Why is this game so hard! Please help :(

[DarkScythe]

I hate having to throw in the towel, but I am at a complete loss as to how to proceed.

This is the first time I'm playing this game, and on some cursory glances at user information, I've tried to keep my battle rank fairly low, even if it feels awkward in a traditional RPG sense.

However, I can't seem to figure out any way of progressing no matter what I do.

I'm currently BR11 trying to fight the stupid boss battle for Gabriel and Violet, and I'm currently capped at 3 unions and 9 units.

I've lost probably 20-25 times in a row already, and nothing seems to be working. I've tried 2 unions of 4 and 5, and I'm also trying out 3 unions with 3 units each; I've tried multiple formations and moving units around between them, and I always lose within 3 turns of the battle starting.

It doesn't seem to matter what I do, or try to do; If I target the Wyvern, I get intercepted; If I target the other guys, I get intercepted by the Wyvern; If I have my guys stand by, they all get raidlocked. Even if I do get a hit in, the Wyverns will do 3 or 4 Dust Devils in a row and everyone's dead. Most are lucky to survive one, much less two. I can't break deadlock to heal, or else things get even worse.

Rush has a Spatha and a Combat Kiteshield +1, and even accessories for speed and HP. I literally cannot think of anything more I can do. Am I missing something retardedly simple to get through this? Normally I'd just go level up, but apparently, "leveling up" in this game is supposedly bad.

Any hints or advice? :/

[DarkScythe]

Hmm. Good to know.

Though, are they really mostly physical? Besides the 'named' Arcanas like Blackout and Whiteout (and Animalcule) I seem to get hit by a lot of other union-wide or evne battlefield-wide attacks pretty often, but I can never be sure if they're "attacks" or "spells." At the least I can assume the Gae Bolg is a mystic attack, but hopefully I don't need to deal with that one ever again.

[SenMithrarin85]

DarkScythe eredeti hozzászólása:

Hmm. Good to know.

Though, are they really mostly physical? Besides the 'named' Arcanas like Blackout and Whiteout (and Animalcule) I seem to get hit by a lot of other union-wide or evne battlefield-wide attacks pretty often, but I can never be sure if they're "attacks" or "spells." At the least I can assume the Gae Bolg is a mystic attack, but hopefully I don't need to deal with that one ever again.

They seem to be, yeah. Stuff I thought was mystical (like thunderbreath used by Greater Demons) is actually physical because the ward spell Protection (physical protection) blocks it. Acidbreath and whitebreath used by spiritlords is also physical.

[DarkScythe]

Ah, hm, okay. That is very useful to know; Would be nice if the game actually gave more of this information.

Regardless, it sounds more like going the Shielding / Combat route is the way to go. I think the Vanguard formation is helping against the Dragons' breath attacks at least. As well, Khrynia will more often than not be up in the enemies' faces, since I have a dedicated caster union for the Hexes, Invocations, and Arcanas.

Maybe it'll improve the damage of Dual Snowpetal as well. Finally got to use it once against Bai Ze (everything else I've fought where the option came up has died before they got their turn) and it does look pretty amusing (what are they even attacking?)

Damage-wise, I can't figure out how the game gets its damage numbers for these. I've seen Omnistrike do anywhere from 30k to 90k damage, and the Dual Snowpetal I saw between 20k to like 150k. I don't understand where the huge variance is coming from, and it's at certain points where I wonder if Omnistrike will actually be any better than the "Use Combat Arts!" or "Go all out!" options which has all three members using high level combat arts.

[SenMithrarin85]

DarkScythe eredeti hozzászólása:

Ah, hm, okay. That is very useful to know; Would be nice if the game actually gave more of this information.

Regardless, it sounds more like going the Shielding / Combat route is the way to go. I think the Vanguard formation is helping against the Dragons' breath attacks at least. As well, Khrynia will more often than not be up in the enemies' faces, since I have a dedicated caster union for the Hexes, Invocations, and Arcanas.

Maybe it'll improve the damage of Dual Snowpetal as well. Finally got to use it once against Bai Ze (everything else I've fought where the option came up has died before they got their turn) and it does look pretty amusing (what are they even attacking?)

Damage-wise, I can't figure out how the game gets its damage numbers for these. I've seen Omnistrike do anywhere from 30k to 90k damage, and the Dual Snowpetal I saw between 20k to like 150k. I don't understand where the huge variance is coming from, and it's at certain points where I wonder if Omnistrike will actually be any better than the "Use Combat Arts!" or "Go all out!" options which has all three members using high level combat arts.

I think the damage is based on the user's weapon stats for physical/mystical attack, the user's strength/intelligence and its then boosted by overall morale at the top of the screen. Don't quote me on that though lol

[DarkScythe]

Well, regardless of how it's calculated, it's feeling less and less impressive / reliable as time goes on.. Although, maybe that's because none of my character's weapons are really upgraded... Rush is currently still using a Longsword +1... Heck, Emmy technically has a better weapon with her Longsword +2.

Khrynia should have the most advanced weapon so far with her Demonblade +1, but her stats are so low compared to Rush and co. who went through the Wisdom's Echo grind that she still has trouble keeping up.

Having said that, I just defeated The Fiery Gates at BR59; That was an interesting fight, but since it was basically a souped-up version of the "end of disc 1" fights, I sort of knew how to approach it, which made it infinitely easier. It also dropped an Auld Demonblade, so it should technically be the best weapon in my inventory right now.. except Rush doesn't use Katanas. :/

Knowing it loves constantly retaliating with all his spells and his stupid enthralling of dead unions, I took it slow and beat it virtually exactly the same way I did the first time (except rushing down those stupid trash mobs took a while... it's such a pain when they keep self destructing over and over. And they don't even die when they do that!)

Anyway, Jager managed to get a decently early Lob Omen summon, and that was my Cyclops stand-in for this fight. It tanked the boss while my caster and support unions stayed out of range and healed / attacked from afar, with Rush and Emmy going in occasionally for extra damage, or reviving when necessary, and Jager's group constantly "attacking from the sides" to deal a good chunk of damage safely. Lob Omen got low a few times, but with something like 10 heals all at once, it wasn't going anywhere, haha.

[SenMithrarin85]

Auld weapons are best used for dismantling. You can get jewel steels much easier than farming them in the ancient ruins. Plus because you get them through dismantling, they spread out to everyone who wants them.

[DarkScythe]

Hmm, I see. I'll keep that in mind, since I also seem to have an Auld Broadsword from somewhere. Are you saying they're generally not so good for use as actual weapons?

[SenMithrarin85]

DarkScythe eredeti hozzászólása:

Hmm, I see. I'll keep that in mind, since I also seem to have an Auld Broadsword from somewhere. Are you saying they're generally not so good for use as actual weapons?

Never used them myself. Sometimes party members have requested them (darien once asked for an auld pitchfork). They have good stats, but they dismantle into several jewel steels. Some even dismantle into five of them. I have always found jewel steels to be hard to get hold of in the ruins. Remnant weapons sometimes need 5 of them per upgrade. So it saves a lot of fighting in the long run.

[DarkScythe]

Wow.

So, well, I cleared the Jhana Royals battle pretty easily, and picked up another slew of about a half dozen Auld weapons, but I suppose I should just save them and break them down. Most of my characters wanted to use them, but they all have +1 or +2 weapons, and they're now fairly close to an upgrade that will put them at around, or exceed the stats of the Aulds anyway, while retaining the + bonuses, so I haven't let anyone use them yet.

Unfortunately, it seems like I'm about to bash my head some more into another boss fight that feels eerily reminiscent of the Wyverns I started off this thread with.

Specifically, working on the Idols battle now, but sweet Jesus the bosses in this game are just ridiculously unfair. Not one, but TWO battlefield/area spells per turn that seem to be absolutely unstoppable -- Silence doesn't work, and niether does Cachexia to bring them to zero AP.

Everyone has over 7k health, but they more or less get oneshot by that anyway, and even with 7 healers, it's not enough to keep up with all the damage they all take every half round, and half the time the game decides it's not going to give me any ressurection options even though they have AP and herbs and only 4 command slots shown.

Made it to the Divine Idol, had him blinking, but ugh. Got wrecked at the end with some unlucky damage rolls from the spells.

This will... take some effort. Sigh.

[SenMithrarin85]

The idols are a pain. Cachexia will drain their AP to zero, but it has to be cast at the end of the round. Give the union with cachexia a low mobility formation like Batwings or Pentacle so they always act last. The Icy idol is probably the worst because its acid rains sends your morale into the toilet (assuming you survive the attack that is). Charged and Divine both spam curse and have instakill attacks.

The Enlightened 7 are easier than the idols imo. When you fight the Lost Remnant (basically the Fallen with a 5 turn limit) you'll need to force Cachexia to go off every round to minimise healing. Just turn off all of zolean's spells except cachexia for that fight and have him lead the mystic union. You'll need strong weapons to pile on the damage quickly as well. That'll just leave the white conqueror which'll leave you in a world of pain even with the grind done and your BR over 100...

[DarkScythe]

That's the thing; I was monitoring the attack queue, and they were the last group to attack for that round. After Cachexia went off, I saw the Idol get interrupted with its counterattack which said "Insufficient AP!" but then it immediately moved on to its end-of-turn bombardment attack. I'd understand the start-of-turn attack, since it's a new turn and it'd have generated more AP, but it used the end-of-turn attack literally right after I drained its AP! AND it was silenced! (Wyngale silenced him with some gas that round.)

The main problem is Acid Rain and either of the Insignia bombardments dealing ridiculous amounts of damage -- over 7k per union in some cases, essentially oneshotting them form full health. My guys are already in unions of 3 and 4, and in Vanguard formation. I don't know how else I can mitigate it so I don't spend every turn struggling to heal and revive while Lob Omen tries to whittle down its HP in 3k chunks.

Even worse is when groups start dying and the game just stops giving me resurrection options. Rush was standing around a pile of dead bodies, and the game decided it would give me 3 attack options and no healing or resurrection options at all, even though he had a stock of something like 56 revive herbs.

I don't even know what to do with the Enlightened Seven, Lost or White Conqueror yet.. I'll get there at some point, but I have to make it through this first. Perhaps I'll have to hold off a bit and upgrade everyone's weapons more until they're past the Auld stuff, but then that kind of renders the Auld weapon rewards moot.

As far as BR goes, I'm currently 65... nowhere near 100 yet, haha. Dragons and such are easy, and even Cyclops was manageable since the bombardment only happened once per turn, even if it was unstoppable due to being a start-of-turn attack, but these idols having 2 battlefield spells per turn is just simply unfair.

[SenMithrarin85]

DarkScythe eredeti hozzászólása:

That's the thing; I was monitoring the attack queue, and they were the last group to attack for that round. After Cachexia went off, I saw the Idol get interrupted with its counterattack which said "Insufficient AP!" but then it immediately moved on to its end-of-turn bombardment attack. I'd understand the start-of-turn attack, since it's a new turn and it'd have generated more AP, but it used the end-of-turn attack literally right after I drained its AP! AND it was silenced! (Wyngale silenced him with some gas that round.)

The main problem is Acid Rain and either of the Insignia bombardments dealing ridiculous amounts of damage -- over 7k per union in some cases, essentially oneshotting them form full health. My guys are already in unions of 3 and 4, and in Vanguard formation. I don't know how else I can mitigate it so I don't spend every turn struggling to heal and revive while Lob Omen tries to whittle down its HP in 3k chunks.

Even worse is when groups start dying and the game just stops giving me resurrection options. Rush was standing around a pile of dead bodies, and the game decided it would give me 3 attack options and no healing or resurrection options at all, even though he had a stock of something like 56 revive herbs.

I don't even know what to do with the Enlightened Seven, Lost or White Conqueror yet.. I'll get there at some point, but I have to make it through this first. Perhaps I'll have to hold off a bit and upgrade everyone's weapons more until they're past the Auld stuff, but then that kind of renders the Auld weapon rewards moot.

As far as BR goes, I'm currently 65... nowhere near 100 yet, haha. Dragons and such are easy, and even Cyclops was manageable since the bombardment only happened once per turn, even if it was unstoppable due to being a start-of-turn attack, but these idols having 2 battlefield spells per turn is just simply unfair.

Your physical and mystical defence is tied to your weapons, so upgrading them further will definitely help. The mystic shield formation is supposed to help with mystic defence, but it has never made any difference to me lol.

The icy idol is capable of using acid rain at the beginning and end of the turn. Cachexia has always stopped one of them for me.

[DarkScythe]

Jeez.

All right, so I spent a bit of time today going through and upgrading whatever weapons were easy to do so for a bunch of my characters, although I'm not certain it helped all that much.

Regardless, I decided to try taking him on again (this time at BR69) -- it was messy, but I managed to finally pull through.

What I wound up doing this time was to simply approach the fight differently. Last night I was struggling to keep everyone alive and healed before trying to group up to hit him all at once. This time I decided to go with another approach: My two 'main' melee groups (Rush's and Jager's) were expendable. I sent them up to keep doing damage (I didn't get any summon this time) and regardless of how low their hitpoints were, their task was to keep striking at the Idols even if it killed them.

This effectively meant that (between all the chaos of multiple cursed groups) Rush and Jager alternated being dead, while the other group were smacking the boss. This freed up Emmy and Irina's groups to go around with Kiss of Life / Second Chance, and Pagus' caster group fell back to Revitalize spam to keep everyone up between the end-of-turn spells. Khrynia also learned Moonlight III, so her heals are starting to become very potent, which is amazing.

I THINK this also helped slightly in that my unions were all over the place, and that made the Insignias less able to hit everyone all at once.

Many casualties were had, but in the end only Zolean and Wyngale were unable to reap the benefits of the long fight; None of my groups ever got the option to "Cure their status ailments" since they were part of Pagus' group, and I suppose reviving dead unions took a higher priority.

Only 3 Auld weapons out of that, but at least that's out of the way.
Next round of annoying boss fights, here I come! :/

[SenMithrarin85]

DarkScythe eredeti hozzászólása:

Jeez.

All right, so I spent a bit of time today going through and upgrading whatever weapons were easy to do so for a bunch of my characters, although I'm not certain it helped all that much.

Regardless, I decided to try taking him on again (this time at BR69) -- it was messy, but I managed to finally pull through.

What I wound up doing this time was to simply approach the fight differently. Last night I was struggling to keep everyone alive and healed before trying to group up to hit him all at once. This time I decided to go with another approach: My two 'main' melee groups (Rush's and Jager's) were expendable. I sent them up to keep doing damage (I didn't get any summon this time) and regardless of how low their hitpoints were, their task was to keep striking at the Idols even if it killed them.

This effectively meant that (between all the chaos of multiple cursed groups) Rush and Jager alternated being dead, while the other group were smacking the boss. This freed up Emmy and Irina's groups to go around with Kiss of Life / Second Chance, and Pagus' caster group fell back to Revitalize spam to keep everyone up between the end-of-turn spells. Khrynia also learned Moonlight III, so her heals are starting to become very potent, which is amazing.

I THINK this also helped slightly in that my unions were all over the place, and that made the Insignias less able to hit everyone all at once.

Many casualties were had, but in the end only Zolean and Wyngale were unable to reap the benefits of the long fight; None of my groups ever got the option to "Cure their status ailments" since they were part of Pagus' group, and I suppose reviving dead unions took a higher priority.

Only 3 Auld weapons out of that, but at least that's out of the way.
Next round of annoying boss fights, here I come! :/

You're past one of the hardest dlc bosses. The Lost shouldn't be too much of a problem. Enlightened 7 are definitely easier to take down than the idols imo. Ludope MIGHT be a problem if he casts Galaxy when you're still weakened.

The White Conqueror, unlike others bosses you've fought has "phases". You'll have 4 turns to go all out before he goes into "savage" mode and all hell breaks loose. He has abilities called Seal (very hard ro survive against), Obliterate (like fallen's hand of god: will either fail or wipe out the entire union) and War God which is even harder to survive against. If you have the ward spell Protection, it'll save your neck by voiding one physical attack, keeping a union alive.

He can also use an ability called photon field which sends his evasion through the roof: nothing will hit him, not even cachexia. If that wasn't bad enough, he can also overdrive, which he'll likelty do once his health goes into red. Its best to only keep 2/3 of 5 unions on him once he goes into savage.

Even with BR into the hundreds he is a nightmare.

[DarkScythe]

Ugh.

I don't know about that "hardest of the dlc bosses" stuff.
Currently bashing my head against the Demigod in the Ancient Ruins.

This game seriously hates me, or something. My groups always have like 200 AP but will only ever offer me the 5 AP orders like Knee Splitter the guy, or something. I think I'm going to try disabling every low level combat art, but knowing this game, all that means is my guys will now sit on 200 AP and the only option is to use the basic attack.

Even so, the worst part is the damn Animalcule. Ugh. I don't even know how to stop it. Cachexia isn't catching it, as I've disabled every single skill for Zolean except for Cachexia IV, and even when he casts it, the boss is able to cast Animalcule.

Between the Enthralling, Instakilling, Overdriving, and the mass of "whole battlefield is now rendered useless" spells (take your pick, there seem to be at least 7 of them) I'm getting really sick and tired of these ridiculously cheesy and unfair battles.

Typical Square Enix, I guess?

Edit:
I think I'll have to try again some other time. Ugh.
Hasn't used Animalcule yet, but he has done Fatal Eclipse 3 rounds in a row. Fun.
If not, he's been spamming Bewitch instead. All in all, spending the entire fight healing and nothing to do damage with.