Can't Recruit Chandra (always party wipe)

[Seisachtheia]

So I am trying to recruit Chandra and my party (all lvl 40+ and geared) contantly gets wiped. Chandra does that attack that hits everybody for about 250 damage and can go twice a turn...so I'm basically going from 100% hp to dead if I get unlucky.

Is this supposed to be a very late game recruit that opens up sooner than you're supposed to get them? Is there a gimmick here I don't know about? Even using water based damage I can't do more than 80 damage a hit and my most powerful combos max out at 200 damage on this character.

I know this game's pretty poorly balanced in a lot of aspects but I can't tell if that's just the issue or if it's an intended late game recruitment.

[Jouchebag]

Are you using Charge Up characters? Particularly Yusuke? His damage output is madness with a ruby accessory. Scarlet and Yuferius and Yusuke all Charging for two turns turns most of the game into mush. Momo is also uniquely OP.

You can definitely get unlucky with many of the bosses that have multiple attacks per turn. It shouldn't be a regular thing though. Revive folks, hit everyone with a party healing herb and/or have multiple people with water runes. The higher level water rune also has a party magic defense buff that can be super helpful.

Falward and Francesca have a powerful heal combo that includes a buff.

Is that even an appropriate level for that location? Are you already getting <50 XP per battle? You can always grind a bit.

[VertVentus]

https://eiyuden.wiki.gg/wiki/Chandra/Enemy
She's Lv. 45 which is similar to the boss of Eldroad (Lv. 44 Elder Dragon, the trash enemies are Lv. 39 ~ 40), a bit overturned since offenses in that area are only like 220ish PWR/MGC when Chandra is rocking 300 PWR and 408 MGC (damage calculations are linear before multipliers), then it has 15 resistances in every element so you're suffering 0.85x damage dealt.

Momo is pretty late in the Norristar arc (after Yarnaan becomes inaccessible), so you won't have him when you first enter Eldroad.
CJ's recruitment dungeon opens up at this time, allowing you to get Rune of the Warrior's Path and Rune of the Warrior's Pinnacle to put on Iugo and Lam for a 50% PWR increase to kill her quickly outside of Charge Up characters.
Your best party at this point is probably like Iugo, Lam, Nowa, Isha (your only good mage besides Falward up to this point) + 2 from:
Yuferius, Scarlet, Yusuke (Charge Up, incapable of Path/Pinnacle)
Kogen, Garr, Garoo, Sabine, Kuroto (bulky melee)
CJ, Hakugin (frailer damage dealers)
Impershi'arc runes lets buy Runes of Mighty Power (+10% PWR) on everyone so do that already if you haven't.
When buffs are +/-20% and your defenses are like 200ish, well that's only like 40 damage reduction, you may also want to pile on the 2* Fire rune's Fire resistance.

Dappled Forest's 3rd area opens up to get Excellent Lacquer, and if you've been on top of your HQ's Development Plan, that'll get you HQ Lv. 3 so you can get Guild Task 1 (Platinum Ore) to build the Mysterious Room to power level against Lv. 60 enemies (Kogen's 6 quantity, single out a single alive ally to boost them to Lv. 99).

Edit: Then, if you can win against Mysterious Room Astraea the Judge for Rune of the Mage's Pinnacle (Isha) and Ancient Seed for 2~3 extra Rune of the Warrior's Pinnacle (Celia, Nowa, Kogen, Garr, Garoo, Sabine, Kuroto, CJ), that makes those good characters even better.

[Seisachtheia]

Yeah I've been trying lots of different party comps but realizing that about 80% of the characters aren't worth it. Game's inspired by Suikoden so there's always a bunch of characters that are clearly C tier but that problem seems to be exacerbated by this game's abysmal implementation of the magic and rune system. I should stop experimenting and go back to the small handful of characters that are actually good. I'll give that a shot, thanks for the recommends on party comp.

[gatsu86]

If you have the earth rune that allows you to neutralize attacks on the entire party, it could help you beat Chandra.
Pull up the barrier, maybe use an AoE healing or revive item with one member. It should be doable at level 40 as well.

I defeated her at that level (more or less, Nowa and Isha were at 61)... even if I didn't use the protection spell. Alternatively you can raise magical defenses with Isha or others.

Good luck.

Below you can see the team I had used:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3284540594

[Seisachtheia]

I figured I'd put this here in case others are searching and come across this same problem: it appears it is possible to somehow "glitch" the Chandra recruitment.

Attempting to recruit Chandra with a lvl 41 party using only Water Veil (magic defense up) as a tech defense spell; Chandra will do more than 250 damage to everyone with the full party attack and around 190 with the single target attacks.

Attempting to recruit Chandra with a lvl 46 party using Water Veil, fire resist accessories, magic resistance runes, and using the fire protection from the fire enchantment rune does not result in any changes to the damage Chandra does. Chandra still hits the party for 250+ damage with the full party attack, and around 190 off single target attack.

It does not appear that any defensive skills negate Chandra's damage.

The only thing I can think of that might have caused this issue is that I did leave Yarnaan in the middle of the quest sequence there before completing everything; basically right after the corpse fight. Perhaps that has somehow bugged that recruitment, nobody else seems to have experienced this issue.

Just thought I would drop this as a PSA if anyone else runs into the issue and can't figure out why they can't prevent Chandra's damage.

[prusswan]

one trick is to go to underground (Mysterious Room), killing just one wave of mobs gave huge exp. enemies can barely scratch you once your def goes high enough

[Neonivek]

I... didn't know Chandra was considered difficult but here is what I did.

I gave my entire team fire resistance... and had Two people who could heal the entire party (one who goes fast, and one who goes slow).

My highest level character was level 44, but most of my party was level 35 at highest.

Honestly my team wasn't even anything special...

[Seisachtheia]

Originally posted by prusswan:

one trick is to go to underground (Mysterious Room), killing just one wave of mobs gave huge exp. enemies can barely scratch you once your def goes high enough

I mean that's post game content so by the time you're at a level where you can challenge I'll probably have enough HP to tank the Chandra damage anyway. I know people have said that they can win a fight or two in that room around party level 40 but they obviously hyper optimize to be able to do that, any regular party you take in there at that level dies in one or two rounds from my experience.

Originally posted by Neonivek:

I... didn't know Chandra was considered difficult but here is what I did.

I gave my entire team fire resistance... and had Two people who could heal the entire party (one who goes fast, and one who goes slow).

My highest level character was level 44, but most of my party was level 35 at highest.

Honestly my team wasn't even anything special...

Somehow I've glitch Chandra in my game so that defenses don't matter, Chandra always deals more than 250 damage to everyone with the whole party attack regardless of equipment, level, or magic used to try to negate it. I'll just come back when I've got more HP on the characters to tank the hits.

[gatsu86]

Originally posted by Seisachtheia:

Somehow I've glitch Chandra in my game so that defenses don't matter, Chandra always deals more than 250 damage to everyone with the whole party attack regardless of equipment, level, or magic used to try to negate it. I'll just come back when I've got more HP on the characters to tank the hits.

It could be that the blue magic defense only works against water attacks... I have no idea, I guess.
Have you tried using the earth barrier which negates damage taken or fire resistance?

[Seisachtheia]

Originally posted by gatsu86:

It could be that the blue magic defense only works against water attacks... I have no idea, I guess.
Have you tried using the earth barrier which negates damage taken or fire resistance?

Originally posted by Seisachtheia:

Attempting to recruit Chandra with a lvl 41 party using only Water Veil (magic defense up) as a tech defense spell; Chandra will do more than 250 damage to everyone with the full party attack and around 190 with the single target attacks.

Attempting to recruit Chandra with a lvl 46 party using Water Veil, fire resist accessories, magic resistance runes, and using the fire protection from the fire enchantment rune does not result in any changes to the damage Chandra does. Chandra still hits the party for 250+ damage with the full party attack, and around 190 off single target attack.

Yes, it appears I've glitched my Chandra somehow so it ignores defenses

[gatsu86]

Originally posted by Seisachtheia:

Originally posted by gatsu86:

It could be that the blue magic defense only works against water attacks... I have no idea, I guess.
Have you tried using the earth barrier which negates damage taken or fire resistance?

Yes, it appears I've glitched my Chandra somehow so it ignores defenses

I know the feeling... When I started Mysterious Room Endless Mode, the first boss was Markus' ex-wife.
I cast the Earth barrier with Markus turn 1 and with the others I apply other buffs, turn 2 I attacked and use Momo with fire spells (4° star) while Markus applies Light atk up for all (light rune 4th stars)..

Everything seemed fine but then the boss throws a vase in Markus' face, bypassing the barrier and oneshots him.

Furthermore, all the healing and resurrection items had disappeared for I don't know what reason..
At the third boss I put Markus back on the team (who had 0 HP) and I later discovered that I couldn't resurrect him. Luckily the boss was one of Athrabalt's initial bosses, which were very easy.

[prusswan]

Originally posted by Seisachtheia:

Originally posted by prusswan:

one trick is to go to underground (Mysterious Room), killing just one wave of mobs gave huge exp. enemies can barely scratch you once your def goes high enough

I mean that's post game content so by the time you're at a level where you can challenge I'll probably have enough HP to tank the Chandra damage anyway. I know people have said that they can win a fight or two in that room around party level 40 but they obviously hyper optimize to be able to do that, any regular party you take in there at that level dies in one or two rounds from my experience.

well it is an option if you are at the stage to collect as many allies as possible, you don't have to collect them in order so how to do it is entirely up to you. I had damage issues with Reyna as well - wasn't doing enough until I was well over lvl 50. Before mysterious room I was lvl 42, so it is either a glitch you ran into or somehow I had enough magic def.