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Dec. 8th, 2010 03:57 pmYou know those plots of superhero stories or whatever that are basically there specifically to give a certain character a large pile of badass moments? TV Tropes has this and this to say on the subject.
Anyway, I don't know how the fight went or will go down for anyone else (feel free to tell me, I'm actually very curious!) but for me, the boss of the second stratum was one giant advertisement for the glory and awesomeness of having a Prince.
The boss had a super smokescreen-type massive evasion buff--that alone would have been Game Over for the rest of my team, since the only person who can actually damage a boss like she means it (Simone the Arbalist) is... already somewhat less than 100% accurate with Armor Piercer, even with two +Hit elements forged onto her crossbow. If only I could do something about enemies buffing themselves... oh, right, Julian has Ad Nihilo.
The boss had a party-wide sleep, which admittedly Rachael can clean up after easily enough (she has an equally-party-wide Refresh) but the 1-2 turns lost when you were put to sleep before you could act and are asleep at the start of the next round can really wreck everyone's momentum and basically screw up everything, especially when there are a lot of buffs that need to be kept on top of and not allowed to expire. (And woe unto me if Rachael herself falls asleep!) If only I could just make sure the sleep doesn't wreck my day in the first place... oh, right, Julian has Prevent Order.
I decided to use Formaldehyde because the boss' conditional drop is bullshit. (I've gone through two EO games now and have gotten extremely difficult-to-get conditionals before, including the one in EO2 where you have to kill the ice-aligned Super Rape Dragon with an ice element even though it's practically immune to ice and the only ice move I even have is an extremely crappy level 1 move the Gunner knows just to get ice conditionals out of random encounters or something... but this, this is the first time in the series I have truly believed that a drop would be literally impossible for my team such as it is to ever get, even coming back later, even at max level.) Formaldehyde makes it so that any enemy slain on the same turn that it's used is 100% guaranteed to cough up every single drop it is capable of coughing up, including super rare ones and conditionals, even conditionals that you didn't actually fulfill the condition to legitimately earn. The only catch is... well, first you have to use it, and then it only works on enemies killed that round. Someone has to go before the rest of your party and use Formaldehyde, then the rest of your party has to finish the target off. Making sure I strike the killing blow on the right turn is hard, but nothing I haven't done before, but if only there was a way to make absolutely certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that the person tasked with using the Formaldehyde will actually do so first that round, before everyone else takes their turn kills the damned thing... oh, right, Julian has Knighthood.
And all that that's on top of Julian's Attack Order helping Simone do her thing.
Oh yeah, so that conditional drop I "got" (successfully using Formaldehyde on the right round does too count as enough work to have earned it, fuck you) unlocked the Buccaneer's class-specific elite endgame armor. Compared to the rest of the armor at this point having defense in the high 30s/low 40s and selling for around 2,000en, this thing has defense of 122 with one each +Agility, +Luck, and +Critical Hit elements, and sells for 243,000(!!!). I'm actually kind of grateful that I don't have a Buccaneer, because the paradox of "I WANT THAT ARMOR" versus "that... that's even more than what my Guild Card claims is the total en I have ever earned in the history of the game to this point D:" probably would have killed me. (Things like this are precisely why you hoard those Coupons, though.)
I can now multiclass! Expect all actual progress in this game to halt for a while as I do a bunch of last-minute "while everyone is still pre-retired and high level" errands (sea quests, maybe try for the first stratum boss' conditional,) and then do a lot of "save before retiring/subclassing, then throw some points into this or that just to see if the combos that seem so awesome in my head actually work in practice" experimentation.
Anyway, I don't know how the fight went or will go down for anyone else (feel free to tell me, I'm actually very curious!) but for me, the boss of the second stratum was one giant advertisement for the glory and awesomeness of having a Prince.
The boss had a super smokescreen-type massive evasion buff--that alone would have been Game Over for the rest of my team, since the only person who can actually damage a boss like she means it (Simone the Arbalist) is... already somewhat less than 100% accurate with Armor Piercer, even with two +Hit elements forged onto her crossbow. If only I could do something about enemies buffing themselves... oh, right, Julian has Ad Nihilo.
The boss had a party-wide sleep, which admittedly Rachael can clean up after easily enough (she has an equally-party-wide Refresh) but the 1-2 turns lost when you were put to sleep before you could act and are asleep at the start of the next round can really wreck everyone's momentum and basically screw up everything, especially when there are a lot of buffs that need to be kept on top of and not allowed to expire. (And woe unto me if Rachael herself falls asleep!) If only I could just make sure the sleep doesn't wreck my day in the first place... oh, right, Julian has Prevent Order.
I decided to use Formaldehyde because the boss' conditional drop is bullshit. (I've gone through two EO games now and have gotten extremely difficult-to-get conditionals before, including the one in EO2 where you have to kill the ice-aligned Super Rape Dragon with an ice element even though it's practically immune to ice and the only ice move I even have is an extremely crappy level 1 move the Gunner knows just to get ice conditionals out of random encounters or something... but this, this is the first time in the series I have truly believed that a drop would be literally impossible for my team such as it is to ever get, even coming back later, even at max level.) Formaldehyde makes it so that any enemy slain on the same turn that it's used is 100% guaranteed to cough up every single drop it is capable of coughing up, including super rare ones and conditionals, even conditionals that you didn't actually fulfill the condition to legitimately earn. The only catch is... well, first you have to use it, and then it only works on enemies killed that round. Someone has to go before the rest of your party and use Formaldehyde, then the rest of your party has to finish the target off. Making sure I strike the killing blow on the right turn is hard, but nothing I haven't done before, but if only there was a way to make absolutely certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that the person tasked with using the Formaldehyde will actually do so first that round, before everyone else takes their turn kills the damned thing... oh, right, Julian has Knighthood.
And all that that's on top of Julian's Attack Order helping Simone do her thing.
Oh yeah, so that conditional drop I "got" (successfully using Formaldehyde on the right round does too count as enough work to have earned it, fuck you) unlocked the Buccaneer's class-specific elite endgame armor. Compared to the rest of the armor at this point having defense in the high 30s/low 40s and selling for around 2,000en, this thing has defense of 122 with one each +Agility, +Luck, and +Critical Hit elements, and sells for 243,000(!!!). I'm actually kind of grateful that I don't have a Buccaneer, because the paradox of "I WANT THAT ARMOR" versus "that... that's even more than what my Guild Card claims is the total en I have ever earned in the history of the game to this point D:" probably would have killed me. (Things like this are precisely why you hoard those Coupons, though.)
I can now multiclass! Expect all actual progress in this game to halt for a while as I do a bunch of last-minute "while everyone is still pre-retired and high level" errands (sea quests, maybe try for the first stratum boss' conditional,) and then do a lot of "save before retiring/subclassing, then throw some points into this or that just to see if the combos that seem so awesome in my head actually work in practice" experimentation.