"The Fallen"

[Cloud]

If you have been following my "Bai Ze Strategy?" thread you will be aware that my journey to beat that was a success and now I am following on to defeat "The Fallen" for my New game+ file where I will play on hard mode. I am having severe difficulty with "The Fallen" and grinding to get caexchia but I believe this may take awhile, my current party stands at this;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRTEQJ_e9iA

Apologies in advance for the music, feel free to mute.

What I want to know is where do I go from here? I have since obtained the mystic shield formation but was wondering if there is something else I may be missing at all besides caexchia.

[Rokalm]

How I did it was using five unions to flank and controlling your morale well. Cachexia would make the fight trivial, but you don't -need- to have it. The most important bit is surviving after Animalcule and controlling morale well. And a bit of luck.

Why is the video 7 mins long when half of it is just black?

[Cloud]

Video - I rushed the rendering and forgot to take the rest of the audio out where it failed to sync. I might change it at a later date.

When I try to flank it looks good until he uses blackout on the first turn and I lose 2 unions and when that happens I lose the morale and the battle from that point onwards, do I just grind till like 6k+ hp per union? With 5 unions I will be doing that for a long time.

[Zloth]

Have you finished all the quests you can do pre-Fallen?

[Cloud]

Scaredy-cat magus quest is still available
Cosmos Maiden and any quests post
The Scientist (2/3 through it)

[RyanEX2000]

Having 5 Unions was my preferred cup of tea since with Wyngale that guaranteed a Rear Assault and until you could Flank with Cachexia keeping morale high was paramount to reduce damage from his extra hits.

I'd recommend taking your 6 biggest hitters (with the most HP) and putting them into 2 Unions of 3 each. These're the guys You'll want to deadlock with Fallen in conjunction with Wyngale. Having only 3 minimises the damage from Hand of God and gives him fewer targets for Apocolypse.

Make a healer Union who's only purpose is to keep everyone topped off along with another damage Union and the other Union built around Cachexia.

The fight IS possible without the move (so I've heard) but even with it I managed to beat him at the end of turn 8.

[Rokalm]

It is very luck based. If you survive the first turn without losing any unions, you have a fair chance in beating him. If even 1 union dies, you can just restart or play along to see if you can get a few lucky Hundred Flowers in a row.

[Zloth]

It's pretty rough with no Cahexia, that's for sure. Even if one character has it, it's STILL fairly rough. In my most recent play-through, I had three characters with the spell. That worked quite nicely but I was driving to get as many people with the power as I possibly could through the entire game.

[Steelflame]

I've beaten it without Cahexia before. Was a wee bit of a streach, but I tend to find that support commands for your mid-turn team to help a ton, as they always will re-assess any healing needed. You can't just depend on one union to heal you up against him, having a single person on each flanking union who can use the AoE healing will pretty much ensure they can cast it if needed (flank attacks allow reprioritizations for healing), but you also want as many power play uniques as you can get. Ghor's Whatever-it's-called Fury is just godlike in ripping him apart if his morale manages to get high enough. Then Irenia+Rush's Talisman abilities can be game-changers, due to how they allow the entire union to avoid being hit due to it's dodge mechanic if they use it later than the boss attacks. Keep Morale high enough, and he won't completely delete you with his AoEs (although it's pretty hard, as almost everything he does hits your morale bar as well as your health bar). For his 3rd turn (Amanicluate or however you spell it), if you have any accessories which can help reduce the duration of any status effects, they can be life savers to only be locked down for a single turn, or not even that, on your powerful unions.

Keeping Wyngale alive during the fight isn't really worth it, once he gets you your rear/flank assults, he has done his job. He won't even output 1/50th's the bosses hp bar over the fight, and giving up a turn to res him will cost you a lot more than what he can get ya. If you are lucky, you can get Rush's golem to help out, helps extra if his union is a flanking one, as it means he is never trapped in deadlock, meaning his Cyclops isn't being denied.

Optimal method of fighting him without Cahexia would be to have a strong, durable, union who can take the boss's direct aggro, your healing union, and Wyngale all take aggro, and from the second turn on have the healing union just healing or using support abilities (which will also ensure they can heal if needed), without attacking if possible. Due to having side/rear assults, all of your other unions will not be able to be targetted by the boss by anything other than his end of turn ability, or a lucky Apocalypse. This means that overall your damage focused unions will be safe. If you do end up losing the side/rear assult, you probably won't be able to regain it, due to wyngale going down very quickly.

Using this method, I was able to take him down without any form of grinding (Fought him at 80 BR, no grinding other than just doing all the quest I could find and a little item hunting for weapon upgrades) or "cheesing" the game mechanics, but grinds will make it easier. I recommend disabling any Arcana your unions might have, as it's pretty much worthless, and could break you out of a side/rear assult potentially. Try and manipulate the speed of your unions so that you get the right set of people attacking him at the start of the first turn, without having to waste anyone's turn using a wait command, otherwise you could potentially waste that valuable flank assult on Wyngale meaning you get almost nothing from it.

[Cloud]

http://puu.sh/8Ta8v.jpg

Finally beat him :) Thanks guys. Cachexia and healing after each round seemed to be the key. Killed him on turn 5.

[SenMithrarin85]

Beat him twice. No cachexia. It was really rough at BR64. If Emmy han't pulled out Hundred Flowers when she did, the fallen would have ended the fight with armagedden. Any tips for getting that spell fast? I've hired Zolean as soon as possible with a minumum of side quests done and reasonably low BR (32-33 once all 18 unit slots are unlocked). despite turning off all his spells except for dispirit, I have never had cachexia in time for this fight. I say "in time" because I want to get Wyngale for hire before my BR shoots through the roof with grinding. I manipulated the Bai Ze (killed it, then suspended side quest to fight it again etc) and my stats got a nice boost without BR going up too much as well. I get to Dispirit V and then Bewitch unlocks (something I read stated that Cachexia unlocks after dispirit v) so I've made do without cachexia both times (and both were close calls). I had 4 unions instead of 5, which probably didn't help, but I built each one around an arcana and during the fight with the jhana royals, blackout and fatal eclipse came up as soon as the royals appreared after the mid boss fight! The two combined wiped them out.

[RyanEX2000]

Originally posted by SenMithrarin85:

Beat him twice. No cachexia. It was really rough at BR64. If Emmy han't pulled out Hundred Flowers when she did, the fallen would have ended the fight with armagedden. Any tips for getting that spell fast? I've hired Zolean as soon as possible with a minumum of side quests done and reasonably low BR (32-33 once all 18 unit slots are unlocked). despite turning off all his spells except for dispirit, I have never had cachexia in time for this fight. I say "in time" because I want to get Wyngale for hire before my BR shoots through the roof with grinding. I manipulated the Bai Ze (killed it, then suspended side quest to fight it again etc) and my stats got a nice boost without BR going up too much as well. I get to Dispirit V and then Bewitch unlocks (something I read stated that Cachexia unlocks after dispirit v) so I've made do without cachexia both times (and both were close calls). I had 4 unions instead of 5, which probably didn't help, but I built each one around an arcana and during the fight with the jhana royals, blackout and fatal eclipse came up as soon as the royals appreared after the mid boss fight! The two combined wiped them out.

The Ultimate PC Grind trick.

During Glenys recruitment quest you see all the Landworms at the bottom that continually respawn. If your BR is low enough once you get to that point (25 - 35) you timeslip pull as many as possible, kill them, then let them reapwn. according to wiki once you get past 370 chains xp doubles and you gain stats and learn moves at an increased rate.

[Rokalm]

I got a hex soldier at the start and by the time Zo'lean was unlocked, I had Bewitch. I don't get why people wait for him.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by Muslimus Prime:

I got a hex soldier at the start and by the time Zo'lean was unlocked, I had Bewitch. I don't get why people wait for him.

Really? What's the soldier's name and where and when do you get him/her?

[Rokalm]

Chamberland I think, just after the Catacombs. You get him in Athlum like the rest of the normal soldiers.

[Cloud]

http://puu.sh/8U3si.jpg

I got very screwed on my chamberlain I think, but for the record I am not using Zolean either as I find him fairly over rated.