laser Beams
or after stunning (via standard AAA) her.
Roger and Mech (3 resets), lv 88. Setup:
Short Weak - Sphere of Might
Short Strong - Aerial Assault
Support - No Guard and First Aid
Berserk off and Standard AAA for the most part
Bunny Shoes on
In retrospect, I should have done the usual Charge/Charge thing with my
close-range battle skills. Anyway, this battle is difficult. You've got Roger
flying around everywhere, and his mech moves quickly and has that lovely
Strong missile attack that comes out fast, does about 20 hits, and juggles.
Since I had around 19000 max HP, I could no-guard the mech's attacks.
Basically my strategy was to AAA-stun Roger, then go over and quickly
do a lunge-punch->Sphere->Aerial Assault combo on the mech, no matter
what attack it had coming at me. I often suffered a lot of damage in doing
this, so I'd retreat, use a physical enhancer, and repeat the process.
Eventually the mech went down to HP damage, and then I got to discover
the wonderful fact that none of Cliff's regular moves can hit Roger. They all
go right over his head. Sphere of Might, as you might have guessed, also
misses him. Anyway, I had to rely on nothing but Aerial Assaults to win. I
didn't even bother trying to combo with it; Roger was too fast and too likely
to kick my ass for doing so. Be on the lookout for his short weak
regular attack,by the way, since he can link them together for a total of
over 10k damage (and this is on Galaxy, with berserk OFF). Every now
and then I'd turn Berserk on when I could get in a good hit. The battle
took quite a while, and I used 20 physical enhancers and 11 blueberries,
but no clone generators. Roger eventually succumbed to HP damage.
Note: You might think that you
could turn Berserk on in order to do more damage with the Wide-Area Homing
AAA, but that actually doesn't work.
Went back to Traum and maxxed First Aid on those amazing porcupines
as I took a shower and typed this up.
Maze of Tribulations time.
Render (0 resets) - lv 89
Actually pretty easy. I wore a clone generator and an anti-freezing amulet.
I killed him first with FAM on, and then I tried it without FAM because I know
this is where the last Cliff SSCC got stuck. I'll post the non-FAM version.
Setup:
All 4 slots - Hammer of Might
First Aid, Common Support
Standard AAA
Berserk On
A Strong Hammer of Might against the Render while he's stunned does
something ridiculous like almost 60k damage. Does Hammer of Might count as
Fire-elemental or something? I noticed it also did a huge amount of damage
against those convictors in Kirlsa hills, and they're weak against Fire. Well,
it's either that or Hammer of Might is just way too good. Anyway, the Render
only has 350k hit points and you can AAA Ice Beam (which is what you should
do). Only attack when he's stunned, so that Ice Beam doesn't catch you. He
might immediately Ice Beam when you break his guard, but that's the only
thing you need to worry about.
(Note added later: Cliff's Hammer of Might is indeed Fire. Mirage's is Fire
as well.)
Succubus (0 resets) - lv 90
Easy no matter how you look at it. I AAA'd any of her varied weak attacks,
then Charged her down.
Basilisk King (0 resets) - lv 91
I hear he can stone you, so watch out for that. Anyway, he took all of about 5
seconds to kill with Charge.
Got Santa's Boots.
OK - 9 sets of Aqua wisps (3 resets due to stupidity) - lv 91-93
Setup:
Long attacks - Hammer of Might
Support - No Guard, First Aid
Amulet of Freedom and Tri-Emblem
A non-FAM Cliff will probably not have much fun here, but I just used
long-range Hammer chains to kill them. No Guard was quite helpful for
Hammering through their plasma cannons. Died once to paralysis (then I
put on the amulet) and twice to trying to fight them without FAM on. I also
learned that, once you kill all 9 sets, you must also kill the Earth Dragon
down below before leaving or else you have to do it all over again (I tried
to leave and save beforehand). Fortunately he's easy.
Speaking of which,
Earth dragon (0 resets) - lv 93
Short-range - Charge
First aid and Common Support Symbols
Not much worth reporting here. I AAA'd a thing or two and
kept Charging him. He died quickly.
Springer (crab thing on lv 5) (0 resets) - lv 94
I would have preferred a more worthy opponent. Killed with
a single Charge chain.
Alei (Ruktogias-like thing on lv 5 that's attacking Puffy) (0 resets) - lv 94
Easy to charge through.
Mighty Vox (lv 6 room before the switch) (0 resets) - lv 95
I accidentally still had Charge equipped, which did me no good.
On the other hand, I also had a Reflecting Plate, so this battle
was still really easy.
Sootie (lv 7 right before elevator down) (0 resets) - lv 98
This battle always makes me laugh. The intro scene and the music
are awesome. Anyway, I AAA'd Sootie Blast, did a few Charge
Chains, and he self-destructed. I played pretty sloppy overall,
actually, and still didn't come close to losing.
Floor 8 mini-bosses:
Guardian Haunts in the NW room (3) - I just long-range Hammered
them
Vile Chimera in the NE room - His tail is now a strong attack for
some reason, which SUCKS. He also takes a lot of punishment. Be
careful here. I used a few Enhancers to stay healthy. Accessories
were Bunny Shoes and Amulet of Freedom.
Tri-Chimera in the SW room - Also takes a lot of punishment, but
is a lot easier. He's a lot like the Biochimera in the Spiral tower.
Shadow Savants in the SE room - Charge
Gabriel (2 resets) - lv 99
Are you ready to play flawlessly for an hour straight?
Setup:
Short skills - Charge
Long Weak - Hammer of Might
Support - First aid and Common Support
Bunny Shoes and Amulet of Freedom
Berserk off.
I wailed on him until he started using lightning feather, and then I
pretty much only used Wide Area Homing to kill him =(. Lightning
Feather is extremely dangerous, since if it catches you at even 99%
fury, it can stun you, then break your guard as you reach 100%,
and kill you with the repeated hits. This is what caused one of my
resets. When he got into Dragons mode (I hid in the SE corner), if
he was relatively near, I'd switch on Berserk and, right when he said
"Dragons!" I'd do a weak attack -> 175% Hammer (FAM on) for about
10k damage, then immediately switch off Berserk again. However,
if you do this, be on your toes since he'll be coming at you in the
corner afterwards, and your fury will only be at 85% or so.
Took some time to get up to first place in the Ranking Battles in
Gemity. Haven't fought the Reigning Champs yet.
Norton Redux (0 resets) - lv 108
Charged him down. Avoid Shooting Spree because it's set to strong
here and it hurts. I beat him with triple XP on.
Enraged Crossel (0 resets) - lv 111
I waited for him to do one of his little paw swipes, AAA'd it, and then
Charged him down. He didn't take many chains to go down. I never got
caught in his strong attack (I generally avoided it with Bunny Shoes,
and he never started it when I was pummeling him) and never even
saw Doom raid, so I can't tell you much about those. I beat him with
triple XP on.
By the way, I've been doing some random battles along the way.
Might as well.
Shadow Dragon (0 resets) - lv 127
He's a lot like the Crystal Dragon (of the Dragoon Knights), so if you're
familiar with him he won't be a problem. Except this guy's Doom Howl is
set to Weak, which makes him even more of a joke. I wore Reflecting plate
to guard against his fire attacks (the one he executes on the ground is Strong,
and the one he executes while flying is Weak), but they're easy to handle
without it.
On a side note, I'm becoming quite impressed by Cliff's damage output.
With about 4500 atk (Raven Gaunts + 2 Tri-Emblems) and Berserk on, his
300% Weak charges are doing about 40k apiece, and his Strong ones are
doing about 60k. Even without any -fury gear, he can do two 300% strong
charges per full chain. Add to that the fact that, with FAM on, his
charges come out FAST (pretty much as fast as you can push the buttons),
and you've got one mean damage machine.
Vengeful Shelby (0 resets) - lv 135
He's weak against fire. HAHAH. I used 175% weak (thanks to FAM)
Hammers of Might to 99999 him after stunning him with Standard AAA.
I accidentally got caught in his Giant Swing once, where the last hit did
12000 (!) damage to me, but I survived on Fury and went on to beat him
without getting touched again.
Frenzied Biwig (0 resets) - lv 141
Charge'd. He's not even really dangerous.
Picked up Max Shockwave on floor 150.
Green Majora (7 resets) - lv 145
Now here's a good fight. Setup:
Long Weak - Hammer of Might (the only attack I used, since he's weak to fire)
Support - Whatever you want. I had first aid and critical hit HP.
Bunny Shoes and Tri-Emblem.
Once I figured out how to handle this guy, I didn't even get hit. You see,
the computer doesn't have Fully Active Mode, meaning that whenever an
enemy has chosen an attack to execute, it'll move towards you until it gets
into range for it. 95% of the time that an enemy is moving, it's already
chosen an attack.
So, here's what you do. This guy's Ice Beam is the main killer here, since it's
set to Strong, and it fires from long range. All of his other attacks don't
start up until he's close to you. So, keep him at long range. If he busts out
ice beam, move to dodge it. If he starts moving towards you, let him get
close AAA it if it's a weak attack, and dodge it if it's strong (knowing
it's almost certainly not ice beam). If it's blizzard lasso, you can dodge it
and smack him with a Hammer while he's doing it. Also Hammer him after
stunning him. He'll go down fairly easily then.
Arch Demon (6 resets) - lv 171
Tried a variety of stuff, but it really came down to learning how to dodge
(though not necessarily perfectly) Sword of Darkness. From Cronokid: "The
trick to dodging Sword of Darkness is to sidestep behind Archdemon when
he's using it." I ended up killing him with Max Shockwave chains. My setup
was:
Long weak - Sphere of Might
Long strong - Max shockwave
Support - First aid and Common Support Symbols
By the way, chaining into Max Shockwave from Sphere of Might sucks, and
I suggest you don't do it. For some reason (before I really understood Max
Shockwave) I thought it'd be a good idea. See my note below (under Super
Blair) about Max Shockwave.
Angry Azazer and Raging Belzeber (3 resets) - lv 186
Max Shockwave is simply too slow to pull out here. Instead I went with
my usual setup:
Long weak - Hammer
Short battle skills - Charge
First aid and Common Support
Your immediate priority is to take out Azazer, because he only has
about 200,000 hp, and he does WAY too much damage. To make things
easier on you, he's weak to fire, and when you get him down to about half
hp, he starts using Crystal Prison and sniping, which are easier to
dodge/guard. Once he's gone, just charge Belze down. It takes a little while
but it's not too hard. Make sure you pummel the crap out of him as he's using
Steal Life/Spirit.
Figured I might as well take on the Champs here.
Reigning Champions (2 resets) - lv 186
Long weak - Hammer
Long strong - Max Shockwave
Common Support and Crit Hit HP
Solon is weak to fire AND he doesn't guard against Hammer of Might, so have
fun killing him with that in about 5 seconds. Dirna absorbs fire, though, so
use Max Shockwave on her. Make sure you dodge Arcane Stars, as it's a
1hit-KO and the cause of both of my resets.
OK, back to Sphere.
Furious Berial (0 resets) - lv 187
Same setup as Reigning champs. He has a ton of stuff you can AAA, so
use it to stun him and then set up a nice Max Shockwave for him to run
into. It juggles him well, which is an added plus, oftentimes giving you 8-10
hits. Oh, and his Auto-Aim juggles and hurts like hell, so make sure you
keep your fury up (ie, don't chain more than 1 Max Shockwave) when he
starts using it.
Also, in case anyone was still wondering, Reflecting Plate does NOT
protect against his Fire Dance.
In recognition of the level caps, I went over to Urssa to take on...
Fayt and Luther (0 resets) - lv 187
Bunny Shoes are important. I used Charge combos to take out Fayt (he's
easy to hit in the back whenever he's doing something that's not Ethereal
Blast - just dodge it, run around him, and let him have it), and then more
Charge combos to take out Luther. I also used 13 enhancers here. I probably
should have used Max Shockwave, as I spent a lot of time running
around waiting for them to not use something like Perfect Symmetry
or Ethereal Blast. Oh, and I never saw Insanity Prelude. If Luther uses
it in this battle, for future reference, where are the safe spots?
OK, back to Sphere again.
Super Blair (1 reset) - lv 200
Both long-range skills: Max Shockwave
First aid and Crit hit HP
Berserk on
Bunny Shoes and Victory Trophy (for the MP regen!)
Ok. Ugh. I don't recommend trying this without FAM. She's
easy for the first half, so just keep hitting her. For the second
half, try to run around and dodge Eddy of Light and Death Howl.
If you get hit, run around and wait for your MP to regen. With his
laughable MP, Cliff is the most afraid of an MP death here. For
reference, I had 4290 MP. Death Howl is fairly easy to dodge as
long as you keep on the move, since it has a smaller radius.
Eddy of Light *is* completely dodgable, but you need to get
lucky. I found it was best to run around and dupe her into using it
into a corner, and as soon as she starts it up, start running parallel
to the wall away from the corner. Throughout this whole process,
you shouldn't stop running at all. You have to be fast and fluid
about it or else you're going to get nailed. If you do get caught in
Eddy of Light, you can sidestep inside it to avoid the last set of 2
hits (usually only one of them hits anyway, but still).
Anyway, once she's recovering from her attack, set up a Max
Shockwave for her to run into. If it juggles (it often, but not
always, does), cancel into another one. That's basically it.
Note on Max Shockwave - you can cancel from Max Shockwave
while it's still in the air, and if you do so, the burst *still in the air*
takes on the Weak or Strong-hitting properties (specifically,
guard-breaking and Weak/Strong-based damage multiplication)
of the attack you're cancelling into. For example, if you're sending
out a Weak Max Shockwave at an enemy and you see his fury is
maxxed, quickly cancel into a strong attack (it doesn't have to be
another Max Shockwave). Your burst in the air will break his
guard and get a damage boost! Understanding this is very
helpful for the Super Blair fight, since you want to avoid getting
AAA'd at all costs.
Note on Hammer of Might - you can do the same cancel-trick with it,
too, but you have to be fast and, due to the speed of the attack,
you can only affect the second hit.
I tried Lenneth once at level 200, and decided to go level to 255. I'm
sure Cliff could do it at 200, but it would take an awfully long time.
So, I leveled to 255 and used my berries. I'm at 99999 HP and 13174 MP.
I only used Max Shockwave while leveling, so it's up to a respectable lv 7
proficiency.
Lenneth (3 resets) - lv 255
Both long attacks - Max Shockwave
First aid and Common Support (there's plenty of time to cast Healing)
Berserk on
Bunny Shoes and Tri-Emblem
So here's the deal with Lenneth - Max Shockwave juggles, but not reliably
If you try to chain it carelessly, chances are that she's eventually going
to run right through it and give you a nice fat Strong attack right in your
face. Her Strong attack does a huge amount of damage and causes
confusion. Avoid it at all costs. Basically, for the first half, run
around and get her to use a strong attack. Dodge it by running
out of its range, and set up a 175% Max Shockwave for her.
*Only if* it juggles should you chain into another one. As you
get used to this battle (and the rhythm of Max Shockwave), you
should get a good feeling for when it's safe to set up/chain Max
Shockwave and when it's not.
When she goes into Nibelung Valesti mode, you should wait for
her in a corner. As she starts to use it, immediately run to the other
corner, pause for half a second, and set up a 175% Max Shockwave.
She was never able to hit me with this move, but I understand it hurts.
With this strategy I took her down in about 23 minutes.
I tried Ethereal Queen once (in Charge-mode, no less) and she's a joke.
I ended up carelessly killing myself on her Star Guard, though. I'll go
back and whomp her down soon.
Ethereal Queen (1 reset - see above) - lv 255
2 Tri-Emblems and Berserk on for maximum damage output.
Max Shockwave chains from long range. EQ juggles easily, so go for
300% chains. The only thing Cliff worries about here is getting caught
in Binding Field (which you can AAA), THEN getting caught in either
her strong attack (because it can cause paralysis) or Celestial Star.
In fact, I got caught in binding field, then got paralyzed by her strong
attack, and while paralyzed, got caught in Celestial Star, all with Berserk
on, and I *still* didn't die because her damage output is so pathetic.
Battle took about 25 minutes.
Freya (1 reset) - lv 255
Bunny Shoes and Tri-Emblem, Berserk on.
I wanted to see how much damage Ether Strike would do with my setup.
About 20,000 per hit, it turns out. Anyway, use Max Shockwave
chains from long range (I found it was safe to set a 175% one up
once you're about half the diagonal distance of the field away from
her) and you won't even see any attacks other than symbology. Took
me 50 boring minutes.
Went and bought 20 Pomello Juices to round things up. Cheers!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARIA (First completed by Trowabarton, post-game completed
by Trowa Barton)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norton - 0 resets. Fayt lv. 5, let cliff die and then used aerial cancels
Inquisitor: 0 resets, Nel lv. 3, Ran back and forth using firebolt to take
out the two soldiers. Used a normal AAA and then shockwave cancel to take
out the big guy
- Got a regeneration symbol from the skeletons
Crab - 0 resets, Nel lv. 4, Used firebolt at first and then ran behind him
and did shockwave cancels
- Bought Superior Chain Mail
Earth Smasher - 0 resets, Nel lv. 5, Demolished with double fol bonus
Shelby - 0 resets, Nel lv. 7, Used bomb special to help take out the
soldiers and then used her major attack to take out shelby
- Bought Osprey dagger
Mudman - 0 resets, Nel lv. 11, Shadow wave'D
Dragon Brigade - 0 resets, Nel lv. 14, Used Major attack till they went
into master combo mode then AAA'd and cancel comboed them
Cockatrice - 1 reset, Nel lv. 16, Got stoned the first time, Ice
daggered it at long range
Soldiers - 0 reset, Nel lv. 18, Used shadow wave to keep them off
their feet
Dragon Brigade 2 - 0 resets, Nel lv. 18, Freeze killed the 2 partners
with ice daggers and then killed the main guy with a combination of
aerial, shadow wave and ice daggers
Albel - 0 reset, Nel lv. 19, Took out the soldiers with shadow wave
and then used an obstacle to hit him with shadow wave while he tried
in vain to hit me with air slash/charge
Vox - 0 reset, Nel lv. 20, Same as the other dragons...
- Enter Maria...give her that superior chain mail and go buy the
flaming gun(or whatever) from the retail rabbit in peterny BUT MAKE
SURE YOU KEEP THE MICROBLASTER!!!!(that way you don't have to reset
if you accidently take the flame gun into a boss fight because I think
you can only switch weapons and can't de-equip during battle, of course
out of battle you may de-equip so she doesn't have any).
Crystal statues/Cerebrus- 0 resets, Maria lv 20, 21, make sure you
have the microblaster equiped because they nullify fire damage. AAA
their minor thrust attack or move away from their major attack and
then use Aiming Device(AD) chains. Watch out for their tri-beam
attack(AAA or move out of the way). If you have it cast power up
when you have time.
- Equip the better gun
Vendeeni - 2 resets, Maria lv 23, First time I got stoned and the
second time I had turned on berserk and then got stunlocked to death.
Whoops. Use AD at long range here and cast power up. Critical hit MP
helps as well. Thanks to the shape of the arena you'll have to move
right past them inorder to not get pinned in a corner and keep them
at long range. You better be using sidestep and it better be set to
just the control pad(and not L2 + control pad...). They are slow so
you'll have plenty of time to heal and cast support spells. Be
patient and just keep picking at them with AD to MP kill them.
Schweimer - 0 reset, Maria lv. 24, Kill these guys anyway you feel
like.
Blue Dragon Zombie - Equip the microblaster again but for the last time
thankfully. Cancel AD at long distance to yawn right by this slow guy.
- Equip the pulse gun - Make sure you grab the wind charm in the ruins
and equip it for the next fight and turn off berserk.
Robin Wind - 0 resets, Maria lv. 25, In the first phase AAA his bow
attack then use canceled AD comboes. When he starts doing Aerial
Slash just keep running away from him until he does it (as long as
you running away from him you won't get hit) and then use AD from a
distance. When he starts doing Rising Stream be careful and AAA it
and of course follow up with an AD combo.
Crossel - 0 resets, Maria lv. 28, he's huge and he's slow, perfect
for either Scatter Beam(SB) or AD. I went with SB. Cast Power up
when you have time. Basicall all you do in this fight is side step
around the outside and stop to fire off a few SB/ADs when you have
some space. Doom Raid has a large range but it can be AAAed or you
can just keep side-stepping right on outside it's range before it
starts to hit.
Biwig - 0 resets, Maria lv. 31, Hop around and pick them off with AD.
- Buy items but don't worry about buying any equipment.
Proclaimer - 0 resets, Mara lv. 31, Just don't let yourself be caught
by speed hack(teleport behind move) -> Major attack. Use SB cancels
to own her. Cast healing/power up when she does divine wave.
- Go to the bar and pick up the items. Equip the ablative shield. Then
take the SW exit, go west once(I believe), and look around in this area
to find a laser weapon to equip.
Security Service - 0 resets, Maria lv. 32, Make sure you have First
aid and then keep running around the outside in a circle. I was able
to avoid being hit for the most part that way. Anyway be patient and
wait for a good opening to launch an attack and then take off running
again. Make sure you put some space between yourself and the enemies
before trying to use a healing item.
- Pick up the bunny shoes on Vanguard III then go to Elicoor and buy
the gravity laser and battle chain mail from the retail rabbit/supreme
shop. Also grab the anti-freeze amulet from the aqueducts if you haven't.
4d Security Guards - 0 resets, Maria lv 33, Just like the Security
service...first aid and run around in a cirlce waiting for a good
moment to pick at one with AD
Azazer - 0 resets, Maria lv 34, Equip a Regeneration Symbol and Bunny
Shoes for now. First run around attacking after avoiding his major
attack. When you get his health down he'll begin using crystal prison
and will also use sniping much more often. So change it up to
concentrating on AAAing crystal prison and sniping and attacking
afterwards and don't worry about attacking after his major attack.
I used AD but be aware that it doesn't pop him up that often. Consider
casting power up after AAAing.
Berial and Belzeber - 1 reset, Maria lv. 35, First time I tried to
take out Berial first but that ended up being a very dangerous
proposition due to auto-aim + belzeber major attack = broken guard
and massive damage. So I recommend taking out belzeber(the whip guy)
first. Use AD to MP kill them. Basically the same thing as the last few
"bosses", run around and get them to whiff their attacks and then jab at
them with AD from a distance. Eventually Belzeber will go into drain
mode but if you are lucky he'll stick to life drain. Either way
stick to it until he's dead.
Berial is easy after that. At first let him whiff his major attack
and then attack. Once he starts doing Auto-Aim switch up just like
with Azazer. Concentrate on AAAing Auto-Aim and attack afterwards.
At this point cast power-up after AAAing to speed things up.
Proclaimer - 0 resets, Maria lv. 37, Same as the last one but this
one goes down very fast
Enforcer - 0 resets, Maria lv. 38, Use a AAA stun strategy, you don't
want to be caught by his radial spike attack(minor attack). Cast
power up to speed up the process.
Convictor - 0 resets, Maria lv. 39, I set AAA to ring wave and
let him kill himself if he wanted to try throwing whirlwinds at
me. When he does his major attack just move out of it's extremely
small area and give him a few SBs in his nuts. Ended up killing
him by AAA.
Lesser Eye - 0 resets, Maria lv. 42, Turn on Berserk and use SB
cancels here. Make sure you make it a priority to AAA his laser
attack if he does it instead of one of his radial moves because
it can cause status effects. Otherwise cast powerup and have fun
beating on him while he's doing one of his long winded radial attacks.
Dark Armors - 0 resets, Maria lv. 45, Turn off berserk but still
use SB cancels here. Fire at them from a distance and just sidestep
back as they approach. When you've gone back as far as you can heal
up and then step-step/run as best you can past them. Hammer Quake
is a Minor attack so it can be AAAed(it's also earth elemental but
that's meaningless in a non-IC game).
Crystal Statue - Same as all the others
Dark Eye - 0 resets, Maria lv. 47, Same as the other eye
- At some point between now and before you go to spiral tower you'll
probably want to restock your items.
Chimera - 1 reset, Maria lv. 48, Sorta forgot about this guy and
ran into him without expecting it, whoops. He did 3 pyroblasts in
a row and caught me in the midst of an attack. And here I thought
it would be safe after he did it twice in a row. My bad. Well
anyway, berserk off, bunny shoes, amulet of freedom, and I used
SB for this fight. Basically he are going to be running from this
guy for most of the fight. In the beginning I suggest only attacking
after his major attack(also the only time I suggest canceling a
couple times).
He starts with 3 different kind of attacks. The first is a simple
frontal minor attack. The second is a lunging Major attack that
hits twice for good damage. The third is his tail which doesn't
cause that much damage but it can cause paralysis. Also sometimes
he'll try to run in front of you and cut you off to try to hit you
with his tail. The tail is a minor attack so you can AAA it. Attack
after either AAAing him or after avoiding his major attack.
During the second part of the fight he'll begin using Triple attack
which is a quick lunging attack that cause hit 3 times. It's a minor
attack so you can AAA it. You can also avoid it by continously running
away from him. Now you have 2 choices, either you can try AAAing this
attack or you can stick to attacking after his major attack.
During his third phase he'll begin to fly and use Pyroblast. It's a
relief when he does this because it's a minor attack and as far as I
know he doesn't have a major attack when he's flying. AAA this and attack.
Golom - 0 resets, Maria lv. 50, He's big and he's extremely slow. Yes
Maria owns this guy. Just don't let him catch you with one of his
major attacks.
Battlecopter - 2 resets, Maria lv. 52, Unless you are extremely
confident don't try and fight him with long range attacks. He's got
his own and they are faster than yours and very strong. Equip some
short range attacks. I suggest Crescent locus(CL) though Gravity Bullet
may work well too. Now all you need to do is stand right underneath
him and as soon as he attacks move behind him and do CL cancels. AAA
any bombs he may try to drop on you.
Blair - 0 resets, Maria lv. 54, I suggest you use crescent locus again
though you can use anything here. Death howl is the only move you
should be worried about(try to side-step away). AAA Eddy of Light.
Ruktogias - 1 reset, Maria lv. 58, Underestimated Explosions range my
first time... Basically don't do that and don't let yourself get
caught in chain smash(minor attack) or any of his other combos. You
can basically take him out easily with either close range or long
range skills but I suggest long range due to use dark eruption use
near the end.
Death Monsters - 0 resets, lv. 60, Nothing too hard, just becareful
because they have speed and they can cause a lot of damage. I used
Crescent Locus -> Triple kick.
Chimera Hawks - 1 reset, lv. 62, Berserk off, bunny shoes and clone
generator on. Try to AAA them all at the start, unleash an SB combo,
AAA them again and then run to left part of the map near the bottom
right. Their is an impassable part that extends up a bit between the
south part and left part and the Hawks will use their dive attacks right
into it. So cancel at them from your safety. Eventually they will fly
around so do your best side-stepping performance and get to the opposite
side so you are in the same situation and repeat. At first the target
doesn't matter but later you should always target the one in heat
impact mode. If you are going to be hit by blizzard impact put on the
anti-freeze amulet.
I went with SB just to try and end the fight as fast as possible though
it's extremely dangerous since you'll be hitting all of them and
putting them into phases where they use some very dangerous attacks.
You may want to go with AD so you work one at a time.
Luther:
3 resets, 2 for trying to heal too close to laser beams >_< and 1 for
getting caught in perfect symmetry.
I suggest SB, First Aid, and common support symbols as your skills and
bunny shoes + amulet of freedom as your acc. and Berserk off(unless
you are confident of course).
Also I suggest Wide Area Homing as the AAA due to it's longer reach
and the fact that he likes to attack right after coming un-stunned.
Basically you are going to spend most of the fight side-stepping
around avoiding his spear attacks while taking potshots(make use of
her special where she can cancel out of a side-step fire an attack).
When he does laser beams take the opportunity to heal and possibly
cast support spells. If you need either run up and do some SB cancels
into his nuts(assuming you had laser beams activate away from luther).
It's a blessing whenver he casts this.
Use the first Luther fight as an opportunity to get used to avoiding
his spear attacks because his second form uses the same ones only
they have more reach and he has twice the power.
At the start of the second fight you'll have to avoid a lot of spear
attacks while taking shots when you can. AAA extension force if he trys it.
When his health gets down he'll begin using Flaming divide all the time.
AAA this attack. Also after AAA either EF or FD make sure you do a
minor attack - > SB cancel. Even if he starts another FD you should be
at the right distance where you won't get hit by the first part and
AAA the second part.
At some point he'll begin using perfect symmetry and you should get
yourself far enough away that you won't get hit.
When he starts doing Insanity Prelude you should have no trouble finishing.
Just make sure you get yourself to the NW/NE where there are flaps that
extend out where you will be completely safe from IP. Take the time to
cast healing and/or support spells.
Ok here we go No-IC postgame solo with maria on Galaxy and with fully
active mode.
- First of all before you leave spiral tower you may want to stick
around and fight the biochimeara(sp?) with double fol for 100,000 a
pop. Try to do it without triple exp to keep your level down. You'll
need 5,000,000 for santa's boots or else 6,000,000+ for a single
Tri-emblem...
MoT:
- Make sure to grab the Shadow Phase Gun near the start
Render - 2 resets, lv. 80, Simliar to the battlecopter you don't want
to fight him with long range attacks because he'll own you with his
own. Basically stand still to keep your guard up and only move after
AAAing or to side-step away from his major attack. After AAAing or
after his major attack subsides run up and do a Crescent Locus ->
Triple Kick combo.
Succubus - 0 resets, lv. 81, Turn on Berserk and do Aiming Device
combos from long distance.
- Make sure to grab the enigmatic scroll(and use it on Maria) by jumping
down at 3-4 and don't forget to turn on the elevator before running back
up to the first floor.
Basilisk king - 0 resets, lv. ??, forgot to write anything down about him.
Just don't let yourself get stoned...
Now go pay a visit to santa and buy the santa's boots(or straight out
buy the tri-emblems if you somehow can) and saddle up your turbo
controller and get 2 tri-emblems by staying at the inn.
Now your setup should be something like this:
Long Minor: Aiming Device
Long Major: Energy Burst
Support: Critical Hit MP
Support: Common Support Symbols(or whatever)
Aqua Whips - 0 resets, lv. 85, Immediately target the middle one
and do AD -> EB. If your lucky they'll all move towards you and so
you'll hit them all with EB and you will kill them before they can
get to you. EB can sometimes hit-stun them for a second so that helps.
Even if things don't go to smooth(such as they wonder off in different
directions or one of them hits you with thier beam attack) you still
have a large amount of leeway since they only cause about 500 damage
on Galaxy. Either way I only got hit about 5 times.
- The 2 level 5 mini-"bosses" aren't really worth mentioning. Just EB them
into oblivion
Mighty Vox - 0 resets, lv. 86, Just watch out for fire breath's reach and
you'll be fine. I used AD -> EB.
Sootie - 0 resets, lv. 87, Make him whiff his sootie attacks and then do
AD->EB, just respect it and you'll be fine
- You may want to save now especially if you have a lot of trouble
fighting chimeras. On the 8th floor take the NE door to fight the
chimera
Vile Chimera - 0 resets, lv. 88, Be careful, equip bunny shoes, and turn
off berserk. Use the same strategy as last time but this time use AD->EB.
Remember to get your fury up after each attack.
- Now take the SW door
Tri-Chimera - 0 resets, lv. 89, 2 Tri-emblems, berserk on. His major
attack has a long range but you should be able to attack from outside
of it. All his attacks other than that major attack can be AAAed. You
should make it a priority to AAA lunatic breath and watch out for
explosion.
- Now make it a priority to SAVE. AFterwards come back down and go to
the SE door.
Shadow Savantx3 - 0 reset, lv. 89, AD->EB
- Now when you try to leave you'll automatically fight gabriel so make
sure you prepare. Here's the setup:
Crescent Locus(CL)
Stun(not needed)
Triple Kick(TK)
(nothing)
First Aid
Common Support Symbols
Berserk off
AAA = Wide Area Homing, if you need to heal set it to Standard
temporarily
Shadow Phase Gun
Mystic Chain
Amulet of Freedom
Tri-emblem
Gabriel - 3 resets, lv. 90, In the beginning he'll just use 2 attacks
(he actually has 2 more spear attacks but I never saw them when fighting
alone with maria...). 1 is a Minor Thrust attack which hits about 3 times,
AAA or sidestep up/down to avoid. His other is a Major attack where he
swings his staff twice, Sidestep away from it. What you want to do at
the begginning is use a CL->TK combo after AAAing or after making him
whiff. About 4 such combos will send him into his second phase...
In this phase he begins to use the brutal Lightning Feather(LF). Now
concetrate on keeping your fury maxed and AAA LF. Only attack after he
does his Major attack IF his fury is really low and you have full health.
The reason is that he likes to use LF right after his major attack and
sometimes CL and TK doesn't succeed in juggling. Also when using CL Gaby
will sometimes fall down after the first two hits so try not to use TK
when that happens otherwise he can catch you with low fury... Also try
and keep yourself near the SE corner because eventually you'll cause
enough damage to send him into his third phase...
In this one he'll begin using dragons and you'll only be safe from it
in the SE or W. I suggest the SE because you'll have more room to
manuever afterwards. So when he does it get yourself on over to the
safe spot and if you'll have plenty of time you may want to take a
potshot at him before he goes invincible. You can use the time to
cast healing or a support spells. If he's near you when it subsides
and he has low fury give him CL->TK combo otherwise concentrate on
AAAing LF. Just be patient and don't let him catch you in LF with low
fury and you'll be fine. All 3 of my losses were because I tried to
side-step back into a wall and he broke my guard with his major attack
and then went right into LF.
- In Sphere 211 make sure you grab a dragon leather, the Health+/Magi+
berries, and Maria's radiation bots folio. If you want you can collect
the other stat boosting items and I personally suggest the str+/def+
because it couldn't hurt.
Norton Redux - 0 resets, lv. 97, Do him like Biwig.
Enraged Crossell - 0 resets, lv. 105, Just like the first time you
fought him
Shadow Dragon - 0 resets, lv. 111, AD->EB. Watch out for Howl of Doom
and his breath attacks
Vengeful Shelby - 0 resets, lv. 115, Side step away from his melee
attacks and take shots at him(usually minor attack -> AD). When he
does ice breath back step and do AD->EB releasing it when he closes
in or does another ice breath.
Biwig, 0 resets, lv. 116, Side-step around and do AD->EB when you
have some distance, release when he nears
Green Mojara - 4 resets, lv. 136, Here's the setup I used:
Crescent Locus
Aiming Device
Crescent Locus
Aiming Device
First Aid
Common Support Symbols
Mojara's Minor attacks:
One arm Slam
Arm of Ice
Quick Spin
Freezing Breath(I THINK, I never tried to AAA it <_<)
Mojara's Major attacks:
Double Spin
Ice Beam(note: varies in duration)
Blizzard Lasso
Mojara's Symbology:
Ice Needles
Ok right off the bat you should know that Ice beam is a MAJOR
attack this time so don't attempt to AAA it like I did(second loss)...
Now as soon as the fight starts take off running up/down(not towards/away)
JIC he opens up with Ice beam(first loss). Now at first what you
are going to do is get him to whiff an attack or AAA one of his
minor attacks and then do CL cancels(be careful if you try to attack
after ice beam).
When he does Blizzard Lasso sidestep away and do AD cancels.
Healing can be tricky thanks to Ice beam. Best to do it after AAAing,
during blizzard lasso, or after putting a lot of distance inbetween.
Oh and he can freeze with most of his attacks if you didn't know...
Arch Demon - 1 reset, lv. 137, Setup:
Scatter Beam
Aiming Device
(nothing)
Energy Burst
Common Suppot Symbols
Shadow Phase Gun
Dragon Leather
Regeneration Symbol
Tri-emblem
Sword of Darkness avoiding - Stand about 5 charachter widths infront of
him and when it begins sidestep diagonally back towards him and to the side.
If you get to close to him or too far out then you'll get hit but Maria
has plenty of MP. You can then set yourself to hit him when he recovers,
phase 1 = 200% EB, phase 2 = 175% SB.
Oh and make sure you sidestep far enough away from his fire major
attack(that's how I went down my first go).
Phase 1 - For the first phase try doing this, set AAA to standard and
AAA his minor attacks or avoid his major. Then do AD->EB holding for
about 9-13 hits. Release and recover fury while he approaches and he
should do Crimson Sword which you should be ready to AAA. Repeat till
phase 2.
Phase 2 - Instead of Crimson Sword he'll begin using flashing sword
which is a teleport behind minor attack. He loves to counter with it
so it's time to change up the strategy. Set AAA to Wide Area Homing
and concentrate on AAAing it because he'll do it very often. If you
do the 175% SB after sword of darkness like I said then you'll be
able to recover fury in time to AAA flashing sword if he does it right
after he recovers fully. Take shots at him after avoiding his flame
major attack. Eventually he'll go down.
Azazer & Belzeber - 0 resets, lv. 139, AD->EB, Common support,
Critical Hit MP. AAA = Standard. I believe Berserk was on.
Try and MP kill Azazer to begin. Make them whiff and then do a brief
AD->EB. When he nears death he'll start using Sniping & Crystal Prison
but if you side-step well enough that shouldn't be a problem. Do your
best to finish him off quickly.
Once he's gone belzeber should be no problem. You can AAA his minor
whip attack, his major one is easy to dodge. When he starts going drain
crazy equip a regen symbol and EB him into the ground.
- Make sure to grab the intricate scroll on floor 187 and use it on
Maria to learn Radiation bots.
Berial - 1 reset, lv. 140 Setup:
Short Minor - Crescent Locus
Short Major - Triple Kick
First Aid
Common Support Symbols
Berserk off, Bunny Shoes & Tri-emblem
First part is easy. AAA his minor attack(s) with wide area homing.
When he does his major attack simply run underneath and behind him and
catch him with a CL->TK combo as he comes down.
Once enough damage is caused he'll begin using Auto-aim and Fire dance
all the time. AAAing Auto-aim with WAH will be your main source of
damage now. To avoid Fire Dance side-step up/down as soon as he lunges,
too early and he'll adjust his route. If you need to heal you have to go
by what he does: If he does Fire dance then simply use and item and suck
it up. If he does his major attack run underneath and use an item(or wait
for him to use auto-aim if you are trying to conserve items). If he does
auto-aim then set your AAA to either Regeneration or Standard(cast healing).
Reigning Champions - 0 resets, lv. 141 Here's the setup I used
Short Minor - Scatter Beam
Long Minor - Aiming Device
Long Major - Energy Burst
Common Support Symbols
Berserk on
2 Tri-emblems(at first)
Ok go after solon first. AAA his minor attacks or avoid them and then
give him a SB in the back. Remember that Explosion has a huge
radius...
Once Solon is gone you can concentrate on dirna and the real battle.
Use either 175% or 200% EB on her after AAAing or avoiding or charge
major attack. Eventually she'll begin using Radial stars, Arcane stars,
and firebolt. Equip a regeneration symbol at this point. Be careful with
firebolt as each hit causes almost 3000 damage. Try and conserve items
by casting healing. Do a lot of sidestepping to avoid arcane stars and
don't be too quick to counter attack because she will sometimes do it
3 times in a row. Radial stars only affects the area around her so take
advantage of that. Sometimes you can bind her with the no movement
trick when you catch her in a combo.
WOW, I greatly over-estimated Super Blair. Guess I should have actually
tried her before *****ing about her, whoops <_<
You do not need to be level 255 for her. I'd recommend lv. 200.
- Go max Radiation bots profiency. It took me about half an hour.
Super Blair - 0 resets, lv. 255, Setup:
Long Minor: Magnetic Field
Long Major: Radiation bots
First Aid
Common Support Symbols
Berserk off
Victory Trophy
Tri-Emblem
Hey for once no AAA abuse! The first part isn't too hard, just watch out
for Southern Cross(just side-step out of the range). I was able to avoid
lightning stike quite a few times be side-stepping as well. Anyway do a
175% radiation bots and then hit away. Once she gets about half way she'll
stop using spells and move on to the next part...
Here she'll begin using Eddy of Light and Death Howl. Both of them are
major attacks. To avoid Eddy of Light simply back-step once to avoid the
first part and side-step anyway to avoid the second(you'll hear a chime(?)
right before she attacks to cue you in on when to side-step). Side-step
as best you can away from Death Howl.
****ING FINALLY!!! Ok first of all some notes I need to have at the start
of the maria SSCC for those who plan on taking on lenneth without IC:
- Make sure you get the Health and magi berries from Roger's
sidequest on Disc one. Also try not to use any of your perfect or
magical berries because you'll find yourself in much more dire need
for them against the final optional bosses.
Lenneth - 27(?) resets, lv. 255. Ok here is the setup I recommend:
Short Minor: Stun(not needed, didn't even use it when I beat her)
Long Minor: Aiming Device
Long Major: Energy Burst(the higher the lv. the better)
Support: Critical Hit MP(should be lv. 10)
Support: First Aid(should be lv. 10)
2 Tri-emblems and berserk on to start
AAA - Standard
About using Stun: Her "step attack", where you press the minor attack
button while she sidesteps causing her to go right into her gun attack,
counts as a short range attack even at long distance so you can use
this attack to try to stun her. Do not rely on stun working however
or even maria hitting her. It is simply something you can try if she
is too close to use AD or EB but some distance away and you have high
fury(if you don't you are better off recovering your fury). If you
manage to stun her then take the opportunity to cast power up and then
get yourself set to deal with her attack. When I beat her I tried this
a few times and I missed about 75% of the time and stun didn't
activate the rest of the time it hit, so yeah.
Oh and it's helpful if power up is level 10. I mean it might as well be.
Lenneth's attacks:
Frontal Minor: She swings spear behind and to one of the sides so you
can sometimes be caught by it. Notice all those blue spears coming up
from the ground? Every single one of them can cause a hit(and I think
they keep hitting while they exist)...yeah. It doesn't cause that much
damage(I figure it only has a x1 damage modifier) unless you are caught
in all the spikes but each hit usually greatly damages fury and may
cause confusion which is annoying. AAA or sidestep away.
Radial Minor: She rarely does this but it's hard to avoid if she does
it making it quite dangerous. Hopefully if you get caught in it you'll
have high fury and be able to AAA it.
Radial Major attack: She swings her staff in an X pattern to the front
then twirls her staff around. Every movement causes orange spears to
come up from the ground. Easy to avoid by sidestepping. Don't screw up
and get caught in it because it will most likely be game over. Oh and
this move can also cause confusion. This is what you will hope she does
because it will give you an open shot at her.
Nibelung Valesti: I figure this one needs no introduction so I will
get right on to it except to note that it can cause stun. Basically
when she goes into to NV mode(which is at half health btw...) you'll
want her to only cast it at one of the corners(I prefered the top/bottom
because it was easier for me to set myself to sidestep up/down).
Basically you'll wait at the corner for her to come to you setting
yourself so you you have your back to her(and you have room move to
one side or the other)then as she gets close sidestep twice to right/left
and then backstep to the opposite side.
It is possible to completely evade it but it requires you to get an
excellent jump on her. Anyway it takes some work to get it right. You
will usually get hit between 3-5 times for about 10,000 with berserk off
(15-16,000 with berserk on). So what you should do is stop sidestepping
before it hits and toggle off berserk and use an item if you need to. It's
dangerous (do not be greedy with your sidestepping) but right before you get
hit is when you are going to do your healing. If you try to heal after
getting hit then you'll just waste chance of causing damage. Of course you
don't always need to heal before getting it. I usually only did if I had
less then 50,000 hp. When your MP gets low(less than 10,000) equip the
victory trophy.
Stone Rain: Large area but easy to sidestep away from. You can even sidestep
even if you get hit by it.
Lightning strike: If you can time your sidestep right so it hits you in
mid jump then you can evade. I just sidestep and hope for the best.
ah, ok here's drill...
First Half: Ok here she'll use everything except NV. You should have no
trouble avoiding her attacks as long as you don't face the wrong way or
try and sidestep into a wall. If you get hit just hope you don't get
confused. Cast power up and have at her with 175%/200% EB releasing when
she starts running towards you. Once you get her down to half health she'll
move into NV phase. You may want to heal up and perhaps give yourself a
fresh power up before you get her there because it couldn't hurt.
If you have 2 tri-emblems and you've been doing 200% EBs you'll probably
want to start being wary and perhaps try to get yourself in a good position
after you've down about 130 hits...usually 1 or 2 more 175/200% EBs will be
all it will take to send her into NV phase so if you can make them count
(but don't put yourself in a bad position in the process).
Second half: Ok here we go. NV time. The first one will probably catch you
off guard. Sidestep as far away as you can before it hits, turn off
berserk, put on a clone generator if you need to, and use an item if you
need.
Afterwards move yourself to the corner of your choice. Now begins the
tricky part, hopefully you understood what I was talking about with
avoiding NV earlier(if you didn't I'm sorry, I did my best) so I won't
talk about that. Rather about the decision making inbetween.
Now first of all if you have low fury simply charge it and if you have
extremly low health(like less than 14000) then you may want to use an
item but I usually played it to the bone and only healed before getting
hit with NV. The reason is because lenneth is quick and will usually
cover the distance in the time it takes you to recover from using an item
so it will become extremly hard to have room to attack without setting
yourself for disaster. By using an item before getting hit by NV you'll
not only survive it but you'll have an opportunity afterwards to get an
a shot at her.
Now depending on her distance you can do one of these things:
Very far away: First of all Turn on berserk and equip a second Tri-emblem
if you switched it with the victory trophy(unless you still have low mp)...
Try to catch her with a 175%(or maybe even a 200%) EB. Sometimes if
you are lucky AD will pop her up allowing you to get more hits in.
Release before she gets close(give yourself enough time to set yourself
to avoid NV). You'll generally get 6-8 hits because of her movement
speed.
Some ways away: Hit her with either a 175% AD, a 100% AD(if you are
lucky you'll get that pop-up), or a quick 100% EB. Of course don't
be greedy so you can set yourself up to avoid NV.
Getting near: You can try fire a step-shot to stun her. If you stun
her then cast power-up(which is the only time you should now). If it
doesn't work then immediately set yourself up to avoid NV.
Close: Dear god just set yourself up to avoid NV
Now when she comes into attack range you should proceed like she is
going to use NV since you can avoid her other attacks the same way.
Now once you see what attack she is using you can make your decision
of how to continue:
She has low fury so you does nothing: Try using a step shot to stun
her. Otherwise she'll usually eventually recover most of her fury and
then do NV.
Frontal minor attack: Simple side step to ther other end and repeat.
Major attack: Turn on beserk and equip a second tri-emblem and give her
a 175% EB till she finishes. Side-step to the other end and repeat.
NV: Just keep on side-stepping and before the shockwave is gonna hit
turn off berserk, equip the victory trophy if you need some MP regen,
and use an item. Remember that you can't do anything while you are
doing a side-step so if you have low health don't be greedy and try to
do too many side-steps because usually you'll simple get hit by it as
soon as you land and end up dying.
Be patient and don't take chances and you'll survive long enough to see
her go down(which is simply glorious).
- Equip that spanking new Valkyrie Garb.
Ethereal Queen - 2 resets, lv. 255
Short Minor: Stun
Long Minor: Aiming Device
Long Major: Radiation Bots
Common Support Symbols
First Aid
Victory Trophy
Tri-emblem
HOLY CRAP...what a joke battle. All her attacks except for her
obvious major attack and celestial star are minor attacks and
none of them hit that much nor do they have high attack modifiers.
I believe her major attack can paralyze but it's easy to sidestep
out of it's range. I like radiation bots since it's easy to use it
and keep your fury up so that helps in guarding Binding Field.
Now Celestial star is the only thing you need to worry about and
the only reason for that is because it stones(hence the 2 resets).
To avoid it be at the top and slightly to the left. There will be an
explosion to your right. Wait a second and then run/side-step over
where it went off. There will then be an explosion where you were
standing. Wait a second and then run back over there and then cancel
up radiation bots since you'll be safe from the rest. There are other
places where you can do this.
Now all I have left is Fayt + luther and Freya. I'll try to do Fayt+Luther
first. I'm just not looking forward to fighting Freya. It might turn into
the endless side-step because maria can't outrun/sidestep thunder sword or
ether strike so without stun bombs the only reliable alternative is to
never let her close enough to attack. I don't know, I guess I'll find out.
Fayt + Luther - 3 resets(from when I tried them at lv. 143), lv. 255
Ok I really have no good strats for them since I was really out of
there league at lv. 255. Hell I was parrying them... All I can do is
recommend you take them on at lv. 200 or less and evade Air raid and
Ethereal blast(with interference from luther) as best you can till
you can finish off Fayt.
EPY NOTES: >_> Well he did finish it over the cap, but meh. He could do it at
level 200 pretty easy too.
Freya - 1 reset, lv. 255
Short Minor: Stun
Long Minor: Aiming Device
Long Major: Radiation Bots
Common Support Symbols
First Aid
Berserk on
Victory Trophy & Tri-emblem
Your final battle in your no IC post game and it's a marathon...
Ok nothing fancy here...no AAAing...no toggling berserk...no equip
changing. Basically Freya has two attacks that Maria can't really do
anything about: Thunder Sword & Ether Strike. You might be able
withstand them(ES will usually take a clone generator) but really
it just makes things so much harder and longer to deal with them.
The solution? The endless sidestep. Basically you are just gonna
keep sidestepping away from her and never let her in close range
where she would unleash one of her attacks. You sidestep faster than
her so you can always distance yourself from her. So just keep
sidestepping away from her along the outside.
When you get some distance do step-attack->AD->RB(if you dodge a
spell then you can do AD->RB->AD->RB). Then do step-attacks as you
sidestep away from her. You usually get off 3 per go. It'll take
awhile so just get into a good easy rythm. As long as you don't get
greedy or screw up sidestepping you'll be fine. My first loss I just
got down sidestepping east and I was trying to sidestep north but
for some reason it kept facing me north after I faced maria south...
Freya caught up and unleashed ES which took me down. The second time
I accidently sidestepped toward her and she did ES(the only attack,
besides symbology, she did the whole battle) but this time I equiped
a clone generator and survived.
And that's it. Congratulations on completing this damn challenge.
BTW, I do not believe Lenneth(and possibly Freya, I'm not sure if her
step-attack would work the same. It should) can be beaten with Maria
without fully active mode. ...Unless a perfect method for avoid NV
with Maria is worked out.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADRAY: (First completed by Red777777, Post-game by Red777777)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vox (0 resets)
Annoyingly long because you're going to be using ice needles with
crappy int. Oh well.
Flying Knight (0 resets)
Easy boss, but you will feel sadness swell up within you when you
realize it is possible to die.
Crystal Statue (1 reset)
Welcome to Arial, your best friend for the rest of the game pretty
much. Wait for him to do his strong attack, avoid it, and Arial his
bastard ass. Take note that you can cast healing/whatever during
that fork attack. The death was due to being hit by said strong attack.
Crystal Cerebus (1 reset)
Same as above, but longer. I think I made the same screwup on
him as well.
Vendeeni Soldier (2 resets)
Remember that patience you mastered on Vox? Say hello to it again.
Run to the bottom corners back and forth, casting ice daggers when
you can. Don't even think of trying Arial here.
Schweimer (0 resets)
Get your revenge for having to be patient with Vox here by Arialing
everything in sight.
Blue Dragon Zombie (0 resets)
Joke fight. Arial.
Robin Wind (1 reset)
AAA him, arial. Second half of the fight is easy.
Crossel (5 resets)
STAB STAB STAB DIE. You won't be arialing here because
1. Crossel's strong attack is faster than you.
2. He can chain them, and if he does you will surely die. I didn't think
about it but you might backstep faster than his strong attack runs.
I ice needled him, and yeah it takes a while.
Biwig (3 resets)
Cliff died twice (he was level 19, no new equipment) so I used a level
20 Maria and aiming deviced/scatter beamed.
Now you can welcome Sophia, and feel murderous rage whenever she says
"I'm scared!"
Proclaimer (2 resets)
Killed her at level one- yes, I honestly think this is the easiet
way to level up. I used clone gens, but you really don't need them if
you are careful. Make use of her long O. It'll take about 130 hits. I
got her up to level 28 after this fight I believe.
Security Service x6 and 4D Security Guard x4 (0 resets)
They died horrible deaths, I think I had thunderflare at this
point...not sure.
Azazer (around 8? resets)
Bah, I died a few times so I got the anti freezing amulet. TF fails
horribly, so use Efreet. Won the first time I was using it.
Berial and Belzeber (I lost count)
The first huge roadblock of the SCC. Make sure you have the bunny shoes
from Vanguard III.
Berial and Belzeber was easily the hardest fight yet. I resetted at
least 10 times...had to try some stuff before I got something that
worked. Sadly, it ended up that I went crawling back to Efreet..and
won the first time I used it. What a great spell.
Since I wager people will have difficulty with this fight (in a mage SCC),
I might as well explain how I did it while it's fresh in my mind.
Level 33
Short X:Efreet
Long X:Thunder Flare (I never really used it though)
Short O:Efreet
Long O:Nothing
First Aid (Level 1)
I highly suggest you max out HP in the skill menu to 10.
Magician's Rod
Runic Cloak
Bunny Shoes
Scholar's Bracelet
I tried Thunder Flaring, but there were just too many things that
would go wrong. Belze has a small chance of turning you to stone,
and he will be hitting you; sometimes thunderflare will fail to knock
Berial out of the air, and your ass will take the brunt of his strong
attack. I also suspect towards the end thunderflare would work like
garbage, due to the "race" at the end and the fact Belzeber is
resistant to wind.
Why Efreet? Even on O it is fast as hell, and after the initial
cast the summon continues to attack despite you being hit or not.
I highly suggest that you go after Berial first. Be warned though,
towards the end of his life span he will continually spam auto aim.
This can be AAA'd, yes, but Belze won't stay far away from you-
breaking your guard during one of the 3 salvos can be fatal. Fire
dance is really nothing to worry about, since it will most likely
do minimal damage. Fire Dance will inevitably hit you; it can be
sidestepped, but during the ensuing mayhem you're not likely to
do so in time.
Towards the end of Belze's life span he will spam Drain Life and
Drain Spirit, which is incredibly annoying. It's risky, but try
to keep your hp around 4,000. It's likely that you have consumed
almost all your store bought healing items at this point, thus it
is crucial he regains as little hp from you as possible
(Drain Life drains 10%.) He is also not likely to use his short
strong anymore, thus you should fervently be chaining Efreet
together so he doesn't regain near what you damage him for. The
end really is an intense race; kill him before you run out of
healing items.
General Tips:
-At the beginning try to get Berial to either jump back or rise
into the air- then get behind him. None of his shots of his regular
weak or strong attack will hit you this way and you can go right
into Efreet.
-Belzeber is fairly easy to evade if you plan it. Just run towards
him and fake him out- he'll probably launch into his short strong.
It's a good idea to Fake out Belzeber right before you try to get
Berial to attack you.
-Towards the end of the fight when Berial is dead, you may want to
unequip the bunny shoes and put on an extra scholar's bracelet for
an added boost in attack power. There is no escape from drain life,
don't even bother. If you run out of MP items or find yourself
having to heal it too much you may want to equip a Regeneration
Symbol instead of the Bunny Shoes.
Proclaimer/Enforcer/Convictor (around 4 rests)
Maria was of course on a low level, and I'm not the best person
to use her >.> Just don't get cocky and you'll win. I think I had
Sophia kill the Convictor with her long O. Took a while.
Lesser Eye (6 resets or so)
I got petrified quite a bit till I found out running away from the
strong attack in the opposite direction assures it will never hit
you after a long O. Takes a while.
Dark Armor (0 resets)
Kicked their ass, not sure if I used thunder flare or just
long O'd them.
Crystal Knight (1 reset)
He got me once, but I long O'd him after I think.
Dark Eye (2 resets)
Got petrified twice due to annoying battle field...run from corner
to corner, when he starts using Misery Circle it gets easier.
Y hello thar Adray. At this point I leveled him up to 40 cause
he was on 31, and the Chimera is a whore.
Chimera (lost count)
2nd roadblock. He is a total asshat. You're going to be using Arial-
I tried using SC and Titan fist but they just didn't work out. When
he starts using Triple Attack try to get it so he chases you- stand
by his side and he will turn, making you AAA his tail. Dangerous,
but pretty much your only option.
Stone Golem (2 resets)
I tried experimenting with SC. It killed me. I long O'd him
afterwards. Hurrah for powerup.
Battle Copter (8 resets or so)
Annoying...very annoying. Tried a variety of things, crawled back
to Arial. You can heal when he flies backwards and drops bombs.
Good luck.
Pseudo Blair (6 resets EWW)
"You actually DIED?" Yes, yes I did, and it is because Death Howl
is a cruel, cruel move. You'll be feeling the limitations of Arial
here. Make sure to AAA Eddy of Light...this battle takes some luck,
because she's fast and Death Howl>Eddy hurts.
Ruktogias (2 resets)
Southern Cross him. Dodge, and SC.
Death Monsters (0 resets)
Arial roxxed em.
Chimera Hawks (lost count)
Last major roadblock. Sob. Have your bunny shoes and anti
freezing amulet. Make use of the Jut in the middle of the stage-
lead them to the upper right corner, SC'ing when you can. Now when
they are in the corner, run around the just, cast heal if you need
to. If you didn't need to heal you have two options:
A.1 hawk will be next to you, and 2 will be on the other side.
Chain SC.
B. All hawks will be too far away to SC, so manually cast it.
Enjoy.
Luther (quite a few resets)
Accept it before you begin the fight- you will be using Arial,
again. His first form is easy- don't waste your healing items,
cast it. His second is the pain. You're basically home free if
you can get him to use IP over and over- Arial him when he uses
Laser Beams of course, and you'll also be forced to after AAA'ing
Flaming Divide. Have a clone gen on because he will kick the
**** out of you after you attack him. When he starts using IP
you have no choice but to wait for LB. Cast powerup and
protection during IP if you want- heal as well. Remember
to switch rapid invoc with clone gens. It may take well over
an hour, but he will die.
Oh yeah, I beat Luther at level 58.
First, let me say that at the beginning of the MoT I decided to IC. I
couldn't beat Render without it, I had tried 5-10 times and didn't see
a way around his ice beam etc. for Adray.
Thus, you will want to make the Increase MP book and the Convert damage
book, as well as the Combat Exp book for leveling. Also for leveling get
5 rings of erudation on a laser wep. Get Em! Twin Beasts will net you
100+ K exp with triple exp, 5 rings of erudation, and combat training.
I recommend using your primary weapon and then swapping it for the
laser weapon when they are almost dead, you still get the bonus this way.
I leveled up to 105.
My weapon, which I designed for int for a few reasons, has these factors
on it:
Weapon:Biter
Int + 1000
Int + 1000
Int + 1000
+30% INT increase
+30% INT increase
+30% INT increase
6% MP Recovery
+20% Max MP increase
With this setup, my int should be pretty solid at level 255. I have
wondered if I should have put the bunny shoes on this weapon, but I'm
confident in my decision due to the fact I will surely put one of my bunny
shoes on my physical weapon (because I'll want a tri-emblem as an accessory)
and because I've desperately needed this last shred of MP so far. Note
that the int weapon for Adray includes a margin of preference, such as
int versus MP, etc. My current plan is to use the Sphere 211 weapon as
my physical attack weapon- I don't plan on loading it with more BoP's
than necessary to max attack.
-Reigning Champions (6 resets?)
I won the first time I tried this on level 105- I was under 90 all the
other times.
I recommend Southern Cross on both short weak and short strong. Dima has a
disturbing amount of HP, and getting close enough to use Aerial would be
suicide in a few cases.
With that weapon, Convert Damage: Preserve HP, and increase MP 40% (skill),
I had 5494 MP or so. It should be enough to take all 4 arcane stars, which
is your primary concern. I had the bunny shoes and a blazing pendant on so
I wasn't massacred by explosion and firebolt.
Feel free to chain SC or just hit and run with it till Solon dies. At this
point it is best to either AAA Dirna or to stay just out of range of her
strong attack, and use strong Southern Cross when she comes into short range
from it. Eventually, she starts up arcane stars. Don't mess with this, a
couple of criticals from it and you're dead.
However, if she starts to do arcane stars again without moving manually do
SC from the symbology window. Also, when she does radial stars move so
you're just out of range and manually do SC. That's pretty much it. Be
patient and she will eventually die. I should also say that while SC will
normally interrupt her it will not always do so, so don't count on it. Take
advantage of laser beams of course, but avoid getting cocky- getting in one
extra attack won't make up for the half hour you've already been fighting her.
-Gabriel (3 resets)
I should state again that I won this battle the first time I tried it on
level 106. The other two times I was below 90.
Assuming you have around 5500 MP, you should be able to survive one
Lightning Feather. I equipped the Victory Trophy for the 1/2 cast time
and the additional MP regen. I also left the bunny shoes on because I
wasn't that great at side stepping Gabe's strong attack and was afraid
Dragons would catch me with my pants down. Upon beating him however, I
think you'd be fine to switch the bunny shoes with an amulet of freedom
as soon as he starts using dragons.
Turn cure condition on. I got paralyzed 3 times but didn't die because
of it (or get close really) due to the 12% MP regen.
Ironically, the hardest part is when he just starts using lightning
feather because he likes to whip out his strong attack, which breaks
you guard, and then do Lightning Feather. Just avoid his strong attack
and maintain a distance that is just outside of his reach, I found this
provoked him into using his weak attack which you'll be AAAing. If
Lightning Feather does catch you with really low fury, you should
survive due to your MP amount and regen. Just scramble to heal
afterwards.
Whenever you do AAA his weak attack or lightning feather, use a strong
SC.
When he starts using dragons the fight becomes really simple. Run into the
south east corner and stay there. He won't use his strong attack too often
now. Whenever he does dragons, wait for him to finish his speech and
manually cast SC. This should hit him before he gets a chance to attack
you.
The fight will end a lot faster than you think it will. Once he starts
using dragons it's clear sailing ahead, unless you get really unlucky
somehow.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MIRAGE: (First completed by CrOnOKiD)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norton's Henchmen (0 resets): made them all ran by
lowering their HP.
Norton (0 resets): left Fayt to die after disabling his AAA,
and then beat up Norton with Cliff's short O.
Inquisitor (10 resets???): Good Lord, this was probably the
battle where I was stuck the most. Beating these guys with
solo Fayt or solo Nel is about 10 times easier since Cliff
doesn't really have any battle skills or symbology at this
point. Basically my strategy was drawing them towards me,
then getting around them and using short X (the one where he
rushes in and punches) an all three of them. Required a bit
of luck though.
Giant Crab (0 resets): AAA, short O, very simple.
Earth Smasher (0 resets): I had the Masterwork Plate at this
point. Same strategy as last time worked for this boss, AAA
and short O.
Shelby (0 resets): got rid of the guards first, then just used
short O on Shelby.
Mudman (2 resets): I died here because Cliff didn't have any
BS that could do a lot mp damage, and the bastard kept
healing himself. >_<
Then I just spammed Hammer of Might over and over and he didn't
even have a chance to heal.
Legion Dragon (0 resets): AAA, then Hammer of Might or
short O, took a while though.
Cockatrice (0 resets): AAA, Hammer of Might
Demetrio (0 resets): This was a long fight, I wasted a lot
healing items on this one. I just used Hammer of Might and
short O for this one.
Albel (0 resets): Took out Albel's buddies with Hammer of
Might, then just used short O on Albel.
Vox (0 resets:) Short O and Hammer of Might.
Flying Knight (0 resets): Just kept cancelling Electric Fists
and he was killed before I knew it.
Crystal Statue (0 resets): AAA, then short O and Electric Fists.
Crystal Cerberus (1 resets): Electric Fists wasn't working too
well here, so I just kept cancelling Charge for major HP damage.
Vendeeni Soldiers (4 resets): Got stoned all the time... not
to mention frustrated. :P
Then I spammed Hammer of Might over and over till they died. :)
Schweimer (0 resets): same strategy as Vox.
Blue Dragon Zombie (0 resets): Aerial Assault. Battle
finished very very quickly.
Robin Wind (5 resets): I was killed by Thunder Flare and
Aerial Slash at first. He was too fast and I couldn't hit
Aerial Assault in time. Then I just punched him till he fell
with Increase MP damage BS on short X.
Crossell (1 reset): He just has a lot of HP. I used Aerial
Assault over and over with Berserk on. I was very careful
of his strong stomping attack.
Biwig (1 reset): nothing too hard, Hammer of Might chained
into Aerial Assault made it very easy.
Proclaimer (0 reset): my first battle with FoF, didn't even
get touched, this one's probably the easiest battle so far.
Security Service x6 (1 reset): Aerial Assault set to
long finished the battle quickly.
4D Security Guard x4 (5 resets): very annoying battle. I
was juggled to death many times before i could pull of a move,
but the first time i tried with Berserk off, i won this battle
rather easily with Aerial Assault at long strong.
Azazer (0 reset): I didn't like the setup i had, but i needed
it for the last battle. The battle was still easy, but took
quite a long time, Aerial Assault at long O brought me a safe
and easy win.
Belzeber & Berial (8 resets???): One of the toughest battles yet.
Berial was the main threat. I finally mp-killed him with
cancelled Aerial Assaults. Belzeber was a joke without Berial.
Proclaimer, Enforcer, Convictor (1 reset): FoF on all of them.
Enforcer petrified me I think the first time. Convictor was easy.
Got control of Mirage.
Lesser Eye (0 resets): I bought the Crest Gauntlet and Battle
Chain Mail from Ruddle & Rumina. Cancelled Aerial Assaults did
huge amounts of damage.
Dark Armor (1 reset): Was careless on my first try. I just
cancelled Aerial Assaults again.
Crystal Knight (0 resets): AAA and Aerial Assault.
Dark Eye (0 resets): same as Lesser Eye, but I almost got
killed when he paralyzed me near the end of the battle. >_>
Chimera (1 reset): I had Crescent Locus in this battle. Great
to keep Chimera occupied. Died the first time because of paralyze.
Stone Golem (0 resets): Strong, got hit by a few Flame Kicks,
but survived. Crescent Locus worked great again.
Battle Copter (1 resets): I got killed the first time around
because of his stunlocking strong attack. >_<
I had Triple Kick for this battle. I cancelled CL into TK and
won a quick battle.
Pseudo Blair (0 resets): Death of Howl was a big threat,
and i just AAA'ed Eddy of Light. Then I just kicked her
around with CL and TK.
Ruktogias (1 reset): Chain Smash killed me the first time.
Then I just cancelled CL into CL interrupting almost every
one of his attacks.
Death Monster (0 resets): CL into TK, easy battle.
Chimera Hawk (6 resets): This battle was kinda easy actually,
until they kept spamming Heat Impact over and over >_<. Each
one did over 10000 damage in total. After a few tries, I went
back to my Hamer of Might spamming strategy and killed them
before they could even use Heat Impact.
Luther's 1st Form (0 resets): Easy battle, AAA... then CL
into TK.
Luther's 2nd Form (2 resets): First time, I was killed by
Insanity Prelude, and the second time he paralyzed me. :P
Next time, I had an Amulet of Freedom equipped and was very
careful of Insanity Prelude. Laser Beam was his weak point...
very easy to dodge. CL into TK worked almost two times faster
than Aerial Assault.
Defeated Luther in Universe at level 62.
Toughest Battles: Inquisitor, Belzeber & Berial, Chimera Hawks.
Most used BS: Hammer of Might, Aerial Assault, Crescent Locus,
Triple Kick
Render: Tough one, Ice Beam is so fast and strong it kills you in you
in just 3 hits without letting you regain your fury. Took me a while,
but Avenger Charge worked beautifully here.
Succubus: hit and run! and Triple Kick!
Basilisk King: pathetically easy, i was careful of not being petrified.
-started IC-
Earth Dragon: ran behind him and used CL and TK.
Alei: more TK!
Mighty Vox: AAA and TK
Sootie: Crescent Locus, blew up in the middle of battle :\
Trichimera: annoyingly long... the tail bothered me again, and his
strong rushing in attack wasn't helping either... I just used CL and
TK to finally take him down.
Vile Chimera: unlike Trichimera, he was pretty easy stuff. He wasn't
anywhere as fast and was easy to get him caught into my attacks.
Gabriel Celesta (1 reset): I used CL and TK the whole battle.
Dragons was easy to dodge, I just ran to the lower-right corner
and AAA'ed Lightning Feather... wasn't too difficult (especially with IC).
Into Sphere:
Norton Redux: a bit annoying, I had berserk on in this battle so
his attacks were really strong but easy to dodge. Shooting Spree
is now a strong attack, I just got away from him as soon as he
used this move. Took him down with the usual TK setup.
Enraged Crosell: he's big... nothing else. TK'ed the heck out of him.
Shadow Dragon: used CL and TK with Berserk off, and was pretty much
safe from his attacks.
Vengeful Shelby: berserk off and Avenger Charge! it did around
15000-20000 a hit! it made the battle easy.
Frenzied Biwig: his attacks were even weaker than Shelby's, CL and
TK works extremely well here (where hasn't it?)
Green Majora: uh oh he's back... and he's green! but too bad he
had to eat more Avenger Charges till he died :P
Archdemon: ouch... very tough... hardest battle so far in Sphere...
TK didn't work too well here (that answers my question to where
didn't it work)... I had to use Aerial Assault and switch Berserk
on and off during the battle. Took quite a long time, but I was
able to defeat him.
Got Blazing Cannon
Belzeber & Azazer: this battle was a big pain because of Azazer's
insane strength. I took Azazer out quickly with Hammer of Might.
Then I just used Blazing Cannon on Belzeber for insane amounts of
damage.
Berial: Blazing Cannon. Piece of cake.
Urssa Lava Cave Temple Interval!
Fayt & Luther: At around level 195, I had over 4500 defense... so I guess
they didn't have that much attack since none of their attacks could
even scratch me.
Back to Sphere!
Super Blair: very hard. her insane movement speed just made it
that much harder (nearly as fast as Mirage)... Blazing Cannon
works really well here but fails to continue to do so once she starts
using Howl of Death and Eddy of Light. Those moves come out so fast,
I don't get a chance to hit her even once with Blazing Cannon.
Keeping my HP and MP at top allowed No Gaurd to work so that helped.
Then for the most parts I kept spamming CL on her to prevent her
from doing her nasty attacks... as well as her spells like Southern Cross and
Lightning Strike.
Lenneth (10+ resets): probably the toughest boss in the whole
game... since it was very hard to hit Blazing Cannon on her
(thanks to her miniature size >_<)... luckily I was able to get
over 5200 defense at level 255 and nullify most of her attacks.
Then I just spammed Crescent Locus over and over.
Ethereal Queen (0 resets): she just has lots of HP... other than
that she was easy. She has nothing over Lenneth, or even Super
Blair... used Blazing Cannon throughout the whole battle and she
went down in less than 10 minutes.
Freya (6-7 resets): Took me a good 40-45 min, but I managed to
defeat her. ^.^ I guess that's pretty much the last part of the
SSCC. Anyway this is the setup I used against Freya:
Short X: (none)
Long X: (none)
Short O: (none)
Long O: Blazing Cannon lvl 8
- Critical Hit HP lvl 2
- No Guard
It would have taken less than half an hour if i maxed out Blazing
Cannon and Critical Hit HP. I had a good supply of Stun Bombs and
I had convert damage on to preserve HP since it's much easier to
take MP damage from Ether Strike. Mirage had 20000 MP from Valkyrie
Garb and MP+ berries. I had the following factors on my weapon:
Valorous Gauntlets
Atk+1000
Atk/Def+30%
Atk/Def+30%
Atk/Def+30%
Atk/Def+30%
-3 Fury use
30% Movement Rate
Take no MP damage 30% of the time
Victory Trophy(-2 fury & 6% mp regeneration) and Amulet of
Freedom (immunity to paralysis) were equipped as accessories.
When the battle started, I ran away from Freya and waited for
her to fly towards me. If she was casting magic, I simply ran
out of range or ate a Lightning Strike (if I didn't feel like
using a stun bomb). If she came to me, I went for a Blazing Cannon
at long range. At this point, she would do one of the three things:
If she uses her weak attack, she will attack me before I can hit
her with BC, but No Guard will keep me from being interrupted.
If she uses her strong attack, BC hits first, so chances are she will
be interrupted and I can hit BC on her. Now the big one...
If she uses Ether Strike, Mirage's second hit in BC (the one where she
flip kicks the enemy into the air) will hit before Ether Strike
and interrupt her move and I can get a BC on her. Now there is a small
chance that BC will not interrupt ES. So after she gets the first two
hits of ES (when she flies up), I still survive with enough MP and
use a stun bomb on her to prevent her from using ES. From there, I
run back at long range to heal myself. Each BC hits over 80 times
(11000 damage each, 16000-17000 when critical) doing 1 million+ damage
for each BC. It took me about 30 BCs before Freya went down (what a
sight to behold =D). It was much easier to use BC on Freya than on
Lenneth... I imagine 4D Lenneth being a lot tougher than 4D Freya
with Mirage.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROGER: (First completed by miniver, post game by Marty81)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Up until I got Roger, I used Fayt, nothing interesting there. I bought
Roger's Airyglyph equipment early so I'd have it as soon as I got him.
Moonshadow Clan Chief - With my armor, he did 0 damage to me. You
have to try to lose this battle
Mudman - Tried to stay behind him and kicked a lot of dirt at him
(short X)
Legion Dragons - Roger's pretty bad against raised enemies. Just AAA
then attack
Cockatrice - Roger's Charge is fast and strong. Put it on short X and
leave it there for the rest of the game.
Demetrio - More raised enemies. I had Landmines by now which helped
cause it's hard to AAA with fire coming from 3 enemies.
Albel - Run around, avoid attacks, and use Charge.
Vox - Another raised enemy, but only one, so AAA and Charge
Crystal Cerberus - AAA and Charge. That attack he does after coming
out of a stun goes right over Roger so he never even touched me.
Vendeeni Soldiers - I thought this would be tough, but I had no
trouble. Run around and get in a few Charges when there's a break
in the firing.
Schweimer - Same as Demetrio
Blue Dragon Zombie - This was sort of annoying cause Roger has no
long range skills so every attack led to being counterattacked.
So have some healing items. Not hard, just annoying
Robin Wind - My first game over came at this kid's hands. AAA
then Charge, problem is sometimes he'll whip out an Aerial Slash
right after you unstun him. After he's in Rising Stream mode, it's
easy. Just AAA it or stay close and it can't hit you.
Crosell - This one actually took me three tries, I kept getting
stuck in his strong attack cause I'd screw up the sidestep. All his
other attacks are weak though, so AAA and Charge.
Biwig - I used Maria here cause I like Maria. Aiming device the
sidekicks to MP kill them, then take out Biwig with Scatter Shot
at close range.
Proclaimer - More of the same, AAA and charge. I died once here
cause I got lazy and was caught in his strong attack.
Security Service - I should have put on No Guard, but I forgot.
Luckily I had First Aid on so I healed as they juggled me. Also
luckily, one charge kills them, so when they finally stop firing,
they go down quickly.
4D Security Guards - No problem now that I remembered No Guard
Azazer - This was the hardest battle yet, he killed me at least 5
times. He likes to whip out an attack right after you unstun him,
and Roger's low MP doesn't like that. That Crystal Prison is
annoying.
Berial And Belzeber - No Guard means Belzeber doesn't annoy you
too much. Just run around and use charge a lot.
Proclaimer #2 - I got tired of just using Charge so I used Flying
Torpedo here. It works pretty well if you fly in right after his
strong attack. He'll try to use another strong attack, but gets
knocked over before he can get it off.
Enforcer - Most attacks are weak. The ones that aren't are
easily avoidable. Just hang out behind him and Charge him to
death.
Convictor - Avoid strong attack, AAA weak ones. No problem.
As far as I can tell, Charge is Roger's only useful Battle skill.
Everything else is too slow or has too slow a recovery time to be
worthwhile.
Lesser Eye - The first time he petrified me, the second time he
didn't. I just kept doing 175% cancelled Charges
Dark Armors - Wow, these guys are annoying. Died twice trying
to just run in and use Charge. That's when I realized that when
they use there strong attack, they don't actually get close enough
to hit you with it. So I AAA'd the Hammer Quakes, then went in and
charged, then proceeded to get pummelled to death by more Hammer
Quakes. Tried that once more and died again. So for my fifth try,
I broke out the Landmines. Then it was easy, just drop then all in
one place and they'll walk right over and get blown away.
Crystal Knight - AAA and charge, just as easy as Crystal Cerberus.
Dark Eye - Same as Lesser Eye, only I beat this guy on my first try
Chimera - His strong attack is easily dodgable. AAA everything else.
He loves running around you and getting AAA'd when his tail hits you.
He did paralyze me once, but I lived long enough to recover.
Stone Golem - Not too bad, just keep Charging
Battle Copter - Very annoying. He doesn't get AAA'd enough to just
AAA and Charge. Then I tried Landmines, I'd wait for him to attack
then plant a few under him, this worked sometimes, but he'd fly away
too often. And they drained my HP rather quickly since I had to use
them on a strong slot or they'd just get guarded.
So finally I got to Shield and Cannon. I would just run under
him when he used his machine gun, and it's fast enough to hit
him before he recovers fury, so I could use it on short X.
Unfortunately, it doesn't do much damage.
It took 120 uses for the copter to go down. On the plus side, I got
my 285th battle trophy in the form of "total 50 hours in battle" here.
Pseudo Blair - I'd just like to thank Blair for being so easy and
giving a ton of experience, I gained 4 levels here.
Ruktogias - Most attacks are weak. Back to using good ol' Charge.
Death Monster x2 - Use charge some more
Chimera Hawk x3 - I'm gonna have to agree with Master Epyon on the
ridiculousness of this battle. Didn't take me quite 15 tries, but 9
is pretty bad. I got freeze killed twice and Heat Impacted to hell six
times. Raging Helmet does great damage, if you can get them all either
stunned or doing there strong attack, then you can get it off. During
the Heat Impact stage, I had to resort to Charge though as there was no
hope of using Raging Helmet. This battle depleted all of my Physical
Enhancers and Blueberries.
Luther - Form 1 - Boy does he love those Laser Beams. No problems here,
just Charge him when you can.
Luther - Form 2 - Died once here, got caught trying to run away from
Flaming Divide. The beginning of this battle's not too bad, AAA when
possible, which I liked to follow up with a Raging Helmet. And I'd do
175% Charges during Laser Beams. Then he just started spamming Insanity
Prelude, 7 times in a row once.
Hardest Battles
1. Chimera Hawk x3
2. Dark Armors (actually not too bad after I decided to use Landmines)
3. Battlecopter
4. Azazer
5. Robin Wind
Most Used Skills
-Charge
-Landmines
-Raging Helmet
-Shield and Cannon (only for the Battlecopter)
-No Guard
-First Aid
I think this would be really hard on Universe or FD. With Roger's
high DEF and HP, he can afford to eat damage on Galaxy, but I don't
know if he could do the same on a harder difficulty. And it's hard for
Roger to dish out damage without putting himself at risk. Imagine trying
to fight those Chimera Hawks knowing that one Heat Impact can kill you.
The upper right corner seems to be safe, I never got hit up there. I
avoided Insanity Prelude and Perfect Symmetry and got in my hits during
Laser Beams. At some point during this, I switched my AAA over the
wide area homing cause he never gets close enough to stun when he
uses Flaming Divide. I felt kinda cheap when it delivered the final
blow, but whatever, a win's a win.
Roger Galaxy No-IC post-game. Unless otherwise noted, assume FAM was on.
The triple-dashes are meant to indicate breaks between the posts I made on the
Star Ocean board, from which I copied all of this text.
---
Maze of Tribulations:
Render (2 resets) - Just play conservatively and AAA that ice beam. I had bunny
shoes and an anti-freezing amulet. I AAA'd him and punished him with 175% weak
flying torpedos. I also had charge on short strong, so I could cancel into it
out of the flying torpedo if he started up an Ice beam as soon as the flying
torpedo hit. The cool thing about doing this is that the Ice beam doesn't
connect at all. Blizzard Lasso, on the other hand, connects quite a bit, but
doesn't do that much damage.
Succubus - Ahh, such a relaxing battle...you know, because I never let her into
range to attack. Weak -> 175% Shield and cannon -> Whirling heat (cancel
fodder) -> 250% Shield and cannon from long range 'til she fell. Not
recommended (or even possible, for that matter) without FAM. I did this because
I felt like leveling up Shield and cannon a bit, and this was the perfect
excuse to do so.
Basilisk King - Took a while, only because I was afraid of getting petrified,
and I forgot to change my battle skill setup from my Succubus battle =/ Regular
weak Shield and Cannons from long range after moving away from his strong
attacks were the order of the day.
---
Got 2 tri-emblems. Taking on the battle arena now.
Bah, I got up to rank 9 and then my battle bonus gague got broken. Oh well.
Heh. Level 89 at the moment....
I have bug triad as well as the Helm of the Dark Eye (chaos attack effect),
btw. Bug triad and Charge can both apply the chaos effect, which is very cool.
And now I'm beating up the Dragoon Knights. I can take out the Dragoon with
just the chaos effect (via bug triad) easily. The Crystal Dragon is, as we all
know, just a big punching bag. I'm also using this battle to increase my bug
triad proficiency - I'm killing him using nothing but that...and it's taking an
awfully long time...
Finally! *checks* 240 mastery. Ugh. Gonna take a while.
Thinking ahead, it's probably possible to kill Freya and the like using only
Bug Triad/Star Fall/Shield and Cannon. It'd be boring and take a while, though.
---
I'm playing with Shield and Cannon and Bug Triad now, and I'm starting to see
merits. They're both up to 4 proficiency now, and Bug Triad lasts a bit longer
than it did at lv 1. Shield and Cannon Damages fury pretty reliably, but I'm
unimpressed with the extra shots - they just sort of go straight into the
ground wherever you're standing. Both attacks transfer the Choas effect.
Reigning champs - lv 93
Stomped them with Shield and Cannon and Bug Triad. OK, maybe "stomped" isn't
the right word to use, since it took 22 minutes. Bunny Shoes and Tri-Emblem.
Solon was a jerk and parried a lot of hits from both attacks (sad, I figured at
least one of them would not be parryable). Eventually he went down, and then
for Dirna, I simply duped her into using Arcane or Radial Stars, ran away, and
did weak->175% Shield and Cannon->200% Bug Triad (FAM) chains. I used 11
enhancers to fuel my battle skills for this fight. Not too bad overall, I'd
say. Lv 95 now.
Aqua Wisps are next, and I'm not too worried.
---
Roger keeps on going!
9 setes of Aqua Wisps: 1 Reset because I forgot they could paralyze. Amulet of
Freedom and Tri-Emblem. Strong Bug Triads took them out safely and I'm sure the
same would work on higher difficulties (especially if you use no-movement).
Earth Dragon: Well, I owned the hell out of the Crystal Dragon above with
(weak) Shield and Cannon and (Strong) Bug Triad, so I did the same here.
Alei and Springer: Shield and Cannon and Bug Triads again. Figured I'd use them
to gain a few more proficiency.
Mighty Vox: More of the same. He's a super-joke with the Reflecting Plate on.
Sootie: I recommend not doing what I did, which was going in with Charge on
both short slots and Flying Torpedo on strong long. However I was going to be
damned if I had to do that floor 6 puzzle again. Still, I learned a few things
about this fight that might help other people. First, Sootie Strike and Sootie
Blast both happen from a fairly decent range. The strong one starts up slow,
giving you time to run away, and the weak one, well, you can AAA it. If he
comes closer than that, I'd recommend running circles around him (or getting
ready to counter) since he has a normal attack coming your way. The thing is
that his strong attack comes out FAST and has a high chance of stunning you. I
ended up beating him by running circles around him and pecking him with quick
Weak Charges whenever possible. He ended up blowing up on me.
Floor 8 minibosses: I used (W) Shield and Cannon and (S) Bug Triad on all of
these.
Shadow Savants - Not much to say here. Just gave them the runaround.
Biochimera - I made sure to stay the hell away from his Petrifying Breath (as I
hadn't saved since before the floor 6 puzzle) and otherwise just kept nailing
him from a distance.
Tri-Chimera - Here is where I recommend you use a close-range setup rather than
the long-range setup I listed above. Amulet of Freedom and Bunny Shoes to play
it safe. I could pretty much only launch attacks after AAA'ing him.
Gabe's next.
---
Roger update. First Aid is level 10 now, btw.
Gabe down! 4 resets. Setup:
Long weak: Whirling Heat (cancel fodder)
Long strong: (lv 5) Bug triad
First aid, common support symbols
Bunny shoes and Amulet of Freedom
Sorry guys, no fancy tricks here.
In retrospect, I probably could have gone without the bunny shoes. Oh well.
Anyway, Bug Triad is pretty cool once it's level 4 or higher - I can't wait to
see how good it is at level 10. With FAM, you get to set up 100%, 175%, or 200%
Triads depending on what you think is safe. The fish bug only attacks when
you're hit; however, AAA'ing something counts as being hit, so he goes ape-crap
all over Gabe when you AAA lightning feather. I used Standard AAA - I probably
should have used Wide Area Homing for Lightning Feather. When he uses Dragons,
as soon as the circle appears, start comboing to get out a 200% Triad.
With my unoptimized setup here, it took maybe 18 minutes to win. Roger is level
100 now.
Sphere time!
---
Norton Redux: HAHA. Shooting spree goes right over Roger's head. You can just
stand there and kick dirt at him while the bullets fly by harmlessly. Anyway, I
used this battle as an excuse to level up Bug Triad some more.
Enraged Crossell: HAHA. He's just a wimp. Chained weak->175% Shield and
Cannon->200% Bug Triad. I would then run around to evade his strong attack, but
other than that, I pretty much just stood there and waited for him to die.
Shadow Dragon: HAHA. More of the same.
---
Ok, let me clear up some possible misconceptions about Bug Triad. It's just a
plain-weird skill to begin with, and it actually has a lot of subtleties.
Here's how it works: Obviously it makes Roger throw 3 different bugs into the
air. They stay in the air a particular amount of time depending on your skill
level. Level 1 is pathetic; Level 4-6 is decent - maybe 10 sec, and I'm
guessing levels 7+ or 8+ ought to be good. Now, weak Bug Triads will be AAA'd,
and strong Bug Triads will shatter guards. It's very important to never have a
weak Bug Triad actively attacking. The shots tend to interrupt enemies fairly
well, and there are going to be a lot of shots once its level goes up, so
you're just asking for it if you don't use it on Strong. Using it on Weak to
cancel is fine; just don't let it go off attacking.
Now, as for the 3 bugs: All of them will only attack your current target. This
is cool with manual targetting. One is a hyper-aggressive bombing thing whose
bombs cause area-of-effect damage and who immediately goes after your target.
The other is a laser-shooting bee that only goes after your enemy if you're
fairly close (say, within a screen). The final bug is the counter-attacking
fish, who shoots 3 waves, each at 1/2 the regular damage, whenever you're hit.
Note that it'll attack your current TARGET, even if a different target is the
one that hits you.
The bugs don't damage fury. Bah. However they do transfer status effects.
The bugs GO AWAY when you use another battle skill. Major BAH. However, you can
still use regular attacks and battle skills that don't actually count as battle
skills. The only ones that don't count as battle skills and still consume HP
are Charge and Aerial. HOWEVER, if you use a weak Charge/Aerial, the bugs in
the air will immediately be set to Weak bugs. To set them back to being Strong
bugs, just use a strong Charge/Aerial, or re-summon them.
Now, general comments about Roger and his other skills:
I'm still majorly disappointed in Shield and Cannon. Yeah, it damages fury and
is homing, and it's the best thing that I've found to chain with Strong Bug
triads, but it really sucks for an 8CP skill. I'm majorly peeved that my usual
LWeak Shield&Cannon, LStrong Bug Triad setup doesn't leave me with enough CP
for Common Support Symbols (though it's not like you want to cast Healing
in-battle with Roger anyway).
Raging Helmet sucks. It's fine for stunlocking in random battles with a team,
but it starts up pretty slowly and most bosses just run right through it
anyway. If you want close-range damage, you're better off with charge.
I used Land Mines once for the novelty factor. They go away if you cancel into
another battle skill, and the recovery time is pretty terrible.
Whirling heat sucks. Period.
Piercing claw sucks. Use charge instead.
Star Fall doesn't become available til after Super Blair, so I don't know much
about it yet.
Fiery Fury is pretty crappy, too. It's like Magic Hook in that it *sometimes*
pulls you in from long range. It also has the *chance* of juggling.
Now, Flying Torpedo is interesting. It's actually good in some situations and
does ridiculous stun-shattering damage, especially on Strong.
The Flying Torpedo trick I alluded to in a previous post, which I planned on
using on Gabe, involves having it set to short Weak and Charge to short strong.
The way this works in theory is that the Torpedo sticks to the enemy, stunning
them (and causing them to build up their fury). When it lets go, the enemy
flies backwards in the air, towards the ground. You cancel into Strong Charge,
catching them on the way down and shattering their guard, then you cancel back
into Torpedo. This actually works against a lot of enemies (bosses included).
It didn't work on Gabe, though, because he didn't give a crap that I was there
with my head sticking into his gut - he started up Lightning Feather anyway.
I'll have to try it out again on the more dangerous bosses ahead. (Note added
later: It never paid off in practice - either the boss wasn't too dangerous, in
which case I could kill it much faster with Charge or Bug Triad, or the boss
would start up some terrible attack while I was still sticking into it)
Overall I'm not terribly impressed with Roger's skills, but at least he's
becoming more interesting to play with. Unfortunately I think the best
main-game use for him is still Charge! Charge! Charge! Charge! etc.
Now, the two really nice things about Roger, that I'm starting to become
addicted to, are his height, and his near-instant item usage recovery time.
Seriously - you can use items while running away and hardly break your stride.
Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention about Bug Triad - it doesn't do a lot
of damage on a per-hit basis, and, while it does a lot of hits, the total
damage just doesn't compare to a lot of the other long-range stuff out there,
at least not right yet. I only have it up to 6 proficiency so far.
I think I'm gonna go play now.
---
Roger smackdown continues.
Green Thing - 8ish resets. I spent a lot of time dinking around with stuff like
Bug Triad and the Flying Torpedo trick - hell, I even gave Piercing Claw
another chance (it still sucks) - before I figured out that Roger's actually
incredibly safe when he's close to this guy, due to his small size. You guys
are going to love this. I equipped Increase HP damage on short weak, Crit Hit
HP as support, and kicked dirt at him 'til he died. Seriously.
OK, there are a few things you need to know about this battle. One is that you
need that Anti-Freezing amulet equipped. NEED it. Blizzard Lasso doesn't give a
crap. Unless you're far away, you're going to get hit, and unless you have
protection, you're going to get frozen. Another thing is that bunny shoes are
VERY helpful. However I opted for a Tri-Emblem instead, for the increased
damage and attack decision. With this setup, I was doing over 15k per attack
(Roger's short weak hits twice per attack).
Note that his attacks aren't actually ice-elemental, so Reflecting Plate
doesn't help.
So what do you do? Stand close to him, like with your head in his crotch. Get
as close as possible. Then start kicking. AAA or dodge his weak, ignore his Arm
of Ice (as usual), and just stand there (or use an enhancer) during Ice Beam
and his spinning attacks. You CAN attack during Ice Beam and his spinning
attacks, but there's a chance that your winding up will get you hit. Still, Ice
beam will only hit once if you don't move anymore. There's another attack he
uses, though, and that's Blizzard Lasso.
Now, let's talk a little bit about Blizzard Lasso, since it's going to be your
main problem and will likely kill you a couple times before you get the hang of
it. First of all, it juggles like mad. MAD I tell you. You need to keep
yourself away from the edges of the battlefield, because otherwise he's going
to launch you into the air and hold you against the wall, not letting you down
until you're a frigid corpse. If you get launched back and onto the ground,
that's ok, but you immediately need to start running in a wide circle around
him to avoid the Ice Beam that he's probably setting up for you. When you see
Blizzard Lasso start, you want to start running away from him as quickly as
possible, so that when you're juggled away, you're not hit and bounced again by
the low, outer stream. If you do get hit by it, it'll add significantly to the
time until you're standing and able to move again. I think you might have more
luck in dodging that outer stream by running in a particular direction, but I
haven't tested this. So, to recap, Blizzard Lasso either kills you by juggling
you into a wall and holding you in the air, or by throwing you back and setting
you up for an Ice Beam. Both are avoidable.
Let me also make it perfectly clear that the Flying Torpedo trick WILL work
against this guy - I just chose a different method in the end. If he goes for
an Ice Beam while you're sticking in him, 9/10 times it won't hit at all, and
9/10 of the remaining times it'll only hit once, so it's not much to worry
about. If he goes for a Blizzard Lasso, you need to run the standard Blizzard
Lasso recovery procedure I outlined above.
More tomorrow.
---
Arch Demon (1 reset): I guess the Flying Torpedo trick would work on this guy
on Galaxy, but you have to be prepared to eat a Crimson Sword from time to
time. Even though I AM playing on Galaxy, I like my solutions to be applicable
on all difficulties, and I don't think the trick would work on 4-D, so I
decided to try out the old Shield and Cannon -> Bug Triad again. Sure enough,
it worked.
This guy is a really good sport - his major attack gives you plenty of time to
set up a nice Triad, and you can AAA everything else except for Sword of
Darkness. I had pretty good luck dodging it - I just ran directly away from him
and then, when I thought the red demon thing was about to pop out, I started
sidestepping diagonally backwards toward him. I would eat a max of 3 or so
hits, which was fine.
I did have a Clone Generator on, though...you know, just in case. My other
accessory was a Tri-Emblem.
I beat him at level 135, and now I'm thinking of leveling up a bit before Super
Blair.
---
Angry Azazer and Raging Belzeber: This battle is insane until Azazer goes down.
I'm on Galaxy so I don't have the no-movement glitch at my disposal; with Bunny
Shoes (and a Clone Generator) I could only get off 100% Triads, and then, I'd
usually have to take a hit to do so. These guys are really fast. Eventually
Azazer went down, and then the battle become reasonable. I switched to two
Tri-Emblems and let my bugs take Belze down to where he starts using Steal
Life/Spirit, at which point I joined in with the bugs and spammed short major
until he fell.
Furious Berial: What, you expected me to lose this one? 0_o
Anyway, just AAA everything that you can, and run under him when he jumps in
the air for his strong missile volley. Fire dance, despite its suggestive name,
is not fire elemental, by the way. Just so you don't get any ideas, like
equipping a Reflecting Plate to try to null it.
Level 154 now.
Super Blair - 2 resets so far. Bugs haven't worked and the Flying Torpedo trick
hasn't worked, though If I can figure out a way to avoid Death Howl/Eddy of
Light, I think I can take her. Any suggestions?
---
Went ahead and cleared out Urssa because I didn't want to level or think about
Super Blair for a while. Results:
Albel and Romero: Laughable. Charge killed them both in about 10 seconds.
Peppita and Chimera: Slightly less laughable, but still easy. Had a close call
where she nailed me with an Instanto Blast when I wasn't ready for it (I think
I was at low life becaues I got Confused, then she and the Chimera hit me with
Strong attacks for a little while). I used Charge again.
Fayt and Luther: Went with Shield and Cannon/Bug Triad. S&C is finally level 8,
so I'm getting 6 long-range missiles out of it now, rather than the previous 3.
It's still not a good skill. Anyway, I went after Fayt first. I wore bunny
shoes and a Tri-Emblem, subbing them out for Clone Generators when I got
scared, though I never broke one. Again, I had to rely on simple 100% Triads
until Fayt lost half his life. Then the battle became considerably easier,
since he'd spend a lot of time attacking the air with Ethereal Blast, and this
sometimes allowed me to cancel up to 200% Triads. Once he was down, it was
smooth sailing. Luther's exactly the same as before, except he does a bit more
damage.
Speaking of which, these guys do quite a bit of damage, so be careful and don't
be stingy with the enhancers. The fact that First Aid was at 10 probably helped
me a lot here, too. I could have done it without it, but I would have had to
spend a lot more time recovering rather than attacking. Even with Roger's
near-instant recovery times from using items, they're pretty fast so you still
have to worry about them catching up to you.
Roger's current level: 158
---
Update:
Roger level 199.
And I finally beat Super Blair. OH. MY. FREAKING. GOD. It was horrible. This
battle is probably far easier with Roger on 4D (not that I recommend using him
on 4D at all) since you have the NMG. I, on the other hand, had her directly up
my ass for pretty much the entire fight. I almost died about 3 times, and I had
to survive on fury once - that was scary. I tried all kinds of stuff and
finally settled on Bug Triad on both long slots, and Crit hit HP and First aid
for support. The first half of her HP goes by quickly and easily, especially
with two Tri-Emblems. This took me maybe 5 minutes. Then she starts using Eddy
of Light and Death Howl. Just from fighting this battle, you'll probably learn
how to avoid Eddy of Light somewhat reasonably well just by sidestepping. It's
not very dependable, though, and sometimes you'll take the full 3 hits (~2100
mp damage on Galaxy).
Anyway, once this started, I switched to a Victory Trophy and Bunny Shoes. The
idea was to run around until my MP was full, then throw a strong Bug Triad and
eat whatever attack she had coming. I'd get thrown back and the bugs would
stunlock her a bit. If she hit me with Eddy of Light or Death Howl (which were
her main choices), I'd consume either a blueberry or a physical enhancer
depending on how much damage I took, and then run around and repeat the
process. If it was some other attack, I would cancel up another Triad and
decide what to do from there based on my current MP/HP. It's really hard for
Triad to hit her when she's running around chasing you because she's so fast -
the beams and bombs will often aim and fire, only to miss because she's already
gone, so this was kind of frustrating.
By the way, even with bunny shoes and Roger's rapid item-usage recovery time,
you're really limited in when you can use items. You either have to wait for
her to stutter (doesn't happen very often) or be ready to eat an attack.
Anyway, after about half an hour of this cat-and-mouse game, I'd consumed 20
physical enhancers, 20 blueberries, and 1 ripe berry...and then she finally
went down.
---
Roger strikes again!
I finally got Star Fall. And it SUCKS.
Moving on.
I leveled up to 255, used all the Health/Magi Berries, and ended up with 99999
HP and 13228 MP. Bug Triad leveled to 10 in the process - it was level 9
against Super Blair, for reference.
Lenneth - 0 resets. Cakewalk. Poor girl got eaten by bugs =/. Er, yeah, I went
in with Bug Triad on both long slots, and Crit hit HP and First aid as support.
I used two Tri-Emblems for the first half. Lenneth is super-easy because she
gives you so much time to set them up. During her regular strong attack (avoid
it!), you can get out a 200% strong Triad (thanks to FAM) and still avoid her
next attack. AAA'ing her gives you enough time for a 175% Triad, and so does
Nibelung Valesti. I actually found it beneficial to let her hit me with her
Symbology, since it would trigger the fish's counterattack. It got mighty
pissed when she would Stone Rain me, let me tell you.
By the way, I noticed that the music here is a remix of the boss music from VP.
Very cool.
Anyway, speaking of Nibelung Valesti, once she started using it, I simply
switched a Tri-Emblem for Bunny shoes. I'd dupe her into using it into one
corner, then I'd run around her and run to the opposite corner. I'd cancel up a
175% Triad here, and then wait for her to come to me. Then I'd dupe her into
using it again, run around her to the opposite corner, etc...She rarely uses
any other attack for the last half of the battle, and that's good. And even if
she uses a different attack, as long as you've started running around her just
before she gets into range to execute it, it'll probably pass harmlessly into
the corner as well.
The main reason this battle is so easy is because I was able to keep 175 or
200% strong Triads in the air at all times. She fell in about 8 minutes.
---
Roger steamrolls Ethereal Queen.
0 resets, of course. She's too easy. Same setup as Lenneth, 2 tri-emblems. I
pretty much just tossed out Strong Triads as high as I could cancel them, and
then...stood there. Everything she has is easily AAA'd, except for her strong
attack, which gives you plenty of time to run away and set up a 200% Strong
Triad, and Celestial Star, which you can dodge and...you guessed it, set up a
200% Strong Triad. You can even sub in a Victory Trophy to cancel up to a 300%
one if you want. Make sure you sub back in the Tri-Emblem or else it will only
do as much damage as a 200% one with 2x Tri-Emblems on.
Eventually I got tired of her using Celestial star all the time, and I started
kicking dirt at her when she started it up to knock her out of it.
Surprisingly, it worked about half the time. The other half, well, at least I
got some free shots in.
I've tried Freya and I can already tell you that Bug Triad owns her way harder
than Max Shockwave could ever hope to (in No-IC SSCC land, anyway). I messed up
and let her get too close, though, after about half an hour, and died to Ether
Strike. Speaking of Ether Strike, I don't think Roger has any hope of dodging
it or knocking her out of it, so long-range stuff is pretty much your only
option here. Anyone, feel free to correct me on that one if you'd like =p
I'm off to try again.
---
OK, maybe it's more like Bug Triad = Max Shockwave against Freya. I just lost
again, because I let her pull out Ether Strike...again. After about 45 minutes.
=/
Argh.
I'll try again tomorrow.
By the way, the Ethereal Queen battle is even easier than the easiness that I
described above because, if you ever get caught in Binding Field, your
counter-attack fish will get REALLY pissed, and attack non-stop the whole time
you're immobilized.
---
IT IS DONE.
Final Roger Galaxy FAM no-IC SSCC update:
Freya - 2 real resets, from when I got too close and she pulled out Ether
Strike. As far as I can tell, Roger has no way of outrunning, interrupting, or
otherwise avoiding Ether Strike, so his only option is to use Shield and
Cannon, Bug Triad, or Star Fall. Star Fall takes too long to execute and Shield
and Cannon does little damage (not that any of his skills do a lot), so I went
with lv10 Bug Triad on both long slots, with Crit Hit HP (lv4) as support.
Started off the battle with two Tri-Emblems for the damage boost, and then,
after about 20 minutes or so, I got paranoid about accidentally letting her
catch up to me like I'd done the two previous times, and I swapped out one of
them for Bunny Shoes.
The battle took a total of 1 hour and 10 minutes, and I consumed nearly all of
my healing items to power my Triads: 20 blueberries, 20 physical enhancers, and
6 perfect berries. I had 1 perfect, 7 ripe, and 4 magical berries left at the
end. I pity the fool who tries to solo Freya on Universe or 4d with Roger,
since that means that they'll probably have to give him Common Support Symbols
to last the whole battle. In case you're not aware, Roger's Healing takes about
3 weeks to cast.
Bug Triad went from 1969 proficiency to 2395, and
Critical Hit HP went from 360 to 601.
Just so you know.
As expected, I ended up only seeing Symbology attacks.
Allow me now to eat my words about Bug Triad being better than Max Shockwave
for this battle. For one thing, Max Shockwave just plain killed her about 20
minutes faster. For another, there's only one way to start up Max Shockwave:
175% (FAM on), and you get to wait to see if it juggles her before you have to
decide whether or not you want to cancel it. Bug Triad forces you to use it on
the Strong slot, and offers you 100%, 175%, or 200% depending on Freya's
position. I found myself often unable to pull out anything other than the 100%
one, which, with only 1 Tri-Emblem equipped, only does about 4500 damage per
hit.
Finally, Max Shockwave does its full damage from full range. Bug Triad has the
one bomber-bug, which tends to miss Freya if she's moving at full speed, the
one pretty-much-useless counter-attack fish, and the one laser-firing bee. You
NEED that bee to get in there and start shooting, since it not only doubles the
amount of hits that Triad can potentially do, it's also the only bug that can
reliably stop Freya in her tracks, allowing the bomber-bug to dish out its
hits, and allowing you to get far enough away to set up another Triad at 175%
or 200%. The problem is that it doesn't like to fire unless locked onto its
target, which it only does at fairly close-range. So what you have to do is use
Triad, then run in TOWARDS Freya, staying just barely out of range of her
attack startup zone, until the bee locks on. Sounds like fun, huh? Sounds a
little like teasing Death? It is. Especially since the bee is kind of finicky
about this. Quite a few times, I'd find myself continually inching myself away
from Freya, barely keeping her off the screen, with the damn bee in between us,
just sitting there doing NOTHING.
OK. I'm done ranting now.
---
Final thoughs and impressions:
I don't think I'll ever recruit Roger again, since the other characters just
offer so much more than he can ever hope to. In a group setting, he can be
effective; possibly his best group-setup might be:
SWeak: none
SStrong: Increase HP damage (4)
LWeak: Whirling Heat (2)
LStrong: (lv10) Bug Triad (6)
Support: Crit Hit HP (2), First Aid (1)
15 CP total.
With FAM on, you can cancel up a 200 or 300% Strong Triad, and then head into
the fray and spam short major for large amounts of HP damage. Bug Triad + Short
Major also stunlocks fairly well, especially when Roger gets attacked and the
counter-fish goes off.
I am not a fan of Raging Helmet, though apparently some like it. They say it
stunlocks. Maybe in random battles, yes, but I've found it to not stunlock
bosses well at all. My above setup stunlocks both - not terribly reliably, but
better than Raging Helmet.
Also, It's too bad that one of Roger's biggest assets in many fights - his
small size - is of no use to him against any of the super-bosses, starting with
Super Blair. I'm also disappointed that the Flying Torpedo trick doesn't work
against any of the really dangerous bosses. It works against some of the
others, sure, but you can Charge them down in about half the time with little
risk anyway, but why bother? I was excited when I discovered it, but it turned
out to have no practical application.
Overall I found Roger's skillset disappointing. He has enough going for him to
make himself a decent party member (not necessarily a good one, mind you - just
a decent one), and enough to solo his way through Galaxy (albeit a bit slowly
and painfully for Freya), but that's about it. Maybe there's just something
completely ingenious about Roger that makes him hyper-badass and I'm missing
it, but I doubt it. If anyone wants to try and prove me wrong, please do, but
until then, I'm done with him.
---
OK, having read it again, I noticed that my overall impressions section was a
bit muddled =p
Basically I was just trying to say that Roger can offer a decent amount to a
group that's up against a non-Freya boss (especially with the above setup), but
he really has little versatility overall, and a distinct lack of options when
it comes to different setups, simply because most of his skills suck, and the
skills that don't suck take a lot of CP.
Roger's final stats with no accessories equipped:
99,999 HP
13,208 Mp
2,873 Atk (Helm of the Dark Eye)
947 Def (Valiant Mail)
Battle Simulator - Decided to go ahead and try to fight all battles with
Sophia
here. Switched to manually controlling Sophia. The bats in the third fight
managed to get Sophia’s hp down to one before I’d finished them all off and
she
even had to survive on Fury a couple of times after that when she got hit.
Once
the bats were gone attacked the Golem from long range with her long O
attack.
Sophia’s long O’s pretty neat I think. Stayed well away from the Golem when
the words Earth Glaive appeared on screen. Just needed patience for this
battle,
run away, hit, run away, hit, run away and dodge Earth Glaive, hit.
Repeat till dead. Got the Regeneration Symbol for my troubles.
Got the win by margin of one hp battle trophy too.
Watched the story scenes afterwards and then headed for the escape pods.
Used the escape pod, switched Fayt out and equipped Sophia with the nifty
new
Regeneration Symbol. Saved game. Continued game.
Incipacitators -
Difficulty - Very easy
Very easy fights. Just had Sophia run around the battle field having her hit
them from long range with O attacks to defeat them in each fight.
Sophia never got hit once when she fought alone and it was the same story
when Peppita joined. In fact neither of them got hit once even though I’d
set
Peppita to manual and she was a sitting duck.
Didn’t take long to defeat them either since Sophia automatically gets
equipped
with the Fragile Metal Pipe which as I checked afterwards brings her attack
up
to fifteen and her hit up to a whooping
( well for this stage of the game anyway) fifty six.
Continued playing through story.
Haven’t decided who to use till I get Adray yet. Fayt’s a definite no no,
I’m not skilled with him. I’ll use Nel probably although Cliff looks pretty
tempting too.
Norton’s Bullies
Fayt - L1
Ran away and had Fayt use long O at first then switch to short X, got hit
quite
a bit on short X so used a Blueberry. Made two of them use Scram but
unfortunately defeated the third.
Fayt went up to level two, which made me sad.
Norton
Switched to manually controlling Cliff and waited for Norton to lower Fayt’s
hit points to zero. Had Cliff run around and use long O after each time
Norton’s Shooting Spree ended. Use a couple of X attacks too. Not a good
idea as Norton would manage to hit Cliff before I managed to get him away
from him again. I had to heal because of this. Finished him off with long
Os.
Cliff levelled up.
Inquisitor - Nel L3 ( Four resets)
Ok now this is just embarrassing, it’s hard to believe I lost four times
against these guys. First two times I tried to win with Shockwave.
Very bad mistake. Both times it took Nel way top close within range of
the enemies and they shoved Nel into a corner, ganged up on her and kept
hitting her till she died. I tried to use her sidestep but it didn’t work.
Third time I switched to Firebolt but I timed it wrong one time so they
were able to catch Nel. Same with four time although her sidestep worked
a little better so she survived for a bit longer. Still I felt like
giving up . However I’m too stubborn. Fifth time I basically had Nel
run around hugging the walls casting Firebolt when the enemies were well
away from her. Repeated till first one, then two soldiers were defeated.
After that Inquisitor was easy and I was able to fire off two to three
castings of Firebolt before he’d come too close to where Nel was standing
and I’d have to run to somewhere else to cast Firebolt from. Repeated
till he was defeated.
Made my way through the aqueducts. Found a Warrior’s Bangle which I didn’t
know I could find before. Saved game at save point.
Giant Crab - O Resets - Nel L3
Difficulty - Very easy
Another very easy fight. Kept Nel at long range casting Firebolt,
moving to a different position when the crab came too close.
Firebolt did good damage here, over one hundred a pop.
The crab did no damage at all. Nel never took a hit.
Got the defeat giant crab w/o taking damage battle trophy
here, insert happy face here.
Earth Golem - 0 Resets - Nel L4
Difficulty - Very easy
Firebolt, Firebolt, Firebolt, recharge fury, move positions.
Repeat until defeated. Seriously the golem’s so slow Nel
can easily get three Firebolts in before in comes within
striking distance of her, laughs.
Calling it a night for now, blushes
**
Airyglyph Soldiers - 0 Resets - Cliff L3
Difficulty - Very easy
Easy fight. Cliff’s long O took off over two hundred with
the warrior’s accessory equipped and when I went in close
range I found I could get in several hits with his X attack
which although weaker than his long O hit more times.
Cliff levelled up to level four after the fight.
More soldiers - 0 Resets - Nel L4
Difficulty - Very easy
Went into the equipment menu via the battle menu and
equipped Nel with the Falchion and Steel Chain Mail.
Ran around casting Firebolt on the soldiers for a while then
got fed up of Firebolt and decided to use Shockwave.
Finished them off with Shockwaves and O attacks.
Nel levelled up to five and learned increase hp damage.
Swapped the Falchion for a Long Dagger. Re-equipped Nel with
the Regeneration symbol and the Warrior’s accessory.
Used elevator, travelled to the fourth floor and made
my way to the save point. Saved game.
Yet more Soldiers - 1 Resets - Nel L5
An easy but long fight. Used Shockwave on long X and
long O to take care of them. Nel levelled up and
learned Aerial . The one reset for these guys wasn’t
because I lost to them but because I had to face them
again after losing to Shelby.
Shelby - 1 Resets - Nel L6
First time I was doing quite well and was concentrating
on taking the soldiers down with Firebolt. Timed it wrong
eventually though and Shelby used his ice breath attack on
Nel when she was in a corner. It wouldn’t have mattered if
it’d just damaged her but no it had to go and freeze her too,
sad face. Frozen Nel = defenceless, Shelby killed her.
Second attempt -
Set up - Nel L6 - Weapon : Long Dagger -
Armor : Steel Chain Mail -
Accessory one : Warrior’s Bracelet -
Accessory two : Regeneration Symbol -
Battle skills : Shockwave long X and long O
Difficulty - Moderate
Good God what an incredibly long fight. Took more than half
an hour. Alternated between using Shockwave for a while then
Firebolt for a while then Shockwave again. Repeated till
soldiers were dead, healing when necessary which was
quite a bit. Used up all my healing berries in this battle.
Once the soldiers were gone the fight became much easier.
Used a hit and run tactic with Shelby, using Shockwave when
I had the chance. Repeated until he was defeated.
Nel levelled up to level seven.
Played through story events and bought the Silver Dagger
and Anointed Chain Mail for Nel.
Duggus forest - Six trees. Spammed Firebolt.
Mudman - 0 Resets - Nel L11
Difficulty - Very easy -
Used O attacks and Shadow wave here.
When he had slow recovery times managed to get in two
Shadow waves. Repeated until Nel finished him off.
- Dragons and soldiers - 6 resets so far - Nel L12
I’m having problems with these guys. So far strategies
of Shadow waves and Ice needles haven’t worked well.
Nel’s been too slow so they’ve always got themselves
within range of her. If they trap her with multiple
hits of their fire breath attack it’s pretty much game
over because she won’t recover fast enough for me to
move her out of the way. My game overs have been
because they’ve trapped her with that attack, sad.
I’ve been able to get quite far into the battle
sometimes but then I end up running out of healing items.
Sure I still have Healing left but they could catch her
before she manages to use it. My best two attempts so far
have been when I decided to change to a strategy of having
a battle skills set up of aerial, critical hit hp, aerial,
critical hit hp. I think I might be able to win with this
set up eventually. Just need patience … and food,
I think I’m getting too hungry and tired to concentrate
at the moment so if I try again now I’ll probably keep
getting game overs. I’ll try again later.
Legion Dragon X 2 - Nel L12
Difficulty - Quite challenging
This time the battle was much easier than all my other
attempts. Took Trowa’s advice about setting critical hit
hp to O attack and set it to long O. Used a hit and run
tactic of using long O and then having Nel run away.
Still got too close a few times though and had to heal
when I did so. Kept up the strategy of hit and long Os,
and healing when needed until first one of them then both were defeated.
Brass dragons and War chameleons - 1 reset - Nel L13
Difficulty - Easy
Critical hit hp long O attacks.
The one reset was because I couldn’t get Nel out of
the way of a paralysing attack one time and she got
paralysed and got killed before she could recover
from the paralysis. Made sure to be more careful
the next time I fought them and always got well out
of range of the paralysing attack before hitting
them with long Os. Repeated to finish them off.
Did the same in all of the forced fights
with the enemies in this area.
Cockatrice - 1 reset - Nel L14
Critical hit hp long O once again worked a treat
and I used that to defeat the birdie on my second attempt.
Got too close to it to do so on the first attempt
and it petrified Nel hence the one reset.
Nel levelled up to fifteen and much to my joy
learned Ice Daggers.
Airygylph soldiers - 0 resets - Nel L15
Difficulty - Very easy
Ice Daggers! It froze a couple of them so I shattered them
to immediately defeat them.
Finished the rest off with damage from Ice Daggers.
Demetri - 0 resets - Nel L15
Difficulty - Very Easy
Kept using long range Ice Daggers,
refilling Nel’s Fury, moving to different positions
and repeating Ice Daggers. Kept up this strategy
until I won the fight.
Albel - 0 resets - Nel L16
Difficulty - Moderate
The soldiers were easy enough to finish off with
Ice Daggers but Albel himself was a different matter,
he took a lot longer to defeat using Ice Daggers.
Albel’s awesome speed meant that I’d usually only get
an opening for using Ice Daggers by running a distance
away. When he was using Air Slash or when he was using
a long O attack I’d keep Nel running until it had ended
then I’d have her use Ice Daggers then run away again.
Lots of times in the fight I was too slow at getting
far enough away or misjudged the distance for using
Ice Daggers from and Albel would catch up to Nel and
manage to hit her, sometimes managing to combo his
normal attack. Luckily I managed to get away to heal.
Then there were the times he kept on spamming Charge,
I’d have to wait a while for him to stop doing that.
Used up all my healing berries in this fight.
Used Ice Daggers and Ice Daggers cancel bonuses whenever
I could until eventually after what seemed like a very
long battle I won the fight.
Vox - 2 resets -
Set up -
Adray L18 - Weapon : Shichishito Armour :
None Accessory One - War God’s Symbol
( thanks Albel)
Accessory two : Regeneration Symbol
Battle Skills : Fire Bolt long X and long O
My first attempt against Vox was the first time I’d ever fought
with Adray. So I wasn’t used to how to move Adray around out of
the way of enemy attacks and how to time his attacks so I ended
up not being able to move out of the way at times leading to Adray
being hit and timing my attacks wrong at other times and one time
that eventually proved fatal and Vox finished Adray off. It didn’t
help that I’d forgotten to restock the item inventory after the
fight with Albel either so I had no way of quickly healing Adray
when he was in close range of Vox. I made sure to stock up on them
before my second attempt. Second attempt Adray was in low health and
before I could even access the items menu Vox caught him up in Steel
Rend and unfortunately it hit twice defeating Adray. On the third
attempt all went smoothly, managed to use cancel bonuses with Fire
Bolt which also levelled up in the fight meaning it could hit more
times, to damage Vox and managed to always heal Adray if Vox managed
to catch up to him and get an attack in. After many, many Fire Bolts
Adray eventually won the fight, happy face here.
Flying Knight - 0 resets - Adray L19
Difficulty - Very, very easy
This was a very, very easy fight indeed. Didn’t even have to heal.
Managed to always get away from the Flying King to cancel bonus Fire
Bolt, so far away at times that I was able to cancel bonus 200%.
Fire Bolt levelled up again here in this fight so now it hits
enemies three times each use. Kept on using Fire Bolts until
the knight was defeated.
Crystal Statue - 1 reset - Adray L19
A combination of Charges and longs Os did the damage,
and healing when necessary. Once enough damage was dealt Adray won
the fight. The one reset was because Adray got frozen during my first
attempt against the statue and killed before he could recover.
No such problem during the second attempt .
Adray levelled up to twenty and learned Taunt and Chaos Tide at the
end of the fight.
Crystal Statue - 0 resets - Adray L20
Chaos Tide = a lovely MP kill.
Crystal Cerberus - 15 resets total - Adray L20
Difficulty - Difficult
MP killed it with Chaos Tide. After my tale of how I got to twelve
resets in my previous post I continued with my tale of woe until
eventually on the sixteenth attempt I emerged triumphant. On the first
attempts after my twelve resets I managed to stay in the battle up until
Tri Spike which I then managed to successfully AAA but then the Cerberus
would recover quickly and use another Tri Spike before I was fast enough
to move Adray away to refill his fury. On the sixteenth attempt once
the Cerberus started using Tri Spike I made sure to be faster and move
Adray a distance away to refill his Fury. I continued to keep up a hit
and run strategy of Chaos Tide and with everything going successfully in
the sixteenth fight Adray managed to survive and get enough chances to
use enough Chaos Tides to eventually take the beastie down.
Be gone to the dark abyss with you Crystal Cerberus, now and forever!
Adray levelled up to level twenty one after the fight and got Efreet.
Vendeeni soldiers - 8 Resets - Adray L21
Difficulty - Moderate
Ugh petrifaction. I didn’t know they were going to be able to petrify
before. Had to reset so many times because of it. On my final attempt
against these guys I basically hid in corners and spammed Fire Bolt
until they got too close then ran into another corner and repeated.
I tried that in previous attempts but sometimes I wouldn’t be able
to dodge hits that they fired which lead to them connecting and
petrifying Adray. Well everything went well the last time I battled
them and I was able to use enough Fire Bolts to defeat one of them
and once one was gone another followed and once two were gone the other
two swiftly followed. Adray levelled up and learned Aerial at the end
of the fight.
Schiemer and his pals - 0 resets - Adray L22
Difficulty - Very easy
That brand new Aerial skill sure is nifty, yes indeed.
Alternated between spamming Firebolt at a distance and Aerial at close
range whilst there was three enemies and once only Schiemer was left
concentrated solely on AAA and Aerial. Repeated enough times to win,
and Adray learned protection and critical hit hp
at the end of the fight.
Played through story events, then went back to Airyglyph for more
story events. Got Albel. Sexy.
Bought one of the Airyglyph weapons for Adray.
Headed for Mountains of Barr -
Blue Dragon Zombie - 2 resets - Adray L23
Difficulty - Easy
The two resets were because on my first attempt I tried to AAA one
of the Blue Dragon Zombie’s attacks. Bad mistake. Adray got caught
in Fire Breath and died. Second attempt my little sister broke my
concentration by barging into the room so I didn’t run out of the
way of an attack in time. Third attempt made use of the nifty
Aerial again, sometimes managing to cancel bonus to 200% and
doing over one thousand a hit. Kept up the strategy of using
Aerial and trying to cancel bonus it until the fight was won.
Adray levelled up to level twenty four at the end of the fight
and learned critical hit. When oh when does he learn Berserk???
Robin Wind - 15 resets - Adray L24
I haet Aerial Slash + Confusion. Especially spammed Aerial Slash
*nod nod* Kept on trying to defeat him with hit and run Aerials
but Adray kept on getting confused and killed eventually before
I could run away. Still kept on trying though.
On the fifteenth attempt I went berserk and got angry at that
critter ;) So I continuously assaulted and bashed on him with
Aerial. Then I recovered my senses in time to remember he’d
probably start using Aerial Slash soon, so ran away when I thought
he was going to use Aerial Slash. Each time he went into a cycle
of spamming Aerial Slash I’d wait a distance away for him to finish
then I’d wait for him to start using minor attacks again then run
=back in and AAA them, then Aerial him. Repeated until he started
using Rising Stream. AAA works on Rising Stream wheee.
Used AAA against Rising Stream then used Aerial.
Repeated until he was defeated. Finally.
This battle would have been cake if I’d had Wind Shielding
on a weapon but alas no IC for me.
Crosell 1 - 0 resets - Adray L25 soloing
Spammed Fire Bolt. At first I thought I was in deep trouble
and would have to reset since when the battle started I
realised I had forgotten to set Ice Needles instead of Fire
Bolt but I tried Fire Bolt anyway to see if Crosell absorbed it.
He didn’t although for some reason I thought he would.
Oh well all the better for me. Managed to cancel bonus up to 200%
by running from one corner of the room into the other,
Crosell was so slow that it was easy to pull off cancel
bonuses in this fight although sometimes Crosell would manage
to get quite close to Adray whilst I was pulling off cancel
bonuses and one time he made it close enough to get multiple hits
in on Adray. Much to my amazement though Adray managed to survive
on Fury not once, not twice but three times.
An extremely lucky fight. Continued to use Fire Bolt and Fire Bolt
cancel bonuses as often as I could until I defeated him.
Crosell 2 - 0 resets - Adray L27
The only danger I was in here in this fight was the danger of
falling asleep. Used Fire Bolt and cancel bonuses of Fire Bolts
like in the previous fight expect this time it took much longer
for him to go down since he has more HP this time round. Remained
patient though and eventually after a very long battle I won the
fight. Adray levelled up to level twenty nine at the end of the
fight so I managed to keep within the level caps with him.
Vendeeni Soldiers - 0 resets - Maria L20
Aiming Device, Scatter Beam. Used whenever I got the chance
until they were dead.
Biwig and sidekicks - Somewhere over twenty resets -
Maria L20
*bows head in shame* I suck at this,
insert ashamed face here.
For twenty odd battles I kept trying to demolish them with
Scatter Beam to no avail and even though I'd taught Maria
Common Support Symbols with a tome I'd found earlier in the
game so she could use Healing and Protection in the fight it
still wasn't enough to keep her alive since quite often I'd
be intent on using Scatter Beam and not manage to run away on
time so they'd manage to get hits in on her. Even with
Protection they still did quite a bit of damage with just one
hit and that meant if they got in multiple hits Maria was a
goner, and a goner she was for twenty odd battles.
Then I decided to read the SSCC FAQ to see how some of you
people had managed to get past Biwig, and the most outstanding
piece of advice I found was that the soldiers are supposed to be
MP killed with Aiming Device whilst Scatter Beam is set to short
for Biwig. So I was supposed to be MP killing first all along.
Changed Maria's skill set to Aiming Device long X and long O,
and Scatter Beam to short X and short O. The first time I tried
to win the fight with this set up I managed to get as far as
taking the soldiers out but then Biwig hit Maria for over
nine hundred damage before I could get out of his range.
Next time I figured something out. I had Berserk on. Ouchies.
Turned off Berserk and just to give me even more chances
of surviving the fight this time equipped a Clone Generator, of
which I only had three. I should have made more of a habit of
buying Clone Generators earlier in the game I think.
Then I turned my attention to the fight and thankfully at long
last everything went well this time and I managed to MP kill one
soldier and then the second one. Then I went after Biwig. Used
Aiming Device from long range and then got in close waiting for
him to recover. Before he could recover enough to shoot used
Scatter Beam cancel bonuses. Repeated Aiming Device and
Scatter Beam everytime I got an opening to until finally the
fight was won. I was completely out of Clone Generators at the
end of the fight though.
Proclaimer - Around 15 resets - Sophia level one
Death awaits the over confident. As Nel would say. At first I
thought this battle was going to be easy just long and I eagerly
got stuck into using long circle attacks. I was wrong.
I was too slow to move out of the way of Proclaimer's slash
attack so Sophia got hit and died. This happened during several
attempts. In other attempts the Proclaimer killed Sophia with
Dark Sphere much to my confusion. I didn't know Dark Sphere
could kill a character with full health. After this happened the
first time I tried to stay away from Dark Sphere's blast zone but
sometimes didn't make it. Divine Wave and it's other swirling green
blast attack also managed to kill her during other attempts.
Eventually my strategy for dealing damage to it was to draw it
close to Sophia, wait for it to start using it's swirling green
attack then run a distance away and use long O whilst it was stuck
in it's position using it's attack. So I used long O whenever I
could when it was using that attack. I got quite far in one battle
doing this but then I lost concentration and didn't move Sophia
out of range in time. I continued the same strategy in the
following attempts. I also used long circle whenever it was using
Dark Sphere, I'd get out of the blasting zone then hit long O
and once it hit run away. I also discovered that I could get in two,
sometimes three hits if I lured it close and it started up
Divine Wave. Since DW has a slow start up and finish it was easy to
get a distance away to place to safely attack from. Well I used
long O as much as possible during all three types of attack in the
winning fight. In the winning fight I also used Clone Generators
which I should have used before but had forgotten to.
Six Clone Generators in total were broken during this battle. Drat
my slow reflexes. Kept using long O attacks whenever I could until
eventually I defeated it. It seemed like an extremely long battle.
I wasn't timing it or anything but I estimate it took over
half an hour, maybe even an hour but I'm not sure.
Maybe it just felt like forever.
Sophia gained fourteen levels after the fight. She's now on level
fifteen and I have saved my game with her in this status.
Update - Security Service - 30+ resets - Sophia L15
Ugh what a nightmare. Worse than even the Maria and Biwig battle.
Most of my failed attempts were from trying to use Ice Needles at
long range. Big bad mistake. If anyone else ever tries fighting them
with Sophia on level fifteen I suggest you don't use Ice Needles.
There's too many of them and they are too fast. They managed to catch
up to Sophia before she ended using it so I didn't get the chance to
move her out of the way of their attacks in time. Even two Clone
Generators won't save Sophia here because they use so many hits and she
can only survive twice. If they manage to hit her again before she
recovers enough for you to be able to access the menu screen to equip
new Clone Generators it's over. Sometimes she will also manage to
survive on Fury but that can't be relied on, and even if she does if
there is more than one firing at her that won't be enough either
because they'll kill her before she's recovered enough Fury for another
chance of surviving on Fury. If she manages to recover in time for you
to access the menu equip new Clone Generators ASAP. Then try to get as
well out of range of them as possible so you can heal up. To defeat
them wait until one is quite a distance away from the others then
use long O. Luckily although their attacks are damaging their health
and mana is a joke. One long O on each will be enough to defeat them.
If you manage to defeat one don't celebrate or relax yet. I made the
mistake of relaxing a bit and so got caught off guard. Even with one
gone there's still enough left to keep the fight challenging. It's
only safe to start relaxing a bit when there's four of them left and
more so when there is two to three of them left. However the strategy
of using long O attacks to win the fight does work and if I thought
of it earlier instead of using Ice Needles for so many attempts
I don't think I would have had to reset so much. It still took a few
attempts for me to win with long O attacks but I didn't have to reset
nearly as much times as I did with Ice Needles. Once one enemy is
gone wait until another is a distance away from the other remaining
enemies and then use long O. Repeat until they've all been defeated.
Also if you get the chances to, keep re-equipping Clone Generators if
Sophia does end up caught in their attacks and the ones you have on
are broken. Once two are gone the fight becomes easier, and after
that it becomes easier and easier as each remaining enemy is defeated
until there is only one left which is very easy to take care of .
Sophia gained six levels at the end of the fight
and is now only level twenty one.
Update -
More security blokes - 8 resets - Sophia L30
Ah the lovely Thunder Flare. Won by cancel bonusing this.
Wasn't always far enough out of range though when I started it up which
lead to Sophia being caught in their fire and dying. Had four resets
because of that. The other four resets were because of Azazer.
Azazer - 4 resets - Sophia L31
Let him catch up to Sophia, waited for him to start up an attack,
ran to the other end of the arena and started up Thunder Flare.
It usually caught him before he caught up to Sophia again. When it
didn't she had to take some hits to her MP but since Sophia has high
MP compared to some other characters that's easy for her to do and
survive. Once the hits had ceased ran away and continued running until
the Regeneration Symbol had restored the lost MP. Sometimes I used Mp
restoring items instead. Continued using Thunder Flare until he
started using Crystal Prison. First attempt I tried to continue
using Thunder Flare after he started to do so but unfortunately he
caught up to Sophia once before it caught him, used Crystal Prison,
froze her and killed her. Second attempt I decided to try out Efreet
on short circle after using Thunder Flare until he started using Crystal
Prison. Efreet caused about six hundred a hit without cancel bonus and
over a thousand with cancel bonus. I thought I'd win this time but no
Crystal Prison got Sophia again, and again on the third attempt too.
Then I started using AAA on Crystal Prison, this worked well until I
didn't recover enough Fury after being hit by Sniping so I couldn't
AAA it and it froze her again. Final attempt I always managed to
successfully AAA Crystal Prison and continued damaging Azazer whenever
I had the chance until he was defeated.
Eventual set up - Thunder Flare long O, Efreet short X, Efreet short O
**
Berial + Belzeber
Velari quote - “I'm really rooting for you to teach that freak a lesson."
That freak has been taught a lesson *^_^*
Set up - Sophia L33 - Magician's Rod -
Carbonite Armor - Bunny Shoes -
Clone Generator
Short X - Increase MP damage
Short O - Increase HP damage
Long X - Nothing
Long O - Increase MP damage
Support Skill One - Critical Hit HP
Support Skill Two - First Aid
Basically for the first half of the fight the strategy is to long O Berial
when he's vulnerable whenever Belzeber is far enough away so he won't catch
up to Sophia and manage to whip her. Increase MP damage made long O take off
around two hundred and forty each time. Once Berial loses enough MP he'll
start using Auto Aim and Fire Dance. This leads to the second half of the
fight, the strategy for the second half is to run Sophia around like crazy
until Berial is out of range and Belzeber is close by. Allow Belzeber to
catch
up and make sure Sophia's Fury is 100%, if he uses the yellow whip AAA it,
if he uses the purple one run like hell. If you manage to successfully AAA
a yellow whip, go and AAA one of Berial's attacks, preferably Fire Dance,
hopefully then you'll get a chance to long O him. If you do get in a hit
then run Sophia away as quickly as possible, Belzeber recovers pretty
quickly from stun and he'll be trying to catch up to her. Continue using
this
strategy whenever chances are available until Berial is defeated. Should
only
take around twelve more hits or so after he starts Auto AIM/Fire Dance.
If you have good timing and good reflexes you'll probably manage to evade
more
of Belzeber's attacks than me with my bad timing and reflexes. He got in a
lot
of hits on Sophia during my winning attempt on this battle so I had to heal
a
lot. Thankfully he didn't manage to petrify her this time, thankfully
indeed.
Now for Mr Kinky Whip. AAA the yellow whip then short O him whilst he's
stunned.
Thank you for the tip about short O. You were right, it did do good damage
multiple times, sometimes 3000+ on the first hit due to Increase HP damage
and
Critical Hit HP, and if I'd picked up that Laser Weapon at Moonbase Sophia
would have had even more attack power.
Continued to AAA yellow whip and used
short O whenever I got the chance, sometimes it would be a while before he
used yellow whip again, he liked to use purple whip for a period of time
before going back to yellow. Did enough damage to him for him to start
using Steal Life and Steal Spirit. Ran in close and used short O to hit
him for more than he was draining. Then he went back to whip attacks for a
bit, used AAA on a yellow, smacked him with short O. He goes back to using
Steal Life and Steal Spirit. I stand Sophia next to him and start spamming
short O, he tries to spam Steal Life but spamming short O takes off much
more than he recovers. Mr Kinky Whip goes bye bye.
Tip for any new Sophia SSCCrs - Pick up the Laser Weapon from Moonbase so
you can equip it instead of the Magician’s Rod for higher ATK.
I’m sure fights would have been easier if I’d remembered to pick
one up myself.
.
Update -
Proclaimor - Albel L24 - 2 resets
Difficulty - Easy
Yes Albel. I feel more comfortable with him than Maria. So I decided not
to use Maria here and used Albel instead. I used Air Slash on long minor
and long major. Most of the time I just used long major Air Slash
without bothering about cancel bonuses but if she was a distance away
I'd be able to cancel bonus Air Slashes till she got in range.
Then I'd move Albel away and wait for an opening to attack. Repeated
until I defeated her. The two resets were one for losing to Enforcer
and one for losing to Convictor.
Enforcer - Albel L26 - 2 resets
Air Slash long major. It took off over four thousand a pop.
However in the first fight I was trying to figure out which of
it's attacks AAA could be used on. Bad mistake. Albel got petrified.
Second attempt, used Air Slash long major, ran, used it again, ran,
used it again, repeated strategy of Air Slashing and running until it
was defeated. One reset because of the petrification, another because
of losing to Convictor.
Convictor - Sophia L35 - 1 resets
Put Albel on manual and switched back to controlling Sophia.
Waited for Albel to lose all his health then started Thunder Flaring.
Only problem is I discovered he was strong against wind so it didn't
do much damage. Switched to using AAA on it's attacks and used short O
with Increase HP damage. However eventually he used an attack on
Sophia before I could get her Fury back up and she died.
Second attempt I'd changed Sophia's skill set up to Increase MP damage
on long O. MP killed it. It took a while, I also used AAA in this battle
and got the 50 Consecutive Guards and 100 Consecutive Guards battle
trophies for my efforts.
*Again tip would be having the Laser Weapon for this fight. In fact a
Laser weapon can pretty much do Sophia from Moonbase till post game
apart from the Azazer fight where magic is relied on.
Lesser Eye - Sophia L37 - 1 resets
MP kill.
Took even longer than Convictor. One reset because of petrification.
Dark Armor - Sophia L40 - 0 resets
Nice MP kills. Also used AAA so I could take off more MP whilst
they were stunned. AAA works on Hammer Quake, I didn't know that
before. It's nice that it does.
Crystal Statue - Sophia L42 - 1 resets
MP kill wheee. Also got the defeat Crystal Statue w/o taking
damage battle trophy first time I fought it. One reset because I
forgot to save my game after fighting it and then lost to Dark Eye.
Dark Eye - Sophia L43 - 14 + resets so far
Let's add Dark Eye to the list of annoying things that petrify
a lot. Thirteen of those resets were because of petrification
one because of paralysis. Ugh @ petrification.
He'll go down eventually though.
Update -
Ok so I've finally managed to MP kill the Dark Eye. I decided that
running close to it in the second stage of the battle in the hope
it'd use Misery Circle was too risky because on my other attempts
it'd eventually use another attack which I wouldn't always be able
to dodge leading to petrification or paralysis. So on my winning
attempt I used the same strategy in the second half as I did in the
first, ran from corner to corner and used long O with Increase MP
damage from the corners. When moving to another corner during the
first half of the battle you have to be careful not to get too near
to him or he might use Fear Circle which restores some of his health
and mana If he gets the chance to use it Fear Circle makes this
battle longer than it should be. He also likes to use Thunder Flare
during the first half of the battle and Dark Sphere during the second,
Thunder Flare causes quite a bit of damage meaning some healing is
needed and Dark Sphere can instantly kill so Sophia needs to get out
of range of the blast zone when it's being used. Once he loses
enough MP and doesn't have a chance to restore it with Fear Circle
the second stage of the battle begins. Continued running from corner
to corner and continued using long O attacks from corners, except now
I didn't have to worry about Fear Circle, sometimes if he got too close
he'd use Misery Circle instead and it's possible to get in two to three
long O attacks from a distance whilst he's in the process of using it.
Eventually I managed to take off enough MP to end the battle and
defeat Dark Eye.
Chimera next.
Chimera -Sophia L46 - 2 resets
MP killed.
The first two attempts I a) didn't bother to utilise the power of AAA
b) Didn't equip the Amulet of Freedom and
c) used up all my healing items during the second attempt and Chimera
got Sophia whilst she was in low health,
in the first Sophia got paralysed and defeated. Third attempt I tried out
AAA although I wasn't really expecting it to work. However I was
delighted to be proved wrong and found out Chimera has at least three
types of attacks that it's possible to AAA, his basic lunge attack,
his tail attack and Triple Attack. I couldn't AAA his flying lunge attack
so took damage from that. My strategy was to try to AAA an attack and if
it worked to use Sophia's long O with Increase MP damage ( again =P).
I didn't always manage to do it in time though. Sometimes he'd use his
flying lunge when I wasn't expecting it and then another attack before
Sophia's fury was up, sometimes I'd try to AAA Triple Attack but not have
stood still long enough to get to 100% Fury. Both of which resulted in me
having to do a lot of healing. I was out of items at the end of the fight
apart from Clone Generators so I unequipped Bunny Shoes and fought the
rest of the fight with two Clone Generators equipped.
Thankfully Chimera didn't have much MP left and a few AAAs and long O
Increase MP damage attacks later and he was defeated.
Stone Golem - Sophia L46 - 0 resets
A very nice and lovely MP kill. He's big and slow, Sophia's small
and faster especially with Bunny Shoes. She gets plenty of chances
to get in multiple long O attacks before he gets anywhere near her,
once he's close just run away to another position and start up the
long O attacks again. Repeat long O whenever you have the chance
until he's defeated. I ended the fight without Sophia even taking
a hit from him and I would have got the defeat Stone Golem w/o
taking damage BT but I got it on my normal play through last time.
Battle Coptor next.
- No Item Creation Sophia pre post game SSCC complete -
Final update for pre post game -
Battle Coptor - Sophia L49 - 8 resets
Eventually MP killed. I got my resets trying to find a strategy
that would work against him, again spells/spells set as battle skills
weren't working well and at first it seemed that it wasn't going to
be possible to MP kill him without quite a bit of trouble either,
although I kept trying hoping to get lucky and then that's when I
figured out how to defeat him. Basically he has to be faked out,
tricked into using an attack, run Sophia right pass him and this will
happen.
Since she should be past him use long O with Increase MP damage and when it
hits take off running again. Repeat this strategy of faking out,
using long O and running until it starts using it's special attack
which it's possible to AAA. If you successfully stun it move away a bit and
use long O. AAA and long O whenever you have the chance until it's defeated.
Pseudo Blair - Sophia L50 - 1 reset
MP killed. Doesn't take too long either since she doesn't have much MP
compared to some of the bosses before her. I got one reset though because
I didn't know all of her attacks and wanted to see what they all did so I
ran into one ... without a Clone Generator equipped. I thought I had one.
Ooops.
Ruktogias - Sophia L56 - 2 resets
Another MP kill. Sophia got owned by Explosion the first two attempts
though.
Death Monsters - Sophia L58 - 5 resets
Again spells and MP kill didn't work well. HP kill with Increase HP damage
on short O and Critical Hit HP on one support slot. Only attack after
stunning
with AAA. During their last stage though I couldn't AAA Flame Breath so had
to
get behind them and attack from there.
Chimera Hawks - Sophia L59 - Lost count of resets
Again melee works a lot better than spells/spells set as battle skills =o
Sophia deals a lot of damage with her short O here. Damage dealing isn't
the problem. Surviving long enough to deal it is. First stage is easy AAA
Dive and Hard Attack, then short O. Second stage hope AAA is used on
Blizzard Attack, if not and Sophia's guard isn't up it could freeze her and
did many times. Third stage, it uses Heat Wing which it's not possible to
AAA
and it hits hard. Either try to never let them enter this stage by casting
power up and using AAA on them near the end of their Blizzard Attack stage
and
following up with short O, a short O at this stage caused 13'000+ worth of
damage on the first hit and just under half that for the second
( thanks to trowa for this strategy) Or spam short O during the Heat Wing
stage,
make sure to have two Clone Generators equipped and pull back if it's not
going
well. Power Up helps a lot. Fourth stage run out of range when Wing Cutter
is
used, then run back and try to get in a short O. Repeat until it's defeated.
Then do the same for the remaining two =P
Luther - Sophia L61 - 6 resets
-Set up-
Weapon - Laser Weapon
Armor - Wizard's Robe
Accesory One - Bunny Shoes
Accessory Two - Clone Generator
Battle Skills
Short X - Nothing
Long X - Nothing
Short O - Increase HP damage
Long O - Increase HP damage
Support Skill One - No Guard
Support Skill Two - Critical Hit HP.
First Luther is annoying, sometimes he uses spear attacks a lot, and
attacking is risky when he does that because he usually causes damage by
following up with another spear attack when you're either in the midst of
or finishing attacking. Short O him when he's using Laser Beams, get him
when Laser Beams is set up away from him. Can take a while to defeat him,
depending on how many Laser Beams he decides to cast, not so long if he's
generous with them, long if he isn't.
Second Luther. First stage is annoying for the same reasons as in the
first fight. Not only that it's now harder for Sophia to get out of the way
of some of his spear attacks, and that's with the Bunny Shoes.
I can only imagine what it must be like here for poor Adray.
Second stage is great. Run up to him, if the words Flaming Divide pop up on
screen stand still and AAA will be used. Now *don't* short O.
I tried that at first but found Luther would fire up another Flaming Divide
immediately after coming out of stun and Sophia doesn't seem to be able to
avoid the first hit, and her Fury is down due to just attacking.
Instead use long O. If he uses Laser Beams you can either attack or cast
status boosting spells. I did the latter. Switched Bunny Shoes with Rapid
Invocation, casted Power Up, Angel Feather or Healing, then switched back,
before getting out of Luther's range, waiting for Fury to refill,
then going after him again. Expansion Blast, AAA and long O.
Third stage. Insanity Prelude. Ran to the flaps on the north east or
north west, equipped two Clone Generators, turned off Berserk, and prayed.
Turning off Berserk during Insanity Prelude really helped. I should have
done
that on previous attempts. Once it was over I healed up if I had to,
sometimes I did, then refilled Fury, turned Berserk back on, and
re-equipped Bunny Shoes. Went after Luther to see what he would do.
If he used Insanity Prelude again I'd hightail it backwards to the corner,
Perfect Symmetry same. Flaming Divide, AAA and short O.
Yes. Change it to short O during his final stage.
He didn't follow up Flaming Divide with another Flaming Divide in this stage
so it was possible to short O him for more damage and get out of range
before
he used another attack. Laser Beams, also short O.
The resets? Insanity Prelude. Everytime. Except once when Sophia got
paralysed
by Perfect Symmetery.
- Most used skills -
Nel
Fire Bolt
Healing
Long O
Adray
Fire Bolt
Chaos Tide
Aerial
Sophia
Short O
Long O
Increase MP damage
Increase HP damage
Critical Hit HP
First Aid
Hardest fights
1) Belzeber and Berial. Yes the boys take the cake mainly
because of Mr Kinky Whip's petrifying attack which was responsible for
most of my resets and which Clone Generators couldn't help with.
Now to unlock the floors of sphere where we shall meet again *whip*
2) Anything else that could petrify.
3) Chimera Hawks. For Heat Wing. Once that stage is over they become
easier though.
4) Biwig. I suck at using Maria. Once I used Aiming Device on his
sidekicks instead of Scatter Beam the fight became easier but it was
still quite hard.
5) Draw between Shelby and 4D Security. Shelby because of his ice attack
that freezes and 4D Security because they like to gang up and catch your
character in cross fire. They can also juggle. Not nice =P
Honourable Mentions
Adray. For managing to get the job done. His Aerial's nice too *^_^*
Albel. For getting through a Proclaimor and an Enforcer battle with ease,
causing lots of damage, especially to Enforcer, even though he was only
in his level twenties. Wickedly nice ;)
Cr0n0KiD for the praise, encouragement and advice.
Master Epyon for creating this wonderful topic.
Nel - For getting me through disc one until I got Adray.
trowabartan - For all the awesome advice he gives, which really helped me
=-)
Peppita - For making me smile with her cute expressions *^_^*
Velari - For the sexiness she brings to this topic. Also for the advice she
gave which lead me to being able to teach Mr Kinky Whip a lesson.
Captain K and Red777777 for the support and advice, and for being
inspirations for all things Adray.
Luther - Cute blondie with blue eyes.
Too bad he wanted to delete everything though. Put up a good fight too.
Ending watched and clear data created =-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEL: (First completed by Master Epyon, 4D and Post-game
by CrOnOKiD)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4D Nel SSCC (No IC)
Norton's henchmen (0 resets, lvl. 1): Use Fayt's long major
carefully to take them out. Be careful not to get caught into their attacks.
Norton (0 resets, lvl 3): Let Cliff die. Now AAA him, then have Fayt
use long major, follow it up with a short major -> short minor if norton
gets juggled into the air. And use blueberries when necessary.
Inquisitor (0 resets, lvl 3): What you want to do here is run into
one corner and let them come towards you. Once they get close
enough, deke them out carefully then run into the other corner and
cast firebolt on one of the guards. Now wait for them again and
repeat. Sometimes (thanks to the no movement glitch) you won't
have to deke them out, they will simply stand there after you have
casted firebolt giving you enough time to run into the other corner.
Larva Crab (0 resets, lvl 3): Cast firebolt from long range. Nothing
much to note here, except it may take a while.
I felt lazy, so I didn't bother buying any of the Airygylph equipment.
Earth Smasher (0 resets, lvl 4): Same strategy as Larva Crab, just cast
firebolt from long range and the boulders will help rack up the damage.
Easy enough.
Airyglyph Soldiers (0 resets, lvl 6): Cancel Aerial with Fayt to carefully
take them out one by one.
Black Brigade (1 reset, lvl 8): If you didn't buy any of the airyglyph equipment
(like me), you will have a lot of trouble in this battle and the next. What
you need to do is deke out 4 of them in a corner and then run to the other
corner with one soldier chasing you. It's tricky, but you will get the hang
of it. The no movement glitch will cause the other 4 to stay in the other
corner while you're in the other corner stuck with one. Now deke him out
here and use a long major attack (Increase HP damage should be set). Now
you will have the rest of them coming after you. Follow the same process to
take them out slowly one by one (yes, it will take quite a while).
Shelby (4 resets, lvl 8): Just like the previous battle, but tougher and
longer. Shelby is a lot quicker than the Black Brigade so beware.
Take out the black brigade first with Nel's long major. When Shelby
is the only one left, AAA his weak attacks and dodge his strong ones.
Once he's stunned, execute long major for some nice damage. Note that,
when you hit long major you should break his guard, otherwise he will
go right into an attack if you don't. And you don't want to get attacked
because one of his attacks will kill you easily (namely Giant Swing).
Repeat the same strategy and you will eventually win.
Duggus Trees (0 resets, lvl 10): Combo shadow wave to MP kill these trees.
Sidestep to dodge its strong attack and it's also good to AAA the weak ones.
Mudman (2 resets, lvl 12): This boss can be annoying. Watch out for its
attacks, let it come to you first. If he uses a strong attack, run behind him
and hit him with a weak attack. Follow it up with cancelled shadow waves.
But if he decides to use a weak attack, AAA it, then hit a strong shadow
wave. Be sure to heal once in a while as well.
Legion Dragons (1 reset, lvl 13): Set Increase HP Damage to Nel's long major
slot. Use long major here, it works beautifully against them! Mainly because
it's an anti-air attack, so when they try to knock you out of it as you're
homing in... they will completely miss with their weak attack. And if they
decide to use their major fire breath move, you will recover in time to move
out of its range.
Master combo is annoying, but firebolts won't do that much damage.
Use healing items when necessary. Once you have defeated them, return to
Arias to stock up on healing items if need be.
Cockatrice (0 resets, lvl 14): Wait until it uses its strong attack, move
out of range and let it finish. As cockatrice is recovering, run in with a
long weak attack and follow it up with cancelled shadow waves. AAA
its weak attacks, but be careful since it can petrify you.
Demetrio (1 reset, lvl 15): Same as Legion Dragons, except their fire breath
attacks are a lot weaker. Take out the two dragon brigade soldiers with
long major. When Demetrio is left, AAA his weak attacks and use long
major on him. Just keep doing this and you will win. He doesn't have any
dangerous attacks you really need to worry about.
Albel (5 resets, lvl 16): Ouch. Albel is very tough. Start by taking out
his buddies with shadow wave one by one. With Albel left, try using
the object in the middle of the field to block his attack (mainly Charge).
You can use shadow wave safely from here. Or dodge his strong attack
and cancel shadow waves. Use healing items and cast healing whenever
you need to. Albel has both long range and short range moves, so you
need to be alert at all times.
Vox (0 resets, lvl 18): Easy enough. You can use either long major or ice
daggers here. I chose a combination of both. Whenever you AAA him,
hit him with a long major, and use ice daggers once you dodge his strong
attacks. Make sure not to get hit by Steel Rend.
Flying Knight (0 resets, lvl 19): Get him to use a strong attack, dodge it,
cancel ice daggers. Easy enough... shadow wave works well too.
Crystal Statue (0 resets, lvl 20): Its difficult to land hits on this enemy.
So AAA its weak attacks, then cancel ice daggers quickly. Don't
get caught into its strong attack, and watch out for Tri-spike. Just use
ice daggers whenever you get a chance.
Crystal Cerberus (1 reset, lvl 21): This will be quite a long battle since
crystal cerberus is immune to ice and it has quite a large amount of MP.
What I did here was cancel poison cloud into shadow wave, so i was sure
to land a 175%/200% cancelled shadow wave. Once it uses its strong
attack, dodge it and use a 175% or 200% cancelled shadow wave. If you
manage to stun it by AAA'ing its weak attacks, hit a shadow wave to
knock it out. Use the bottom right/left corner around the middle area to
cast healing, crystal cerberus won't get close to you here, except when it
uses Tri-spike, so watch out.
Vendeeni Soldiers (20 resets, lvl 22): This battle is very tough. Make sure
you have shadow wave set to all slots as well as first aid. Equip a warrior's
bracelet and a war god's symbol to ensure you have 250+ attack. Also make
sure you have berserk on. It took me a lot of resets to find a strategy that
actually works against them. When the battle starts, move Nel towards the
vendeeni soldiers so that she cuts right in front of them, this will force them
to use an attack on you which you can dodge by running out of the way. If
any one of them uses a weak attack just continue running and dodge all of
their attacks. Now run to the opposite side and try the same thing.
If they ALL start up a strong attack, run towards the vendeeni to hit them
with a weak shadow wave, follow this up with a strong shadow wave (175%
cancelled).
If they all fall down on the first shadow wave simultaneously, go ahead and
pull up to 250% cancelled shadow waves. Time your shadow waves so that
the last one will hit all of them. Since it's a bit risky, I suggest
cancelling up to 175% only most of the time. Now carefully run away
while they just stand there.
Recover fury and repeat the same process. After about 5 or 6 of these round
of shadow waves, they will start to die one by one. Keep in mind that if Nel
gets hit even once, you will get killed easily due to Nel's poor recovery time.
Schweimer (0 resets, lvl 23): Use Nel's long major with Increase HP Damage.
If you didn't, go ahead and buy the Airyglyph equipment now.
Blue Dragon Zombie (0 resets, lvl 25): Again, set shadow wave to all slots.
Run towards the dragon so it uses a strong attack, move out of its range and
start cancelling those shadow waves (stay a bit far!). Use blackberries and
cast healing whenever necessary.
Robin Wind (1 reset, lvl 27): Wow, this was easier than I expected.
Okay, don't cancel shadow waves here (which is why I died). Set
whirlwind (make sure you have it) to both weak slots and shadow
wave to both strong slots. Equipping awind charm won't hurt either.
Your biggest threat here is thunder flare. If he
starts casting a spell, run up to him so you're right beside him and use Nel's
weak tornado attack. This will hit quite a few times, which have a chance of
knocking him out. Otherwise, get him to stop moving (no movement trick),
then cast whirlwind at long range and cancel into a 175% shadow wave and
then 250%. It's a bit tough, because thunder flare will keep bothering
you but you can AAA his normal attacks quite easily. Watch out for aerial
slash (although he never used it on me). Once he gets into rising stream
mode, it will be a lot easier since you can AAA it easily. Simply cancel
those shadow waves to MP kill him rather quickly.
Crossell (0 resets, lvl 28): Use the exact same setup you used for Robin
Wind. He really has nothing over Robin Wind other than his huge HP
and MP value. It's also easy to dodge all his attacks (AAA
Doom Raid). It will take quite a while but shadow wave will eventually
take him down.
Level 31 now going into Disc 2.
Uh oh, Nel is gone. Now I have to control Maria. =(
Biwig (10 resets, lvl 20): Ouch! It's the return of the fish-heads! Set
Aiming Device to all slots and activate Berserk. Equip her with the
Pulse Gun as well. The strategy involved in this battle is pretty
complicated. When the battle start, make some distance between
you and the soldiers. Now play around with your sidesteps and
the no movement trick to draw only one soldier towards you. This
is so you can carefully take out each soldier one by one. Now move
closer to the lone soldier so you're in short range. If it does a weak
attack AAA it. Now chain Aiming Device as fast as you can! Don't
get too greedy with the cancels though, or Biwig might do you in.
When you're done, the three soldiers will be together again. Sidestep
away and dodge their attacks. Use the same sidestep trick to draw one
soldier towards you and repeat. Take out the soldiers first, it will take
a few tries to get used to it though. Use blackberries whenever
necessary. Once you have MP killed the soldiers, now it's time to
concentrate on Biwig. Stay at long range and try to play around
with your sidestep so he stops moving. Once you've done that,
open up a strong Aiming Device at long range.
Continue moving so he still stays put, then use another strong Aiming
Device. Repeat this until your fury runs out. Then return to long range
and recover your fury. This will take a very long time so make sure you
don't make any mistakes. Then you should be able to win this battle
without getting hit.
Whew! Nel returns!
Proclaimer (0 resets, lvl 31): Chain whirlwinds. This should be a quick
and easy battle.
Security Service (1 reset, lvl 32): Set your formation to escape. Run
around to the other corner to recover your fury. Then use a long
Flying Guillotine set to strong. Repeat if they're not all dead.
Grab the Bunny Shoes from Vanguard.
Sphere Security Service (2 resets, lvl 34): Same as the security service.
Use FG strong from long range to take them out.
Azazer (1 reset, lvl 35): Use whirlwind at long weak when he's just
standing in one place, and chain it into a 175% FG, then go into a
250% FG. AAA Sniping and Crystal Prison. Try to preserve your
healing items because you will be fighting many bosses soon.
Belzeber & Berial (2 resets, lvl 37): This is another tough battle. Separate
Belzeber from Berial with the no movement trick. Run up to Berial
and hit him with a shadow wave (no cancel combo). Belzeber will
also get caught in this as well. Repeat the same step to MP kill Berial
first. Now concentrate on Belzeber. You can use FG from long range
or SW at short to take him out. He's not really that hard without Berial.
Proclaimer 2 (0 resets, lvl 38): Cancel whirlwinds at long range into
shadow waves. Cast healing when necessary.
Enforcer (0 resets, lvl 39): See Proclaimer 2
Convictor (1 reset, lvl 41): See Proclaimer 2, all his attacks are weak
so just AAA them. He does have one strong attack, but you can see
it coming and dodge it easily.
Bought the Ice Falchion and Battle Chain Mail.
Lesser Eye (5 resets, lvl 42): One of the biggest problems you will
encounter is that lesser eye will spam thunder flare a lot in its first
phase. So you need to quickly deplete its HP so it moves onto the
second phase (which isn't too long). After a lot of experimenting,
I found that Charge works best in this battle. Just set Charge to
both weak and strong and cancel away. Remember to equip the
bunny shoes so you can dodge its petrifying strong attack. His
laser attacks will completely miss you while you are charging at him.
When it starts to cast thunder flare, equip the wind charm from the
menu and then unequip after he's done spamming. You should be
able to rack up a lot of damage from these cancels (up to 300%) so
he quickly moves onto the second phase. His second phase is a
lot easier, he will cast dark sphere now instead of thunder flare...
and he will use misery circle instead of fear circle. Just move out
of range and cast healing whenever he's using fear/misery circle.
It will take quite a while since lesser eye has a lot of HP but you
will be fine if you stay out of harm's way.
Dark Armors (0 resets, lvl 44): Cancel FGs from long range and watch
those hits rack up! Just watch out for Hammer Quake. When you see
them using it, stop canceling FG and move away. You can also cast
healing quite easily here.
Crystal Statue (0 resets, lvl 45): Whirlwind cancelled into shadow wave.
Use the bottom right/left corner around the middle area to cast healing.
Be patient and he will be MP killed eventually.
Dark Eye (0 resets, lvl 46): Same strategy as Lesser Eye. This battle
will just be a bit longer, so pull out those charges!
Whew! Finally out of Kaddan...
Chimera (1 reset, lvl 49): Cancel whirlwind into shadow wave again here.
Try to stay far away from Chimera when you're recovering your fury
because he can ambush you quickly. AAA his weak attacks, and
run to the side with bunny shoes to avoid his lunging strong attack.
Time your shadow waves so that Chimera gets up in time to get hit
from the next set of shadow waves.
Stone Golem (0 resets, lvl 50): Fun and easy battle! Set FG at both
long range and cancel away. He will be MP killed without too much
difficulty. Don't even think of moving into close range, unless
you're planning to fake him into a weak attack so you can AAA it.
Battlecopter (4 resets, lvl 52): Very annoying because if you get
caught in his strong/weak firing attack you're pretty much dead
because of Nel's horrible recovery time. So don't get hit and
fight from long range. What I suggest is to set whirlwind and
long weak and cancel into ice daggers at long strong. This
setup will make the battle rather quick. Still... be very careful
of his attacks. Use Nel's nifty speed to run out of range for
most if its attacks.
Pseudo Blair (0 reset, lvl 53): This battle will be very quick if you
use mirror slice. Simply start up a whirlwind at short range and
cancel into a mirror slice. With 175%/250% mirror slice cancels,
she won't be standing long. Stand far away from her to recover
your fury so you can AAA her weak attacks. Her strong attacks
are quite easy to dodge, as well as her spells.
Ruktogias (3 resets, lvl 58): Be very careful of his attacks.
Make sure to AAA his weak ones. Use whirlwind at short
range and chain it into a 175% mirror slice. Then cancel again
for 250% mirror slice. It's a bit annoying since he's somewhat
stunlock resistant, but he will be juggled 90% of the time with
mirror slice. Watch out for Dark Eruption, he uses this is in one
of his last stages. He does take a while to go down though.
Death Monster (0 resets, lvl 60): Get them to use a strong
attack then chain shadow waves from behind up to a 250%
strong SW. Just keep repeating this and watch out for killer
breath in their last stage.
Chimera Hawks (25 resets, lvl 61): This battle was one of the
toughest I have faced in an SSCC uptil now. Although it was
really only a matter of finding a strategy, still tough to pull out
though. I tried using mirror slice many times, but it just woudn't
get me through. Mirror Slice is a no-no especially during heat
impact mode. I used Ice Daggers instead then.So after much
trying, I made use of the juts on the battle field of spiral tower.
There is a big one in the middle and the small one in the top right
corner. Just hide around these juts so the hawks slam right into it
when they pull out any of their diving attacks. They will come
around the jut ONLY if they are going to use their strong attack.
What I do is get them to come to me so they all pull out their
strong attack... then I move around the jut and begin cancel
combos from the other side. Make sure to have targetting set
to manual, so you can take them out one-by one. If I use a
short-range move from here, Nel won't come around to
attack them, instead she will try to attack right through the jut.
So i took advantage of this and cancelled charge into ice
daggers up to 300% (note that charge is always blocked by the jut).
I pulled out about 20000-25000 each round. Now I recover my
fury and start pulling them out again, until one of the hawks decides to
come around the jut. If that happens, then I simply run to the
smaller jut in the top-right corner, where they can slam their
diving attacks while i'm safe. Then I just run past them and
back onto the other bigger jut and repeat the same process.
Heat impact is a bit tricky. Just make sure you don't have
more than one hawk in heat impact mode
(manual targetting will solve the problem). Instead of
coming around the jut to use a strong attack, the hawk
will use a heat impact right through the jut, while the
others come around to attack you. After you deke
out the two hawks, go around towards the hawk in
heat impact mode. Quickly cancel charge and ice daggers
here, or you can use ice daggers from long range just to
be safe. Then go and hide around the small jut, although
it sometimes fails to block heat impact, but i've noticed
that sidestep can sometimes avoid heat impact, so I made use of it.
Once the hawks get in to wing cutter mode, just use ice daggers
from long range. It sounds tough but it will take a few (maybe
a lot) of tries to get the hang of it.
Luther Form 1 (0 resets, lvl 62): Shockwave into Mirror slice
makes this a quick and easy battle, but I don't recommend
using it because of Luther's second form. What you want
to do is make use of the no movement trick and cancel
whirlwind into FG (175-250%) from long range. After you
finish your combos, just stand to regain fury and AAA Luther's
weak attacks. Set your AAA to wide-area homing, it will help
rack the damage. Dodge his strong attacks with the bunny
shoes and when he begins to cast laser beams, take this time
to heal yourself. This form shouldn't be difficult at all.
Luther Form 2 (3 resets, lvl 62): Same as his first form. The reason
I don't recommend using mirror slice here is because sometimes it
will fail to interrupt and Luther will unleash his powerful attacks
to kill you or he may even start up an attack before Nel finishes MS.
So play safe and decapitate him slowly with FG at long range
using the no movement trick. Again, wide-area homing will be a
charm in this battle, especially when you AAA flaming divide
and expansion force (10000-15000 damage!). Heal when he casts
laser beams and do your best to avoid his strong attacks, it shouldn't
be too difficult at all. Perfect Symmetry is also easy to avoid and if
he uses insanity prelude, just stay in the top right or left corner to
stay safe, he never used it against me though. Just be patient,
FG and AAA will eventually kill him.
Render (4 resets, lvl 77): For the first half of the battle, I
used standard AAA to stun him, and then cancelled
whirlwind into mirror slice, and followed it up with a 250%
cancelled mirror slice. The last half of the battle I used wide
area homing AAA to finish him off (and to play safely).
Succubus (1 reset, lvl 78): Mirror slice wasn't a good idea,
just cancel FG at long range. It's a slow process, but she's
very slow. Not only is her movement speed slow, but her
attacks are pathetically slow as well. I don't think I even got touched.
Basilisk King (0 reset, lvl 79): FG, quick battle. Watch out for
Stone attack.
Grabbed the santa boots and got two tri-emblems.
Aqua Wisps (20 resets?, lvl 80): This battle is frustrating,
even if you have a good strategy it will require some luck.
Without FAM, FG is no choice since they will close in the
gap before you can cancel your second one (thanks to the
4D movement boost). Plasma Cannon is dangerous and
you can't allow all of them to be on that stage, so you will
have to single them out with the NMG and take them out
one by one carefully (if you got this far, you should have
no problem manipulating NMG). The best battle skills I
found work in this battle were Ice daggers on weak at long
and Shadow wave at short strong. Run away once you
have pulled out a cancelled shadow wave and recover
fury at a safe distance and repeat. Just be careful, one
mistake can shatter all your hard work... especially when
keeping in mind that there are 9 sets of them.
Earth Dragon (0 resets, lvl 82): FG him. Mirror slice can be
a bit risky to pull out at this point.
Mighty Vox (0 resets, lvl 83): Easy enough, get him into an
attack and cancel a 175% FG > FG. Again, don't get caught into attacks.
Sootie (0 resets, lvl 85): Same old strategy. FG. AAA. Rinse and repeat.
Vile Chimera (1 reset, lvl 85): Bah, mirror slice is no good again.
FG him carefully, he has one weird strong attack where he just
runs up to you and.... does nothing. >_> Well, something close
to that anyway, all you get to see is a purple aura and then Nel
gets damaged, just be very careful of his attacks... especially
his lunging one.
Shadow Savant (0 resets, lvl 85): FG. Joke.
Tri-Chimera (0 resets, lvl 85): If you fought the biochimera near
Luther like I did to gain Fol, this battle should be a peace of cake.
Explosion is really easy to dodge and so are his other attacks.
Use FG here as well.
Guardian Haunt (0 resets, lvl 86): FG. Joke.
Gabriel Celesta (2 resets, lvl 86): Not a tough battle as I thought,
and the first time I used Divine Wrath in this SSCC. :) It makes
Gabriel such a piece of cake. Use this setup:
Short X: Whirlwind
Long X: Whirlwind
Short O: none
Long O: Divine Wrath
- Critical Hit HP
- none
Berserk on
AAA: Standard
Equip two tri-emblems, bunny shoes isn't necessary since Nel
is fast enough to dodge most of his attacks. Once the battle
starts get him to use a weak/strong attack, dodge it carefully.
Now it's time for some NMG abuse! Run into long range and
start up a Whirlwind > Divine Wrath combo at 175%, the
damage is tremendous. Once Nel is finished, run back at a
distance where you can recover your fury safely (remember,
Gabriel's fast). He'll most likely use a weak attack once he
reaches within range, AAA this but be careful since he
can use a strong attack as well (he likes to mix them up).
Either way, after you've dodged his strong attack, or
AAA'ed his weak, again run into long range and use
the same combo. About 3 DWs will get him into
Lightning Feather stage. AAA this as well keeping
Gabriel's movement speed in mind, also as soon as you
see him start up LF, change your AAA to wide area homing,
and switch back to standard once he's done. True Judgement
is a joke and thank Gabriel for giving you time to heal when he
uses Dragons. Easy and quick battle, my two resets were because
DW messed up and knocked him too early, and he used lightning
feather as soon as he got up while Nel was still busy pulling
out DW. I got the 'Defeat Gabriel w/o damage on 4D' and
'Defeat Gabriel within 10 minutes on 4D' trophies in this fight alone.
Go Nel! :D
Norton Redux (1 reset, lvl 88): DW didn't work in this battle
for me because its hits were being parried and it kept resetting
Norton's attacks that way. So I just sticked with a
Whirlwind > Shadow Wave > Whirlwind > Shadow Wave combo.
Took quite a few hits to take him down though. His attacks
aren't anything special.
Enraged Crossell (0 resets, lvl 94): Thanks to the level ups now
DW's hits weren't getting parried and it worked beautifully here.
Same setup as against Gabriel, DW throws this guy around a lot.
As for him, he's nothing new, you fought him in the end of
Disc 1... and I don't think he has doom raid anymore (not sure
about this).
Shadow Dragon (0 resets, lvl 95): DW smacks this guy around
a lot too, in fact I suggest setting DW to short range so you
can cancel it into a 250% DW to lay massacre. Fun and easy.
Vengeful Shelby (0 resets, lvl 96): He's just a sucker for more
DW. Don't get into a corner or DW will knock him down too
early and you might get walloped by a Giant Swing. And it's
funny to see him use an ice breath, it always cracks me up. :)
Frenzied Biwig (0 resets, lvl 98): Diviiiine... Wrath! All the way
up to 250%. The only thing he has going for him is his HP total,
but even still when he starts using Illusion Rifle he's begging
to lose. "I will KILL you all!" *changes Ice gun into Ice gun*
Green Majora (4 resets, lvl 102): Okay, Divine Wrath works in this
battle too. But I died because he was able to sneak in his weak
spinning attack which killed me instantly, so I decided to try
out whirlwind. It worked beautifully for about 9k damage per hit,
although I was surprised to see it hit only about 20-25 times at
level 7. Ice Beam isn't a problem to dodge if you stay alert, AAA
his weak attacks and use this time to heal yourself with items.
Archdemon (6 resets, lvl 104): First sphere boss that wasn't a joke.
This one required a bit more strategy rather than just DW stunlocking.
I don't recommend DW here because he will occassionally pull out
Crimsion Sword in the middle of your move killing you instantly,
and he has quite a bit of stunlock resistance so it's not like DW
will catch him right away. I tried Splitting Sky here, it was such a
relaxing and easy battle until he starts using Flashing Sword. So I
suggest using whirlwind here. Get it to level 10, it's much more
effective that way. Just chain 175% whirlwinds from here and juggle
him for about 35 hits with each chain. With two tri-emblems equipped,
the damage output should be huge (as it always is with Nel). AAA
his weak attacks, and if he uses sword of darkness, sidestep back
and time it right when the summon pops out. Sidestep twice and
then run behind him, and you should be invulnerable in your
location. Once half his HP has been depleted, he will start using
Flashing Sword. Once you see this, quickly go to the menu and
replace one tri-emblem with bunny shoes. Now whenever he uses
Flashing Sword, forget AAA and run like the wind! Nel+Bunny
Shoes will easily allow you to dodge this attack. As for your offense,
keep up your juggling whirlwind assault until he dies.
Belzeber & Azazer (5'ish resets, lvl 135): Okay, even at level 135
Azazer was parrying almost all of my attacks. So I just lived
with it. Here's the setup I used...
Short X: none
Long X: Whirlwind
Short O: Shadow Wave
Long O: Divine Wrath
- Critical Hit HP
- none
Berserk on
Try seperating the two of them so that Azazer is on one end
of the battlefield while Belzeber is on the other, and make sure
you have them both 'stopped' (NMG). Now run behind Azazer
and pull out a shadow wave, he won't parry it if you hit behind
him, now run away quickly before Belzeber gets to you! Repeat
the same process to slowly whittle away at Azazer's MP, about
10-12 rounds of shadow waves should do it.
Now it's time to focus on Belzeber, it should be a bit easier now.
Get into long range and cancel Whirlwind > Divine Wrath at
175%... continue on until 250%. Just make sure you don't
corner him. Oh and keep your HP above 12k always, in case
he uses his blue whip which does around 12-13k damage.
Fortunately, Nel's recovery time is good enough to escape
after getting hit by the attack, use up your physical enhancers
and blueberries. When he moves onto his Steal Life/Steal Spirit
stage you won't have to worry about being stunlocked to death...
so just keep up your divine wrath cancels and watch that HP!
9 million is still nothing compared to divine wrath's power. :D
Berial (0 resets, lvl 136): He's weak to wind. I think that's all I
need to say. A few cancelled whirlwinds will 'pear' him into
'peaches' quite easily. Sidestep to dodge fire dance, AAA
auto-aim and his other weak attack, and his strong attack is
very easy to dodge.
Super Blair (9 resets, lvl 182): I died a couple of times when
I tried with 30k HP. So I levelled up to 182, and used up 3
Health+ berries to get around 50k HP. An even higher HP
total would have probably made this battle a lot easier. Anyway,
the main tactic I used in this battle was 'whirlwrath' combos
(Whirlwind>DW>Whirlwind>DW). It stunlocks her surprisingly
well. In her first phase she will constantly use symbology...
sidestep to dodge Lightning Strike and when she uses Southern
Cross, stay out of range and use healing items if needed.
Then start up a cancelled DW combo from long range and
cancel up to 250%. Do not corner her. Otherwise it will knock
her down to early and she might kill you. She has two weak
attacks that she can use to interrupt your DW combo (which
happens rarely)... her first one does pathetic damage but watch
out so she doesn't stunlock you with it. Her second weak
attack is devastating which hits for about two times for a
lot of damage... if she starts spamming this, consider yourself
dead. Always keep your HP above 35k. I always kept it max, don't
get greedy with those healing items.
When she starts using EoL and Death Howl, you can stop worrying
about her symbology attacks. If you ever want to heal run into the
opposite corner of the battlefield to use up items and you should
be safe. If you do get caught in EoL, sidestep on her first swing,
you will get hit only once... and her second swing also hits only
once... so you'll survive if you didn't let your HP drop too low.
Death Howl can be dodged very easily, but it is also her most
powerful attack. It took about 16 whirlwrath combos for a level
10 DW to bring her down.
Lenneth (2 resets, lvl 182): Quite easy, actually. It just requires a lot
of patience. Rather than going for her massive HP total, I decided to
MP-kill her with Splitting Sky. I was still at level 182 and had 50k HP...
well, it's not that HP total matters much here anyway. :P A 175%
cancelled SS stunlocked Lenneth in place extremely well. Just dodge
her weak spear attack by running straight away from her instead of
cutting to the side, she will almost always run up to do a weak attack
after a Whirlwind > Splitting Sky combo. When she uses strong attack,
move out of the way and use healing items. Her symbology is what
makes things hectic. With tri-emblems equipped, it should do only
half damage but Lenneth loves to use these a lot. Just make sure to
run away from Stone Rain all the time, because Lenneth recovers
pretty quickly from this... even before the stunlock effect ends. Pretty
dangerous.
After 2/3 of her HP is down, she will move onto her next phase... where
she starts using Nibelung Valesti. When you see this, quickly run to the
other corner to completely dodge it. With Nel's speed it's really quite easy
but you can equip a bunny shoes just to ensure your safety (like I did :P).
Oh and did I say this battle will require a lot of patience? Try to get SS to a
high proficiency, for higher MP damage. Make sure to be stocked on
healing items... it's going to take a while. It took me over a hundred 175%
cancelled SS to finally take her down... even with a high proficiency.
Ethereal Queen (12 resets, lvl 183): Level 183 now. Equip that sexy
Valkyrie Garb before heading on to floor 211. EQ has many phases and
very dangerous attacks that can also cause status effects. Lenneth
is a cakewalk compared to this one. You will want to target her
massive HP with whirlwrath combos. It's going to take about 40 of
them. Now on her first phase she uses three attacks... her weak attack
which causes confusion, her helluva slow strong attack which can
cause paralysis, and her swirling strong attack which drains fury. You
will notice many times that she will interrupt DW with her weak attack...
she can spam this attack until you die (luckily it has a bigger chance of
knocking you down first). Try as best as you can to AAA it, and use
the time to heal yourself while she's pulling out her strong attack. Casting
healing is not a bad idea either if you want to save up items.
On her second phase, she will start to use Binding Field... which causes
the most trouble. Make sure you AAA this, if you find yourself in a
situation where you won't be able to regain enough fury to AAA
Binding Field in time... then quickly go to the menu and equip two
clone generators for safety precautions, and heal yourself to max.
Another good thing is that EQ won't even move at all while you're
trapped in Binding Field. So you have good chances of surviving.
In her third phase, she uses True Judgement. It's also a weak attack, and
it's not that powerful either. Still, AAA it or dodge it... it gives you a lot
of time for healing. I got caught in it quite a few times and was
nearly juggled to death but I survived many times.
Once you get the hang of it and hurt her enough... EQ will get
pissed and start using Celestial Star. Okay... I died here many
times before I learned how to dodge CS properly. When she starts
this move to the top and slightly to the left. After the explosion
on your right, move to where it was and there will be an explosion
where you were standing. Go back there and wait until the animation
finishes. I always equipped two clone generators during CS... I didn't
want to take any chances. There really isn't anything much to her, but
it's very easy to make careless mistakes... be patient and you will survive
this hectic battle.
Peppita and Hodgepodge (0 resets, lvl 255): This battle was a bit annoying.
Especially when Peppita was smacking me with her fury draining weak
attack. I took out the Chimera guy first with cancelled DWs, he didn't
survive long. Peppita was a peace of cake after that. Cancelled DWs.
Roger and Tiger-Stripped Guy (0 resets, lvl 255): Wow, this was extremely
frustrating at first. Even though I was able to parry nearly all of Robo
Gunner's attacks, he kept me stunlocked with his multi-hitting moves.
And can take a bunch of DWs before going down. If it wasn't for
Nel's agility, this would have been even more of a hellish battle...
Roger isn't anything special though.
Fayt+Luther (0 resets, lvl 255): After having trouble with Roger, I thought
I wouldn't stand a chance against these guys... but I was wrong. Deke
them out in one corner, and then run to the other corner. Make
sure you're targetting Luther. Cancel Whirlwind>DW, Fayt will
run up towards Nel at full speed. Fortunately, Nel will be able to
start up DW before Fayt reaches to her and hit a DW towards
Luther... but, since Fayt gets in the way, Nel decides to make
him her punching bag instead! =D This way Fayt will be stunlocked
with DW while Luther will just stand there like a dope (NMG).
Just stay away from Ethereal Blast, and you'll be safe. Luther is a
joke without Fayt.
Reigning Champions (1 reset, lvl 255): Bah, I didn't know Solon had
wind resistance so I had to reset because I had whirlwind set to
all slots. Anyway, try to separate Solon and Dirna, then pull out
an uncancelled DW behind Solon... all hits should land since he has
almost no stunlock resistance. Just watch out so you don't get caught in
an explosion, but the level I was on... I didn't have to worry about dying
really. Once you've finished off Solon, unleash DW combos on Dirna.
She's nothing compared to what you've already been through.
Freya (2 resets, lvl 255): This battle finished quicker than I expected. I'm
not really sure about the duration of this battle, but I broke it into sessions
since I didn't want to sit there for hours repeating the same process. This
battle is very similar to Lenneth, and using the same tactics Freya is
actually a lot easier. Pull out your usual whirlwind>splitting sky combo
once Freya is affected by the NMG. Do this from the longest range possible
until all your fury is drained. Once you're done, stand in place and wait
until your fury recovers... Freya will come up to do a weak attack and you
will recover fury JUST in time. Keep AAA to standard, and repeat the
same process. In case you don't want to take chances, you don't have
to drain all your fury with SS... although Freya was never able to
successfully hit me with her weak attack. Symbology, you should be
used to by now. Sidestep to dodge lightning strike and if she uses stone
rain, sidestep once and run out of range. The reason why you need that
sidestep is because you can never tell which spell she will use. If she
decides to use Thunder Sword, equip bunny shoes and run around her
in circles, this will result in her shooting off in the wrong direction.
And that leaves Ether Strike. AS SOON as you see her fly up to use
this move, or as soon as you see the name, go to the menu and equip
the bunny shoes. Run away to the farthest corner very quickly. A slight
delay could result in you getting hit. She pulled about 4-5 ether strikes
but I was able to dodge them all. Also try to keep your brawl in one
location instead of going all over the place. You don't want Freya to
pull out ES in the middle of the battlefield. There's nothing more to it
other than that... Nel pretty much owns Freya. I had two resets because
I died from a weak attack the first time (started splitting sky from too close),
and the second time I wanted to try DW... which isn't a good idea when
you keep in mind that Freya is very stunlock resistant.
And that pretty much wraps up this SSCC. Congrats on completing a
4D Nel SSCC without IC (and FAM for that matter).
SSCC Overview:
Toughest Battles (in order):
1. Ethereal Queen
2. Chimera Hawks x3
3. Aqua Wisps x3
Most useful BS:
Too many to name. I used almost all of her battle skills. Ones that
do come to mind though are divine wrath, whirlwind, shadow wave,
splitting sky, and of course FG.
Nel's an overall great character and possibly the best SSCC'er IMO.
Just as you think a battle is impossible, Nel comes up with this nifty
combo which makes short work of the enemy. Her only downfall that
bothered me was her bad recovery time. She can be stunlocked very
easily... I remember being stunlocked by firebolts doing 300 damage
per hit at the battle arena while I had max HP, they drained nearly half
my HP. o_o
Divine Wrath, which I thought was terrible compared to Mirror Slice
is actually much more useful in the solo run. Mainly because more hits
= better stunlock. And it works really well with NMG... nothing
could overcome this except for Freya.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PEPPITA: (First completed by Velari Lockheart)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peppita SSCC - Galaxy. Main game. (Post-game is being worked on ... just got
Dream Hammer)
DISCLAIMER: This is the board version. I have the same thing on my computer
.. but with corrected typos and such. If I ever get that version to Master
Epyon, I hope he'll paste it over this one ^_^
So yeah, forgive me some typos and silly mistakes and such >_>
-----------------------
Lalalalala!
Yeah. I'm going to see if I can do Peppita's SSCC in between my messy
schedule.
Of course, I have Battle Voices ON. Because it's cool. And because it hasn't
yet been <i>proven</i> that listening to Peppita's voice for hours on end
causes hearing problems. And/or psychosis and death.
Lalalalala! The Watchers!
Some thinking up ahead:
The dances are mostly useless. Because I don't like being a sitting duck
that looks like an annoying little girl, you see. The one exception is Power
Dance, because of a combination of two factors: the effect kicks off as soon
as Peppita starts dancing, and the effect is actually useful. So I could use
it and cancel into something useful to stop dancing.
As for the other skills, I think a lot will depend on Magic Hook, Kaboom,
and Instanto Blast.
I might toy around with her Charge and Aerial. They're quirky. Her Charge
(read: bum-rush) launches stuff, and I think her Aerial actually drags stuff
down. Maybe those will help somewhere along the way.
Oh, and I don't intend to do post-game. No FAM, y'see.
And so it begins ...
Lalalalala, lalalalala...
Incapacitator battles - I already switched Sophia out at this point, by the
way. The first battle involved me using Fayt and just long X, because it's
cool. The second and third wave, Fayt was on manual as I ICBM'ed the baddies
with Peppita. Uhm, yeah, I ICBM'ed em. I mean, Peppita's long X, where she
launches herself and then crashes down upon the wicked!! Like an ICBM!! ...
Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I did it because it's cool.
Funny thing is that during the entire second fight, the robots didn't even
hurt Fayt. Yep, that's right. While I was out tumbling and pulling of weird
circus-stunts, not one of them got the idea to actually use a major attack.
Morons.
Annoying little girl: "Peppita has come...crash down on the wicked! ICBM!"
..
>_>
<_<
WHAT?!?
Afterwards, said goodbye to Peppita. Yeah, now I just have to go through
half the game wihout my SSCC character. Go figure :P
So, around this time, I started wondering ... what character am I going to
use? Might as well decide. Because Peppita's gone for ages.
Basically, I decided to be a smart girl and to use a female character. This
means I'll be using Nel a lot. That's a good thing. Because she's female.
Like me. And because she's a kunoichi. That got me pumped. Because it's
cool. And by cool, I mean totally sweet. The purpose of the kunoichi is to
flip out and kill men. Kunoichi can kill anyone they want! Kunoichi cut off
heads <i>ALL</i> the time and don't even think twice about it. These girls
are so crazy and awesome that they flip out <i>ALL</i> the time. Nel is the
ultimate paradox. On the one hand she doesn't give a crap, but on the other
hand, she's very careful and precise. And when she's not cutting off heads
or flipping out, most of her free time is spent flying. But sometimes she
stabs. Yeah.
..
Anyway
Henchthugs - Fayt used his sword
Norton - Fayt was still on manual from the Incapacitator battles, and Cliff
has this whole leather-thing going for him. So I switched to Cliff, goofed
off a bit until Fayt finally kicked the bucket, then just jabbed the
stuffing out of Norton. While laughing.
So about here is where Nel joins, and I get infused with REAL ULTIMATE
POWER! And just like other mammals, Nel can be mean or totally awesome.
Made sure to have only Nel in my line-up for the next battle.
Inquisitor - Guess we know the drill here. Either fake them into attacking
and hit them while they hurt empty space, or create some distance and cast
Fire Bolt. I did a little of both.
Crab-critter - Wow ... this thing is actually so weak that you don't need a
strategy. Really, I just stood in front of it until I AAA'd something, then
hit it with an major attack. It sometimes launches an attack immediately
after you hitting it, too fast for you to avoid or protect or whatever, but
with the pathetic damage it does, that doesn't matter. Just heal when your
health is low. This battle is a serious yawner.
Was level 4 after that fight.
After mapping the Traum Mountains, I hiked back to Airyglyph and bought me
some nice shiney Osprey daggers.
In Kirlsa now. Bought a Clone Generator here, by the way, just so I have one
in my inventory if things ever turn sour soon. Yes, that actually means: if
I stupidly screw up sometime soon.
By the way, does anyone know what triggers Nel to appear in the north with
her sub-ordinate? I never really payed attention to it, and in most of my
games I just run around town talking to anyone in sight till she's there :s
Earth Smasher - At first he did both his major attack and Earth Glaive a
couple of times. My response to both was running around and cutting him in
the back. After a few of those, there was a minor attack, an AAA, a
Shockwave-combo, and a dead Earth Smasher. In that order.
Uhm, yeah, Arias. Nel leaves. Totally forgot about that.
Elected Cliff to be my leatherpants-lad for a while again.
Mapping Kirsla Hills expanded my Bunny-collection to the point of me being
able to go to Airyglyph and buy some fancy armour for Nel. Y'know, sort of a
welcome back-gift. She'll come back. Just you watch. She's got the hots for
me. It's inevitable.
Training facility soldier-boys - Basically, leatherpants-pal Cliff runs
around, lures them into attacking, then hits them with his lunging punch.
Which, by the way, is an awesome move and is my combo-starter of choice with
Mirage. He gained 2 levels doing this, reaching level 4.
Ran around the facility to get the key.
By the way, maybe I should mention that I'm opening all chests I can get my
hands on. Haven't really thought about whether that will get me things that
might help with the SSCC, but I can always sell them *shrugs*
Met up with Nel.
More Training facility soldier-boys - Cliff on manual, switch to Nel. Let
them brutalize Cliff. Then lure them into attacking, and finish one off with
a Shockwave combo. Repeat for the others. Nel levels to 5.
The guys show her the armour they went and bought. Nel obviously gets really
super pissed. She totally uppercuts Fayt and Cliff for buying a Superior
Chain Mail, instead of the Plate Mail Bikini she wanted. She then refrains
from forcing them to commit seppuku with a frisbee. Only because there don't
happen to be any frisbees around, mind you. Well, that, and Nel realises
that Fayt and Cliff are pansies who probably can't get really super pissed
enough to pull it off anyways.
Even more soldier-boys - Same as last bunch, but without Cliff dying. Mostly
because he was already out cold and out of my active party. I ran around a
bit more in an attempt to single one out since there are four of them here,
instead of three.
Was too much of a moron to realise I have this here armour, and didn't have
to be THAT careful. Meh. Nel becomes level 6.
Shelby - Right at the start of the fight, it's easy to lure them into a
line. If you pull off a Shockwave-combo, you can nail all of them and take
out most, if not all of the soldiers. Then just finish any remaining
soldiers with Shockwave, and take out Shelby with Shockwave-combos. Nel
levels to 7.
Some evil trees in Duggus - These things are so big it's easy to score all
hits of Nel's Aerial on them for massive damage. You have to pick you
moments, though, 'cause it's easy for them to knock you out of it if you
just go for them out of the blue.
With my running around for chests, I may have fought a few more than
necessary. Was level 11 at the save point.
Decided to let Roger rot in his cage, by the way.
Mudman - Shadow Wave takes it down pretty fast. Nel reaches level 12.
Legion Dragons - Wait for an opening, and use Aerial. Don't remember if I
had a level-up due to this fight.
Brass Dragons - Mostly Shockwave and Shadow Wave. Was level 13 at the save
point before the Cockatrice.
Cockatrice (1 reset) - AARGH! First game over. I wasn't paying attention the
first time, and it got a lucky petrification in on me >_< Second time, I
either used long X, or when there's a big opening I'd use a Shadow Wave
combo. Levelled to 14.
Random soldiers - Shadow Wave on short minor, Aerial (for the next fight) on
short major. Shadow Wave the bunch, and it'll be over soon. Level up ... now
have Ice Daggers, too bad I can't equip it for the next fight.
Demetrio - Same as the Legion Dragons, with a bit more being careful 'cause
there's three of'em. Level to 16, now have Berserk.
Albel - Launched some Daggers before they were in range. Then got rid of the
soldiers with Shadow Wave, followed by beating on Albel with normal attacks
and Shadow Wave combos. Nel gets up to 18.
Got Adray for the heck of it.
Vox - When he breathes fire, I run around him and throw Daggers. When he
does Steel Rend, I combo Ice Daggers after he misses. If he does anything
weak, I AAA it and do a major Aerial. Nel reaches level 19.
Nel is still on a rampage. She's cutting off heads as we speak. She was
eating at this diner. And when this dude dropped a spoon, she flipped out
and killed the whole town. She then went to wherever she's cutting off heads
now and didn't even think twice about it.
Finished up helping Ruddle and Rumina so I could buy Regeneration Symbols
off of them.
Weird Flying Armour-Thing - Just stayed away and chained Ice Daggers. This
was over -fast-.
Crystal Statues - Annoying because they're so bloody fast >_< Easy enough
still, just Shadow Wave'em enough ... just annoying. One of them made me
level up to 20.
Crystal Cerberus - Obviously, he's annoying too. Used Shadow Wave combos.
AAA his dashes, and stay away from his major attack - it hurts like crazy.
Obviously, don't get hit by Tri-Spike either. If you need to heal, hide in
the corners next to the pool where it goes into the southern wall. If CC is
on the other side of the room or north of the pool, he'll usually get stuck
somewhere, allowing you to heal even with his crazy speed. Turned 22 and
finally have the lovely First Aid.
Vendeeni Soldiers - A lot like Master Epyron when he was busy doing his Nel
SSCC. They all started with a major attack, so I dodged those and then
comboed Ice Daggers. Then it dawned to me that that just might be a good
strategy :P
Turned level 23 either in this fight or the next one. Forget to make a note
of when it happened exactly :s
Those cubes in the Kaddan maze always remind me of Doom 2, by the way.
Schweimer - Ice Daggers.
After saving Albel from the sick stuff he was being subjected to in that S&M
dungeon, we headed to Kirlsa. There, a scene you all know took place. Nel,
being anything but calm and restrained, storms Woltar's mansion. She blows
her top. She tells Woltar in no uncertain terms that she's really super
pissed and about to flip out. Woltar, realising that means that she'll
probably kill men and cut off heads, says "use these, they cut through necks
like you wouldn't believe!" and shows her the Blades of Ryusen. Nel totally
uppercuts him, grabs the Blades of Ryusen, and proceeds to slaughter every
man in Kirlsa in tribute of everything totally sweet.
Seen it a million times already just like all of you, but it's still cool.
Blue Dragon Zombie - Shadow Wave. Level 24.
Robin Wind (1 reset) - The reset? He cast Thunder Flare and I was too close.
He immediately did Rising Stream before my Fury was up again. That sucked.
Anyway. I went at him, and immediately gave him hell. One good combo can be
enough to get him to use Aerial Slash, so watch out after that first all-out
offense. Now, keep your distance and use Ice Daggers whenever he whiffs
Aerial Slash. If you happen to AAA a minor at this point, use the opening to
heal up the HP you're spending on Ice Daggers. After a while, he'll start
using Rising Stream. AAA it, and it's pretty much over.
I did use some Blueberries because he really started spamming Thunder Flare
at one point. Levelled to 25.
--- insert break here due to me not having a PS2 anymore. After some time,
managed to dig up a PSTwo ---
Crosell - Lots of Ice Daggers. Level 27 after the first fight, 29 after the
second.
Long break here due to either not having Disc 2 or not having a PlayStation.
Nel leaves. I cry. I equip Maria to take her place for a bit.
I give her the Pulse Gun and a second Superior Chain Mail (this one is from
a chest in Barr Mountains, in case anyone's wondering). Maria is still level
20, obviously.
Vendeeni Soldiers - Run around and snipe.
Nel comes back and shows us why she is the ultimate paradox. Maria makes a
point of it to talk to Nel about why exactly she is so awesome.
Biwig and some Vendeeni - OMG this is annoying >_< not really hard, just
really annoying and tedious. Basically, you snipe away at them. To be on the
safe side, you try and single out one of them whenever they somewhat stray
from each other. Takes quite a while. To speed up things, try and land a
combo if they're far enough away from one another. One Biwig is alone,
things get easier because he likes to use Illusion Rifle. When he does,
punish him.
We all know what happens when we get to the Diplo.
Maria: Nel, you're so awesome.
Nel: I know.
Maria: Awesome drips off of you like sweat.
Nel: Indeed.
Maria: How do you do it? You're the ultimate paradox. On the one hand,
you're very careful and precise. I mean, you dodged friggin' disrupter rifle
shots.
Nel: True.
Maria: On the other hand, you don't give a crap. I mean, you just didn't
give a crap and allowed those Vendeeni to hit you.
Nel: Yes, that's what happened. I let them hit me. Because I don't give a
crap.
Maria: And you survived! That's so cool! Fayt's dad was a pansy and croaked,
but you took the shot like a woman!
Nel: Quite right.
Maria: I can't believe it sometimes, but I feel it inside my heart. You're
totally awesome and that's a fact. You're fast, smooth, cool, strong,
powerful, and sweet.
Nel: I can't deny any of that.
Maria: How do you do it, Nel?
Nel: Well ... it was ages ago. 4,500,000,000 B.C.E., to be precise. Back
then, we kunoichi discovered flipping out and thus Tifa gave us dominion
over everything totally sweet.
Maria: Oh wow. That just totally pumps me up. ... Nel? I want you.
Nel: Naturally. But it's not going to happen.
Maria: Wha'?!
Nel: I've got the hots for Val.
Maria: Why, I never! I'll just steal Clair from you, then!
Nel: Clair isn't a lesbian. You're not a lesbian, either.
Maria: Crap >_<
I love that scene. Whoever wrote it is a genius.
Proclaimer - I mostly use Ice Daggers. Nel becomes level 30 after this.
And now ... I -FINALLY- have Peppita. Now the challenge officially begins,
even though I'm already on Disc 2 :P
I'll start by carefully levelling her a bit. I think I'll aim for level 30,
seeing as how Nel just reached that and it's still under the cap.
The bad part about Peppita is that I can't make kunoichi-related jokes
anymore. Peppita (thankfully) never discovered flipping out, and thus was
never granted dominion over everything totally sweet by Tifa.
Levelling her up to 30, though, was a blast and was over really damn fast.
Levelling on Moonbase is a pain, because you're basically just waiting for
that one encounter that you can survive. I got tired of that quickly, and
left after 2 victories (level 16) to Styx, planning to take on Proclaimer
pairs.
When I arrived on Styx, it dawned upon me ... <i>The Enforcers there are
weak against WATER.</i> This allows Peppita to do RIDICULOUS amounts of
damage. I was able to do over 9000 damage in one hit at level 16.
First, I equipped the Laser Weapon from Moonbase. No, not the water-based
Spike Shoes. Because I was going to use Frozen Daggers. Yup, Frozen Daggers.
Basically, I had Power Dance -> Frozen Daggers on long, and got into fights
with Enforcers. AAA something (they have a ridiculous amount of minor
attacks, btw. Even the spiffy-looking disaster), and walk to long range.
Now, go Power Dance -> Frozen Daggers. WHAM! Over 900 damage on the first
hit, over 4500 per hit for the other three. A few levels later, it will be
10000+ on the first and over 5000 on the others with some luck. With 55000
HP, they go down pretty fast :P
Actually, when I reached level 25 (which didn't take long), I wanted to toy
with them in some other way :P
I switched to the Spike Shoes now, and put Power Dance -> Instanto Blast on
long. Did pretty much the same thing in fighting the Enforcer. Instanto
Blast hits for about 1500 MP damage this way :P Since they have only 3500
MP, the fight is over before you know it. Three fast victories this way, and
I was level 30. Since that was what I was aiming for (it's what Nel was
after defeating the Proclaimer), I'm done levelling :P
Lalalalala! The Watchers!
4D Security blokes - Wasn't looking forward to this, but it was actually
much easier than I expected. Mostly due to me accidentally discovering a
little trick. They have this major attack where they shoot you with a long
salvo, right? Ever notice how there's a much longer interval between the
first and second shot than between all the others? Well, the first shot is
also actually <i>higher</i> than the others. It actually goes over Peppita
at a distance. So if only one is running at you and there's a good chance
he's going for his major attack (in other words, you have full Fury) ...
just go for Magic Hook or Instanto Blast. And laugh out loud as his shot
goes over you completely and you nail him.
Of course, they all having only very little in the way of HP helps ... I
think I'll have more trouble with the later ones.
Level 32 after that fight, by the way.
Lalalalala, don't miss the Watchers! Lalalalala...
Sphere Security - Noticing their pathetic MP, it pretty much went the same
as the last fight. Power Dance -> Instanto Blast does over 400 MP damage to
them, so two hits per guy is all it takes.
Azazer - This mostly featured me picking at him with Instanto Blast or Power
Dance -> Instanto Blast. The problem? I <b>suck</b> at AAA'ing his minor.
Seriously, I didn't manage to get it once. And Sniping and Crystal Prison he
often does out of range of your Standard AAA. The sad part? I at one point
switched to Homing. AAA'd Sniping for 50 MP, and it was over. Stupid way to
end the fight ... -_-
Level 34 afterwards.
I'm now at what probably will be a major roadblock for me. I've only tried
Berial and Belzeber twice now, but I just don't have a good plan of action.
I don't really know whether there is one with Peppita here :s
Oh well, I'll try and think of something and toy around a bit. Maybe I'll
find something. I'm not too hopeful, though :P
The Watchers, they sing!
Lalalalala, lalalalala
The annoying little girl pulls it off! That being Peppita, not me >_>
Berial & Belzeber (4 resets) - Yes, only four. I expected much worse.
Now, I had:
both long - Instanto Blast
short major - Increased HP damage
Support were First Aid and Critical Hit MP, but those in the end didn't help
that much
Accessories - Clone Generator, Bunny shoes (grabbed the Shoes on
Vanguard as soon as I got to Gemity)
Basically, I ran around. A LOT. When either there was an opening or I AAA'd
something, <i>and</i> there was little risk, I'd hit someone with either my
short major (around 3000 a hit) or Instanto Blast. Now, these opportunities
were VERY rare, and cost me a lot of time. And items. Be sure to keep an eye
on Berial, of course, 'cause he can cause way too much damage.
After a far too long time, Belzeber started using Steal Life and Steal
Spirit. Keep running and watch Berial. Now, when an opportunity presents
itself (in other words, Berial just doesn't happen to be in a position where
he can kill you), go straight for Belzeber for a short major.
If he uses Steal something, you'll smack him for a lot more HP than he can
hope to drain. You'll probably knock him down too, so he won't be stealing
much anyway.
If he goes for a whip attack, there's a good chance Peppita will go into her
dodge attack, making you hit him and take no damage in return.
With the 3000 a hit short major is doing, Belzeber will now go down fast.
With that annoyance out of the way, Berial actually isn't that hard as long
as you avoid his major. AAA something, and hit him with short major. 6000
on stun, 3000 for the other hits. When he starts using Auto-Aim and Fire
Dance, there'll just be more opportunities for you to AAA. It'll be over soon.
The fight cost me about 3/4th of my Physical Enhancer, and 2 Clone
Generators.
Gained 2 levels, I'm now level 36. And pretty bloody glad that's over with.
HINDSIGHT NOTE: with Power Dance abuse, you'll own this fight. Trust me. I
should have done that. Heck, now that we're on the subject ... you should
virtually -never- go into a fight without it.
Lalalalala... The Watchers dance! Such fun! The Watchers dance! Lalalalala,
lalalalala...
Another Proclaimer - Not too hard. Just had fun and used various combos
with Magic Hook, Kaboom, and Instanto Blast. If she ever does Divine
Wave, laugh and use Instanto Blast on her like there's no tomorrow. Level 37.
Enforcer - Eh, this one can take water-based damage. Sucks. Much like the
Proclaimer, toying around with Magic Hook, Kaboom, and Instanto Blast. Took
pretty long, though :s Level 38
Convictor - Sophia gets forced into my party :s doesn't matter much, she
goes down fast enough.
Easy fight. Major attacks get punished by me walking around him and doing
Kaboom or a short major. If I AAA something, I do a combo or Kaboom. Level
40.
Lesser Eyedol (4 resets) - ALL resets are due to the fact that I didn't
bother to dodge its beam attack. Well, and the fact that I <i>sucked</i> at
avoiding it before this fight. It didn't petrify me too much, so at first it
didn't bother me. But after a few almost-victories ... yeah, I decided that
I'd better start avoiding the thing.
The actual fight? The brunt of the damage comes from short major after
AAA'ing. Also, whenever he does one of his Circles, feel free to point and
laugh at him whilst repeatedly yelling "Instanto Blast!". Level 42
afterwards.
Thunder Flare, by the way, pushes Peppita back like mad :/
Lalalalala, don't miss the Watchers! Lalalalala...
Dark Armors - Seeing as how they carry hammers that are bigger than
Peppita herself is, I decided that it might be smart to pick them apart
from a distance with Power Dance -> Instanto Blast. Level up to 44.
Crystal Statue - Fun. ICBM -> short Power Dance -> Kaboom. 5000 Damage
per hit on the first Kaboom, 9000 per hit at 300%. This was over pretty fast :P
One level-up, now 45
Dark Eyedol - A lot like the previous eye-critter, with two major
differences:
1) not getting petrified ^_^
2) using Power Dance -> Instanto Blast against his Circles instead of just
full Instanto Blast chains.
This is good because:
- PD -> IB -> PD -> IB is faster than doing five Instanto Blasts and
probably does more damage as well
- Power Dance also dramatically increases the damage on your short major,
which means major hurt-time whenever you AAA him.
Obviously, I should have used that for the first one. Meh.
Peppita is now level 48.
Chimera - <b>WOW</b> O_O <i>No</i> resets. I'm getting REAL impressed with
the damage Peppita can do.
Actually, I was pretty nervous about this fight, and feared I would be
spending crazy amounts of time on it. Though in practice, I think I could've
won the 'within one minute' BT if I didn't have it already.
My set up, as such, was geared on hoping to stay alive. Amulet of Freedom,
Bunny Shoes ... and <i>no</i> Berserk. Hindsight tells me I should have used
it to end this even quicker :)
Basically, I tried what Red did, and AAA'd his tail. I thought it would be
mad hard, but he didn't do many major attacks and seemed satisfied with
running around me, so most of the fight I was actually standing still :/
Whenever I stunned him, I went Power Dance -> Kaboom. That's it. A few of
those, and he went down.
Either he pitied me for using Peppita and went easy on me, Peppita is
secretly a goddess in disguise, or the RNG was satisfied with the massive
amount of goats I sacrificed in preparation.
Lalalalala, lalalalala... Those who aren't loved, die!
Didn't level up after the Chimera fight, by the way. I didn't really deserve
levelling from such an easy fight, so meh >_>
Stone Golem - Disgustingly easy. I think you can already imagine how this
went. He's as slow as ... a really bloody slow thing. Seriously, he's
probably slower than Freya. I picked him apart with Power Dance -> Instanto
Blast.
Now level 51. So now I can summon a really big, silly, goofy, and just plain
bloody <i>weird</i> fearie in order to hurt my opponents. Yeah ... how's
THAT for Real Ultimate Power!?
Battle Copter - The thing quickly reminded me of the fact that its major
attack does wicked damage. Barely survived, and quickly tried ways of
avoiding it. Found two. The first: hit major as soon as you see the purple
trail. Peppita should do her counter and avoid the attack completely. The
second: stay under the thing and run to its back whenever it attacks.
Punish the whiffed attack with Power Dance -> Kaboom. Kaboom
knocks it down quite reliably, by the way. Also, AAA
bomb attacks and punish them accordingly.
One level-up, now 52.
Blair - Over in a flash. ICBM -> Power Dance -> Kaboom -> Power Dance ->
Kaboom. 5 Level-ups for that, talk about insanity. Level 57 now.
Ruktogias - When you AAA something or he whiffs an attack, go ICBM -> Power
Dance -> Kaboom. When he starts flying, punish him with short minor. Easy.
Level 59.
Death Monsters - Power Dance -> Kaboom combos, preferably when you've
stunned one. Both take massive damage, and it won't be a long fight. Level
60.
Chimera Hawks - Laughable! No resets, either! Gathered them up, and did a
full chain of three Power Dances and Kaboom. That took out the first one.
The other two were heavily damaged, and both died to another Power Dance ->
Kaboom each. Reached level 62.
Lalalalala, lalalalala... Those who aren't loved... <b>die!</b>
Thenceforth shall all feel the wrath of the eternal Swarm... For the hour of
judgment is come!
Luther - No. Resets.
I didn't try Luther yesterday, mostly because I didn't want to push my luck
^_^
When I went into the fight, I didn't really expect to win. I just went in
with a Kaboom setup to see whether it would work, but I really didn't expect
it to. Girl, was I wrong.
So, I had:
Peppita, level 62
Weapon: Lunatic Shoes
Armour: Ablative Shield
Accessories:
Bunny Shoes ('cause I wanted to stay alive for a few seconds)
Regeneration Symbol ('cause of dances and Healing, possibly getting hit by
Insanity Prelude. And, as I soon discovered, Flaming Divide)
Short minor: Power Dance
Short major: Kaboom
Support:
First Aid (didn't activate too much though. Meh)
Common Support Symbols
Oh, and Berserk was on. Like in practically all the fights.
The first fight is easy. AAA something or wait for Laser Beams, and punish
him. Over in a snap.
So, the second fight. Easily the longest single fight in the SSCC, by the
way.
First of all, I do <i>not</i> recommend my tactic here. Actually, it's
probably impossible on anything higher than Galaxy because of the damage you
likely -will- receive.
As said, I was mostly just trying to see whether Power Dance -> Kaboom could
own his ass. The major problem is that Kaboom isn't THAT fast. And it
doesn't always knock Luther down. Sometimes it doesn't even disrupt him at
all. If this happens, you could be in BIG trouble.
The first part isn't too hard. First of all, keep your health up. There are
three good times to do this now. When he's stunned, when he uses Laser
Beams, and when he does that major where a purple beam shoots out (run away,
dodge it, heal. If you're far enough away due to running and Bunny Shoes, he
often won't reach you in time to punish you).
When you AAA something or he does Laser Beams, that's a chance to hurt him.
As said, if he decides not to care, he might hit you with something before
you recover or can pull of another Kaboom that does bother him. However, at
this time he doesn't really have anything that hurts that bad, so if you
keep your HP up, you should be fine.
After a pretty short time, Luther whips out some massive pre-concert
hurt-fest time with Flaming Divide. "But," you say, "that's a minor attack!
What could be the problem?". Well yes, under normal circumstances, you just
AAA it and heal yourself up or hurt him. However ...
If he whips it out after not giving a crap about your Kabooms, you WILL eat
four hits from it. Remember where I recommended to keep your HP up? Flaming
Divide will do four hits for about 1700 damage each. Combine that with the
fact that I had a max HP of 11774, and Kaboom eats up part of that ... there
really isn't much room for error.
When Perfect Symmetry pops up, the Bunny Shoes will seriously save your ass.
Whenever he does it, run like hell and TACKLE THE ENEMY!!!!! Eh, well,
actually, don't do that. Just run like mad to the side of the level farthest
from Luther, and it shouldn't hit you. Bunny Shoes are important here. When
you get there, that's another opportunity to heal up.
Insanity Prelude bites. I just run up to near the north-western tentacle,
equip a Clone Generator instead of the Regeneration Symbol, and hope for the
best. Heal up if necessary as soon as you get there. If you get hurt, heal
IMMEDIATELY as soon as the big white flash appears to get back up to speed a
bit. After Insanity Prelude, replace the Clone Generator with a Regeneration
Symbol again.
I lost 1 Clone Generator in the fight, by the way. Not a bad score, I'd say.
However, as soon as Perfect Symmetry and Insanity Prelude start appearing,
you might get _very_ few chances to actually launch an offensive. If he does
a lot of them, it gets really annoying >_<
So at that time, it basically becomes nothing more than a LOT of running and
healing, and hoping for a Laser Beams or something to AAA. However, IF this
happens, you can hurt him BAD. So you really don't need that many openings.
Luther -will- fall.
In the end, a good fight, and the longest Peppita was in except for Berial
and Belzeber.
OH! Quantestorie calls Peppita a goddess in the ending. I KNEW IT! That
explains everything.
A recap.
Peppita's SSCC, quite contrary to what I was expecting, is so astonishingly
easy it's not even funny anymore.
I was expecting a lot more Instanto Blast and short major. But Power Dance
.. wow.
At first, I though I might use Power Dance in a few choice fights. I'd use
it mostly to get a quick boost to my cancel bonus. Y'know, a bit like people
use Magnetic Field with Maria to cancel into Energy Burst for some more
damage.
Wow, was I wrong. I underestimated Power Dance SO BLOODY MUCH. Of course,
it is insanely useful as just a cancel boost. It can be cancelled from
instantly. However, I soooo underestimated the massive increase to Peppita's
damage output. It made most of the fight pathetically easy just because it
makes Peppita damage output so sickeningly high that most enemies die before
they get the chance to become problematic. In retrospect, I really should
have used it against Berial and Belzeber. By now, I'm pretty certain I could
have beaten them with no resets if I had used it >_<
One MAJOR <b>WARNING</b> on Power Dance, though.
Always keep an eye on your Fury, and NEVER go for a combo if you don't have
enough Fury to cancel out of Power Dance. It thankfully only happened to me
trice, but WOW, those were some close calls. If the enemy is strong enough
to kill you in one hit, or if the enemies get a chance to gang up on you,
you're screwed. All you can do is wait painfully and hope for the best while
Peppita twirls around and the baddies close in >_<
So, make a point of it to learn A.S.A.P. how much Fury a full PD -> Whatever
chain costs so you know how many times you can pull it off from full Fury,
and how much a single Power Dance -> Something chain costs for those cases
where you attack but don't have full Fury. That will prevent you from
screwing up at far too important times.
Most used skills:
Power. Dance.
Instanto Blast
Kaboom
short major
ICBM
Surprisingly easy battles:
Damn. Near. All. Of. Them. No joke.
Most resets were actually the result of minor screw-ups or getting
petrified. Which was also due to screw-ups.
Toughest battles:
Only one. Berial and Belzeber. Though that possibly also could be pretty
easy with massive Power Dance abuse - who knows?
Hindsight: We know. Ladysoalluring did it on 4D using Power Dance, with
relative ease. So, in my opinion, there is -no- toughest battle. Peppita
owns them all.
Honorable Mentions:
* Nel - for her purpose being to flip out and kill men. She's no Queen *****
of the universe, Kerrigan has that one on her, but hey
* Maria - for the wicked scene with Nel on the Diplo that I love so much
* My PSTwo - for being sexay. And for actually being in the country after I
sold my PS2
* (non-boss) Styx Enforcers - for taking massive amounts of damage from
chunks of ice and levelling Peppita up in a flash
* 4D and Sphere Security - for being such horrible shots ^_^
* Berial and Belzeber - for making me think and actually being somewhat
hard. And for my longest fight with Peppita
* Chimera - for being such a good sport ^_^
* Crystal Statue (Kaddan 2) - for opening my eyes to the wicked power of
Power Dance -> Kaboom
* Dark Armors - for sporting wicked big hammers that dwarf Peppita
* Chimera Hawks - for croaking and not killing me :P
* Luther - for a good fight, and a long one at that
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALBEL: (First completed by Master Epyon)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You get to use him about 1/2 through the game. Full Active mode makes
Air Slash awesome as hell, and even without Full Active it is (Though for the
rest of disc 1, it sucks). Most of his battle skills aren't that good. But
when you have "Increase MP Damage" on his short-X, or "Stun"...that's where
Albel's coolness shoots up.
I have completed the Albel game. Here are my results:
It's on Galaxy, by the way, and no Item Creation was done.
I'm using solo-Fayt until I get Albel, btw. :p
I swapped out Sophia ASAP.
Incapacitator Vaas (0 resets): 1st fight, Fayt owns them. 2nd fight-3rd
fight, Peppitta on Manual is a good enough distraction for me to win.
Norton's Henchmen (0 resets): Triple EXP put me up to level 4 after this
joke battle.
Norton (0 resets): Cliff went manual, and Fayt Aerial'D Norton to death.
Cliff then swaps out of the team.
Swap out Nel later, and Cliff again...O.o
Inquisitor (0 resets): Deked them all into using a strong attack,
then used Aerial while they recovered from their attacks.
MP killed them all.
Giant Crab (0 resets): ALMOST freeze killed me, but I managed to
Aerial him to death after I unfroze.
Earth Smasher (0 resets): Easy target for Aerial.
Went and bought the Holy Sword and Masterwork Plate.
Lots of Black Brigade Soldiers (0 resets): Could only inflict 0 damage to me.
Shelby (0 resets): See above.
About 5 trees in Duggus Forest (0 resets): Blazing Sword, whack whack, dead.
Moonshadow Clan Thieves (0 resets): I had a real scare here when
one of them hit Fayt with Ice Needles. No freeze. :) Whack whack burnination.
Moonshadow Clan Chief (0 resets): Is it possible to lose this?
Demetrio (0 resets): MP killed the allies, then Side Kicked Demetrio to death.
Albel (0 resets): MP killed them all with Blazing Sword.
Vox (0 resets): Side Kicked to hell.
Crystal Knights (0 resets): First one, I noticed that they're weak against Ice.
Side kicked him to death. Second one, Ice Blade, whack whack dead.
Crystal Cerberus (0 resets): Annoying guy to side kick, but I did it.
Vendeeni Soldiers (3 resets): OH MY LORD. Ice Blade, had to whack them a lot.
I HATE stone guns. If they all started to fire, I'd do Side Kick to stay alive.
And why is it that one of them has ???/??? HP/MP? Weidos. Hardest battle so far,
and it isn't even Albel's game yet. O_o
Schweimer (0 resets): See Demetrio.
ALBEL FINALLY JOINS THE TEAM AFTER ALL THIS TIME! I go and buy him a sexy
Superior Chain Mail and grab his Steeled Earth weapon on Barr.
Blue Dragon Zombie (0 resets): Used his long-O attack on his front over
and over. In other news, you could kill this guy without attacking if the
rocks rolled nicely enough.
Robin Wind (2 resets): I HATE Aerial Slash. Put Wind Charm on Albel. At the
start I Short-X'D him out of Thunder Flare. When he started doing Aerial Slash
I'd run away. I'd wait for him to use a weak attack to guard it, or a
strong one to go Long-O on him. Then he got to his Rising Stream form and
was easy from there, since Rising Stream sucks ass.
Biwig (0 resets): See above, only insert me being amused by Biwig using
Illusion Rifle to switch from a Fire-Element attack to a Fire-Element
attack and then Side kicking him to death.
ALBEL RETURNS! :)
Proclaimer (0 resets): CC'D Air Slash for like, 9000 a pop.
I put No Guard on Albel at this point.
Security Service (3 resets): When I started to use Air Slash, it was easy.
The 3 resets came from me trying to use long-o to kill them, but Air Slash
does it 1 hit each.
I went and got the Bunny Shoes on Vanguard after this, along with the Biter
and Battle Chain Mail from Retail Rabbit.
4D Security Guards (1 "Reset"): After dying to Azazer I rushed in and got
killed. :p But anyway, pretty easy fight, considering they have, what, 10x
more HP than the Security Service? The fact there's only 4 instead of 6 make
this battle a joke. Air Slash>Them.
Azazer (The flukiest 1 reset ever): I would have got him the first time,
except Albel DID LONG-O INSTEAD OF AIR SLASH AND THEN GOT FREEZE
KILLED BY CRYSTAL PRISON! BAD ALBEL! Anyway, long-O him until
he starts doing Crystal Prison, then deke him into using his strong attack,
Air Slash him, repeat. No need to be fancy.
Berial And Belzeber (1 reset): First reset I got hit head on by Berial's Major
Attack. Ouches.
Battle went like this (Had increase HP damage on long-O):
I let Berial and Belzy follow me around, and I'd run in front of Berial
to deke him into using his Strong attack, then I'd lure Belzeber away,
deke him into using an attack, and then Long-O him for 5000. Repeated until
Belzeber died. It was easier when Belzeber did Steal Life/Spirit, because those
moves suck.
Berial was just annoying. His strong attack prevented me from hurting him
while he did it. I had to wait for him to finish his Strong attack, then long-O
him. Like Belzeber, he became easier after I half killed him, because then he
started doing Auto-Aim and Fire Dance, both of which are set to weak, so cheers
for me.
Proclaimer #2 (0 resets): Air Slashed to hell.
Enforcer (0 resets): Same as above with some Long-O's tossed in.
Convictor (0 resets): Well that's weird, Sophia automatically joins you
for this battle. Not that it takes long for her to die or anything. Anyway,
Air Slashed him whenever he used his Strong Attack, otherwise I'd guard him
and then Air Slash him. Took awhile, since 120,000 HP doesn't just poof away
magically.
Lesser Eye (3 resets): Good God, this guy can petrify! EW!
Increase HP Damage on Short-X and Long-O for this one. I long-O'd
towards him, then waited for him to expend enough fury for me to Short-X
him to death, literally. He could do nothing while I weak attacked him
after his fury was nearly gone, my only pauses being to get back fury,
and usually this was where things went bad.
Or when I Long-O'd towards him I'd get petrified. :p
Anyway, winning this was a relief...
Dark Armors (1 reset): Forgot to put on Air Slash. When I did, joke battle.
Crystal Knight (0 resets): Long-O to death after AAAing.
Dark Eye (2 resets): Pretty much like the Lesser Eye battle, except this
guy loves expending his fury to help me win. Doesn't help that he has like
100,000 more HP though.
Chimera (1 reset): The tail hit me ONCE the whole match the first time and
paralyzed me. Then I decided to MP kill him with Aura Wall, the tail hit me
about 15 times and didn't cause paralyze. Go figure.
Stone Golem (1 reset): God, immunity to Air Slash made this annoying!
Strong-Palm of Destruction over and over again, usually after guarding.
Battle Copter (0 resets): Bunny Shoes. Ran around him when he did
Strong-Machine Gun, then Aura Wall'D to 300% strong on him
(Weak attack->Aura Wall->Aura Wall->Aura Wall->Aura Wall). Not too hard.
Pseudo Blair (0 resets): Her firebolts miss a lot, she has 100,000 HP,
and her Eddy of Light move is set to weak. Joke fight.
Ruktogias (0 resets): Chain Smash pisses me off when I'm trying to hit
this guy! Anyway, not too hard of a battle. Just watch out for Chain Smash
and Explosion and you've got it. Dark Eruption is easy to dodge, as is
Killer Sphere (Plus you can GUARD Killer Sphere! :D)
Death Monster x2 (0 resets): Ha ha, Long-O juggles them into the air
every time. The only annoying thing about these guys is their super speed.
Chimera Hawk x3 (15 resets or so):
Ludicrous.
Insane.
Incredibly annoying.
That describes this fight very well. First, let's look at their moves:
-Strong Attack: Has a bigger effect of range than you'd think. Still,
this is what you want them to do.
-Weak Attack (Dive): Annoying. Causes Chaos. Impossible to dodge unless
they fluke out and hit a corner, or if you guard it.
-Weak Attack (Tornado): Annoying but they don't do it much.
-Hard Impact: Their weak attack (Dive) but more powerful.
-Blizzard Impact: 2nd pattern. Same as weak attack, only causes Freeze.
Very very annoying.
-Heat Impact: 3rd pattern. Same as above only you cannot guard it, so
each time they do this you'll take 6000-8000.
-Wing Cutter: 4th pattern. A sigh of relief when they start doing this,
as it's easy to dodge.
The strategy:
Get one at a time, and use Short-X on her (Increase HP Damage on) until
she hopefully gets down to Wing Cutter mode. If she's in Heat Impact mode,
I must run in front of her to deke her into a strong attack or else. After
I take one down, I work on another one, and finally the last one.
Luther - Form 1 (0 resets): A joke, but I hate that his spear can paralyze
you. At least he loves doing Laser Beams, which sucks ass as a spell for
enemies.
Luther - Form 2 (2 "resets"): First time I wanted to see if Insanity
Prelude's big cage in the middle insta-killed you. Yup. Second time the
game froze. :p Long-O doesn't work on this guy. :(
Pattern 1: Good if he uses a weak attack, but don't count on it.
Bunny Shoes on at almost all times, so was No Guard. He likes to use his
strong attack a bunch. Usually I would just Blitzkrieg him into Pattern 2
and not worry much about HP/MP. He sometimes does Expansion Force and
Laser Beams but they're bad moves anyway.
Pattern 2: Loves to spam Flaming Divide. When I guarded it, I'd run behind
him and Short-O him, then as he turned to re-do Flaming Divide, I'd run
behind him to guard it. Repeated until form 3, with the occasional Perfect
Symmetry thrown in.
Pattern 3: Whenever he did Insanity Prelude, I'd equip 2 Clone Generators
and run to the top left corner. He loves doing Perfect Symmetry here, but
he also loves doing...
Laser Beams! :D
Which rules since that gives me time to do about 40,000 damage with short-X.
Barely ever does Flaming Divide in this pattern, but it's a relief when
he does.
And don't even think about him using Expansion Force in this pattern.
He barely does.
Only can be posted on www.gamefaqs.com or www.gamespot.com. Anywhere else and
my lawsuit fury begins. ^_~ This FAQ is a copyright of Master Epyon, and
any site other than the two I just mentioned that has this FAQ will be shot.
