(small spoilers) Chapter 4 Optional Boss Fight Strategy

[Chester]

Talkin’ about that Mueller fight baby.

Alright, so at the start of chapter 4 you fight Mueller in a battle that is optional to win. The game will go on no matter the outcome but, well, it’s a lot more fun to say you beat him. Mueller is an absolute monster and it doesn’t help that you fight him with basically one character. So after several attempts I finally took him down on Hard Mode and I thought I'd share some of my tactics. I'm sure this will work very well on Normal mode but on New Game Nightmare I have no idea (I can't even get out of the prologue on Nightmare). Supposedly he’s considerably harder on Nightmare (some say even impossible. But hey, winning this fight is optional and doesn’t seem to net you anything other than pride). So here’s what I did on Hard Mode.

First of all, if you’ve combed the base for treasure chests then you’ve picked up an Attack 3 quartz. I suggest you take out the Information Quartz and move Josh’s EP Quartz over to where it was in that limited Quartz line. Where EP was put the Attack Quartz in the long line. Basically, the important spells to have are Clock Down, Clock Up EX, and Forte, which Attack 3 in that line will give you. If you’re sad about missing out on Mueller’s information, then here’s all the information you need to know: Mueller is really hard.

This fight is going to rely on two basic premises, one of which is that you get two actions to Mueller’s one. This way you can heal yourself from his damage and make headway towards bringing down that massive life total of his. The only way you can effectively do this is to make sure that Mueller has a Clock Down on him and Josh has a Clock Up EX on him – and at least one of those spells must be up at ALL TIMES. Without it, Josh gets one turn to Mueller’s one turn and you’ll have trouble doing much more than healing. You can ignore healing for a round and put one up but Mueller may kill you on that turn (but sometimes you may not have a choice). If only one of those spells is up then you may get one turn or two, but that’s at least enough to heal yourself and wait for a second turn to cast whatever spell isn’t up. Forte will help bring down the number of turns you need to damage Mueller – you want this thing done as soon as possible because you do need to get a little lucky here.

Why do you need to get lucky? Well, that’s the second premise: you are manipulating turn order so that you are in total control of who gets the Bonus Icons next to the battle order. If a “!” bonus comes up, you are 100% getting it (even if you use it to heal instead of attack – Mueller can potentially kill you in one shot if he gets it). If a heart bonus comes up, you are 100% getting it (if Mueller gets it he can heal more than 2000 health – this can really make the fight drag, which is not in your favor). The other bonus icons are nice to get but not as imperative (other than the +50% attack icon, which is basically a “!” icon. You gotta get that too). This can be really tricky at first but if you’re consistently getting two turns to his one, it becomes easier to comfortably manipulate. If a “!” bonus is coming up in two turns, cast Tearal on yourself – this takes two turns but is really only one action and you’ll still get another action with your massive speed bonus, allowing you to now use the “!” turn to damage Mueller. What if it’s coming up in one turn? Then just heal yourself with an item and with your second turn use the “!” for damage. If both speed spells are up you can often use up to four turns before Mueller gets a one – provided you are casting spells, which take up four turns for two actions. The Bonus Icons can completely turn the tide in your favor or completely screw you; it’s tricky and becomes much trickier to predict if only one of the speed spells is up, but you can check where your turn will land on the battle order bar and adjust accordingly. When in doubt always heal first, even if you’re wasting the “!” icon.

As for damage, your best bet is True Dual Strike. This will do close to 1500 damage and closer to 2000 with forte up. Dark Matter does around 1300 and is a good option if you need to use a spell to manipulate the Battle Order, but Dual Strike is generally better. Dual Strike can make use of the Sword Bonus Icons and also, even though you can often get away with casting two spells before Mueller gets a turn, sometimes you can’t, which makes Dual Strike’s immediate activation preferable. You may be worried about using a Craft because it will lower Josh’s CP to below the 200 maximum (you did raise it to 200 coming into this fight, right?). But really, don’t worry about it – Mueller will be doing enough damage to you that it’ll go back up to 200 real quick. Also, I strongly recommend you do NOT use Josh’s S-Craft unless it is going to end the fight. Using it will slow down Josh and mess up his healing/damage rhythm. It is much better to grind away at Mueller gradually than to try to break him down with big hits. Besides, it’s not like it even does much more damage. With Forte up on a “!” Bonus Icon, Josh’s full CP S-Craft did around 4000 damage. With Forte up on a “!” Bonus Icon, Dual Strike did around 3000 damage. Yeah. One slows Josh down and costs 180 CP more. Don’t use it unless it’s going to kill Mueller.

A few other points – Mueller’s regular attack does around 2000 damage to Josh but his Blade Dance will do around 4000 damage, so always keep Josh’s hp above that. Fortunately, Mueller never seems to use Blade Dance twice in a row. If Mueller gets a turn while you’re still casting a spell then he has an attack that will Silence you, preventing the casting, so try to have your spells cast before his turn. Don’t be afraid to use Josh’s items – items used on an “!” are 1.5 times as effective and you have one Tear All which totally heals him, so use it if things get out of hand. Also, Clock Down and Clock Up EX are almost guaranteed to run out at least once before you kill Mueller (hopefully only once if you’re quick). Expect to spend a turn healing and recasting it and pray they don’t run out on the same turn; it may help to stagger the initial castings.

And what about Josette? Well, Josette is useful mainly for one thing: dying. No seriously. The opening turns, when there are no buffs/debuffs up could be very difficult, except Mueller will usually open the match by taking Josette apart, which buys you some time. Spend this time putting up your speed spells/forte and let her die. Josette will be doing literally no damage to Mueller (maybe 1 damage if she’s lucky), though I suppose it could be argued she’s helpful as a decoy for Mueller’s damage. But I don’t like that strategy. For one, Mueller has a group attack so healing the both of you becomes a wasted turn. Secondly, keeping Josette in the fight becomes problematic since she’s going to die a lot and you only have so many reviving items. And thirdly, and most importantly, manipulating the Battle Icons with Josette in the fight becomes MUCH harder. It’s hard enough doing it with two people, let alone a third whose actions you can’t control. And while it’s nice to see her get a heart Bonus Icon instead of Mueller, it’s infuriating to see her get a “!” icon and do 100 damage to Mueller when you could be doing an extra 1000. This is Josh’s fight. Let the Black Fang go to work.

I suspect on Nightmare fighting Mueller may require more of Josh’s Evil Eye or Flicker Crafts, which have a turn order delay.

Anyway, that’s my advice for Hard Mode Mueller. It worked for me but maybe other people have ideas to add or even better strategies. Feel free to write ‘em!

[Plerr]

Interesting read. I'll give it a shot when I challenge him on Hard. I thought he was a beast on Normal only because I thought you had to keep Josette alive like other NPCs.... that battle took MUCH longer than it needed to.

Also I read on some japanese blog that Mueller is the only fight in the game that is literally impossible to win on a NG Nightmare run.

[Arvelon]

Originally posted by chester.longdon:

I suspect on Nightmare fighting Mueller may require more of Josh’s Evil Eye or Flicker Crafts, which have a turn order delay.

But AT Delay dosen't work on him.
Tried it before clock down + clock up ex tactics.

Also, I didn't use Forte, because with healing, icon manipulation and speed buff/debuff renewing i just didn't have time for it. I attacked only once in 3-5 turns.

[omgfloofy]

Your comment on the S-Craft is a very sound one. CP is valuable and you don't want to deal with the linger delay that comes with it if you can help it- it can easily get you killed.

I just recently did one of the solo fights in 3rd on Nightmare, and losing the turns you could use to heal and buff ruined me multiple times in it. This definitely remains a solid thing to consider in any fight, no matter the difficulty level you're playing.

Great post, though! I hadn't played SC on hard or nightmare like I have with 3rd. If I do, I'll look back to this one for advice since I know I'll get hung up on this fight.

[butterbattle22]

A very thorough and well-reasoned analysis. Kudos to you, OP.

Even on normal mode, Josette only does about 100 damage and gets murdered immediately.

[kryuzei]

I really hate how you need to restart the previous fight just to fight Mueller again.

[Too1337]

Thank you for this!

[Oguzhan]

Really detailed, well put and passionate post. Kudos!!!

As for his nightmare fight:

I am not sure but he might be nigh impossible on Nightmare. I always play this game on Nightmare and I am yet to beat him sadly. If you are going for ALL information, I highly recommend just doing an easy, normal or hard mode run and get it that way. After that, you can simply carryover information (thank you for letting us choose what we carryover Falcom. This way I don't feel cheap for doing a NG+ run).

If I had to rate the fight on Nightmare, it might actually be the hardest fight in the game to BEAT. Only 1 character, he does an insane amount of damage which makes doing your setups really difficult. I am sure it is possible to beat him but I am not that good NOR do I care because I already have his info and the fight gives you nothing. Also, enforcer or not, Josh doesn't stand a chance against the blade of THIS Vander. Before anyone brings up Loewe vs Josh, that is more of a fight of ideologies and conviction. Loewe could have EASILY beaten Josh, getting him off-guard or not doesn't matter.

[Chester]

Oh man, thanks for the good will. I wrote this post... 300 years ago? Whatever, I love this game and I'm old. I hope this write up helps some people break through some of the challenging walls this game puts up. It's fun to smash through them on your own but sometimes... it's good to have a little help.

Nightmare is basically a different game and personally I loved it (though expect to restart a fight 10 times to find the right balance and shift your strategy EVERY FIGHT). Hunter Rassius has a great strategy guide floating around on here for basically every challenging fight and Walke (Walke_893) has some good commentary on actually beating Mueller on Nightmare. It can be done, though I agree it is absolutely the most challenging fight in the game (probably the entire series) if only due to the restrictions given to you. As I recall (when brainstorming about this 300 years ago) it requires grinding up a couple levels and abusing/getting lucky with Sylphen Guard (+50% AGL), taking advantage of every time Mueller misses due to increased agility.

That's one thing I love about this game. Sylphen Guard is a spell I'll bet most people ignore the entire game. And it is the key to beating the hardest fight in this game.

Alright. Time to go back under for another 300 years...

[yay_1]

I'm an SC Nightmare NG player and I beat Mueller recently.

By far the hardest fight I've yet faced, and the one I spent the most time grinding. Took about 150 attempts spread out over four days

He is an unfair monster against whom you cannot even go toe to toe with unless you have Sylphen Guard, Clock Up EX and Clock Down all active, ALL THE TIME. That's your starting line. You lose if you get into a healing loop, he can mute you if he doesn't like what you're scheming, and he will do -at least- 3x as much damage to you as you will to him. You could be completely annihilating him with heals and crafts left, right and center and he can turn it all around in a single hit if he feels like it.

I went into this fight with max HP and EP and 200CP, obtained by defeating the soliders with just enough exp that winning that fight levels you up (76 to 77, which awards True Black Fang). You get 4 exp from the soldier fight at 76 so you have to start planning your exp grinding about 100 to 200 in advance so you're 4 or less exp under 77 at the time you get it. I beat the soldiers easily by cheesing Chaos Brand and melee attacks or Soul Blur, so I made sure i had enough EP and HP to carry that out.

My Mueller strat was to prioritize Sylphen Guard > Clock Up EX > Clock Down and then counting turns so I knew when they were going to expire. Although I tried to time my buffs so that they would go back up the same turn they went down, I prioritized doing them at a -safe- time rather than at the -ideal- time. Worst thing was when I was due to recast and he got a hit on me which required me to heal, throwing my buff/debuff rhythm out and leaving myself exposed. If you're fighting at any time with -any- of those three down, you're at a disadvantage. When it came to combat, I only fought offensively if I had all my buffs up and had enough HP to survive two melee attacks from him (usually over 7200 at level 77). Any combat outside of these parameters is taking a gamble and putting your life in the hands of the rng gods, which is imo completely unavoidable. You cannot beat Mueller on mastery of the combat system alone. He is just too strong. The best you can do is minimize your exposure to it. On my successful run I definitely got caught in a pinch more times than I was comfortable with and had had similarly good or better runs ended by being on the losing side of the gamble.

I used every trick in the book imaginable to ensure that MUELLER WAS NOT GETTING BONUSES. Any bonus to him other than EP or CP is a big problem. +50 str Blade Dancer is 7500 damage. Do anything you have to to keep them out of his grubby hands. Keeping bonuses away from him is more important than using them yourself. Don't go on the offensive with a +50 str if it only results in short-term damage gains. I wasted many str bonuses on casting heal arts. I even considered using a Tear at 100% health just to make sure he wouldn't get an HP bonus, because a +10% heal for him is 2543 health and that is enough to set me back three offensive hits, but I had some fantastic rng and was able to at one point get FIVE cloak and daggers on him. There were at least three occasions in which i was -totally- reliant on rng to save me.

These are your options to help manipulate turn order:
- Using an item. The fastest and keeps turns flowing normally. Good if Mueller's next turn has no bonus but the one after it does, and using an art pushes his turn down into the bonus turn.
- Using an art. Arts have different speeds. I found Tear was the fastest and i used it to secure a bonus on the next turn if Teara couldn't. Sylphen Guard seemed to be high speed too, which helped when I didn't need to heal and wanted to reset my Agility buff's turn count. Clock Up EX and Clock Down seemed to be slower than the heals and Sylphen Guard, and they were the reason I got muted twice. I think Mueller will automatically use Mirage Edge if your art's cast turn will be delayed and he gets a turn in. I didn't think about that until writing this just now, but that oversight explains why I got muted twice in a row. Also, based on this fight alone, I cannot determine what speed an offensive art has, since I used them so sparingly. The one time I did (Blue Impact), it had no delay and was cast on the next turn.
- Using a craft. Cloak and Dagger and Dual Strike seemed to be the fastest crafts, followed by Flicker and then Evil Eye. I rotated between crafts depending on what kinds of outcomes they had on the turn rhythm. I used faster ones when I wanted to secure bonuses that were coming up immediately and slower ones when I saw bonuses a bit further down.

For what it's worth, I didn't plan my turns more than three or four turns in advance. You have greater flexibility when it comes to securing immediate bonuses, but there will be situations where you just can't take them off him no matter what options you have.


TIPS:
- Using a healing item during a crit bonus turn also applies the 1.5x bonus to the heal
- Do not EVER use your S-Craft unless it is for the guaranteed kill. Crit, +50 str, doesn't matter. If he survives, your speed bonuses seem to vanish and you're exposed to up to three consecutive turns from him. Happened to me a bunch. Otherwise, you'll do like max 3500 to him and he'll laugh it off over your corpse
- Don't worry too much about getting EP or CP bonuses for yourself. I found that i was consistently making back all the CP i was spending just from getting hit by him, and I only had to use EP Charge II and no others. HP bonuses and crits are really important for you because they will gain you extra health
- Don't favor a single offensive move. Cloak & Dagger is fast and helps you proc a double turn sooner, but you have to determine whether or not you actually want that right immediately. That double turn opportunity may be useful later on if you use something slower and "save it". Having the freedom to make those choices that can benefit at a more critical time is more important than doing damage in the first 80% of the fight. However, I went for damage using Dual Strike under two conditions: if I was in a position to attack (all three buffs/debuffs + >7200HP) AND crit/+50str bonus, OR if using it helped me control the turn order better and return me to my turn rhythm when something threw it out. I usually used it when i could see bonuses a couple turns down the line and was helping set up for them. I did occasionally also use Flicker if i wanted to use an offensive move that was even slower than the other two.
- Don't hold onto your Curia Balms. The moment you get muted, use them. If your buffs and debuffs are all up, you should be able to recast without delay
- I don't have much advice regarding when to use your Tear All Balm. It basically gives you a free +1 in terms of turns because it's effectively two Tearas at once. For perspective, I used mine about 2 minutes into the 13-minute fight because I wanted to avoid a potential heal loop
- You can use an offensive art if you find it's to your advantage. At one point my Crafts weren't pushing my next turn up to get a health bonus out of his hands, and I was at 100% health, so I used Blue Impact on him one time for 1260 damage
- Forget Josette exists. She is a meat shield and her only role is to distract Mueller for a turn or two (She can survive one Ragna Bind hit). And don't even bother thinking she will be an offensive aid in this fight. She will deal either 0 or 1 damage, or a "pitiful" 500 with a str bonus. She's a darling for sticking by your side through this but sorry tomboy. I think I started to like her a lot more based on that choice

I crunched some numbers on my run and I actually overkilled him by a fair margin. I dealt 35000 damage, because of his three +10% heals (+2543), and I didn't use my S-craft until he only had 375 HP remanining, in which it inflicted another 2200 damage.

Here are some helpful stats:

Number of times he hit me: 24 (melee attack), 1 (Ragna Bind), 2 (Mirage Edge - the muting attack)
Number of times i hit him: 19 (cloak and dagger), 3 (dual strike- at least one was a critical)
Number of times he missed an attack that wasn't blade dancer: 21 (melee attack), 1 (Ragna Bind), 1 (Mirage Edge)
Number of blade dancers he hit: 6
Number of blade dancers he missed: 4 (one was with a +50 str... absolutely bodied if it had hit)
Number of times he muted me: 2 (both consecutively)
Finisher Move: S-Craft Black Fang @142CP for 2179 damage (no bonuses)

https://youtu.be/HUE_fthJpYg

[Oguzhan]

Very informative. Good to see it is possible, as hard as it is. The video was nice too.