How useful is Yin Yang quartz?

[jonfield]

I am playing on Hard mode, and the optional "Missing Guest" boss fight with the penguin army is a bit too difficult, so I feel like giving up and moving on with the main story. Is the Yin Yang quartz you get as a reward for winning that fight really something I will miss having later in the game?

[EverNight]

My memory is that it's just a nice to have not a huge deal. I think it combines haze and heal into 1 quartz.

[RapidFirE]

It's a nice quartz to have for Kloe since she has 3 water slots. What about the fight is giving you trouble?

[Berahlen]

It's Haze with +Water, which is super nice because you always want at least one water around anyway.

That said, the penguin army is an utter pain in the ass on Hard or higher, and pretty much the worst thing you fight until the very endgame. I...think you can synth Yin-Yang in the final dungeon?

[jonfield]

Originally posted by RapidFirE:

It's a nice quartz to have for Kloe since she has 3 water slots. What about the fight is giving you trouble?

Well I haven't tried using Clock Up Ex as a strategy yet, so I might give it a few more shots with that equipped. My party just gets buried in status effects and it makes it hard to do much of anything... I've gotten close to winning a few times but my near-successful attempts seem more based on lucky RNG rather than anything repeatable i'm doing

[RapidFirE]

Clock up on all party members and clock down on the boss is always a good strategy for any boss. I can't remember if the penguin resists clock down or not. Its a good idea to always use kaempfer as well if it doesn't get resisted. If you get bogged down with status effects, lichtkreis can also save you

[Serval]

Ying Yang is one of the few quartzes Kloe can utilize with other water quartes without getting too much water "charges" in line.

Clock Up Ex and Clock Down are a must on most of the boss fights where they are not resistant to it. Speed is your bread and butter in this game meaning making more useful actions more quickly. If you're on Hard or higher you shouldn't ignore speed. On normal it's not that critical imo.

[jonfield]

WOW okay well I finally just won the fight after all. The three changes I made to my strategy were first to use Agate's Beatdown 2 right out of the gate to kill one of the green penguins that shoot fish. Second I made sure to use Clock Up Ex on Zin as well as Zin's own strength buff to pummel the boss faster and harder. Then lastly I went ahead and used the Agate Wild Rage 2 craft to cheese with S-Break.

[Berahlen]

Clock Up EX is basically a mandatory buff for the rest of the game. Earth Wall too.

The big penguin himself is actually pretty easy, but the problem is thinning the field down to JUST him without losing anyone or letting the NPC die.