The Sogne fight is bloody terrible

[s_teamboatwillie]

but I suppose it does expose the weakness of every Persona/SMT-style combat system, ever. Which is Pokemon rock/paper/scissors, but just much worse

switch on AI combat and watch it use single-target frostburn heals while getting full-party hit by the frost breath once or twice EVERY TURN. 95% of single target buffs/debuffs/heals are a complete joke

I got the idea of what to do. Take half it's health turn 1 with fire attacks, then switch out every caster because now it's spell-immune. Just cast one spell at the end of each turn so she sets up the spell immunity again. Now the issue is that your whole party is permanently fully debuffed for the rest of the fight, and you can only damage it with physical attacks. And you got use a group that doesn't get hit for any weakness by most attacks, or you risk getting straight up 1-shot whenever the AI feels like it. From what I can tell, that means mostly everyone on warrior

here's the funny thing - they placed the fight in such a way that you can't really prepare for it, grind levels classes or whatever. If you bring an underdeveloped party, I think you might actually have to reload an older save and/or lower difficults

I wonder how this got past testing

[Rainnd]

Use skills/items that let you repel magic, everytime he uses frostbreath he'll loose turns.

[s_teamboatwillie]

Originally posted by Rainnd:

Use skills/items that let you repel magic, everytime he uses frostbreath he'll loose turns.

yeah well, but the game didn't tell me in advance which class gives me repel magic, and the class xp to unlock it, and tell me that I will need it right now

I mean, I do appreciate the advice. But isn't that really bad game design

[mono_sloth]

Originally posted by s_teamboatwillie:

Originally posted by Rainnd:

Use skills/items that let you repel magic, everytime he uses frostbreath he'll loose turns.

yeah well, but the game didn't tell me in advance which class gives me repel magic, and the class xp to unlock it, and tell me that I will need it right now

I mean, I do appreciate the advise. But isn't that really bad game design

Isn't that like one of the earliest synthesis abilities you get with elf ear knight chick? her and mage class literally gives you a magic shield....

[s_teamboatwillie]

Originally posted by mono_sloth:

Originally posted by s_teamboatwillie:

yeah well, but the game didn't tell me in advance which class gives me repel magic, and the class xp to unlock it, and tell me that I will need it right now

I mean, I do appreciate the advise. But isn't that really bad game design

Isn't that like one of the earliest synthesis abilities you get with elf ear knight chick? her and mage class literally gives you a magic shield....

could be knight. If so, I just never used to it, apprantly. Well, I guess I'll try this approach, then

[Rainnd]

For his buffs debuffs you can buy consumable items, that remove all buffs on all enemies or remove all debuffs for you whole party, in the general shop of the last town.

As for makarakarn (skill that repels magic), you get it from lvl 20 faker.

You could also try buying utilitarian manual accessory from magic shop (I believe all magic shops has it) and equiping on your knight so it doesn't cost you 2 turns and you'll need mage, seeker or healer (or their upgraded variants) party memeber to use this synthesis skill. What's great about this synthesis skill it give repel to whole line, so if all your party is at the front, everyone will get magic repel.

[s_teamboatwillie]

Originally posted by Rainnd:

For his buffs debuffs you can buy consumable items, that remove all buffs on all enemies or remove all debuffs for you whole party, in the general shop of the last town.

As for makarakarn (skill that repels magic), you get it from lvl 20 faker.

You could also try buying utilitarian manual accessory from magic shop (I believe all magic shops has it) and equiping on your knight so it doesn't cost you 2 turns and you'll need mage, seeker or healer (or their upgraded variants) party memeber to use this synthesis skill. What's great about this synthesis skill it give repel to whole line, so if all your party is at the front, everyone will get magic repel.

okay, my main character actually has mastered Faker. And has the "heal all negative status effects" ability, too. Got to switch physical attackers to something that doesn't have weakness to the various aoe attacks, and I should probably be good. I wasn't aware that the repel ability is that strong

it's still a very badly designed roadblock, just imo. You can land yourself in an impossible situation, since you have no way to level classes that you may not have, unless you go back to a save file all the way back on the island, which is frankly ridiculous. Or lower the difficulty to practially non-existent, I suppose.

[Rox]

My main gripe with this fight is the constant spamming of the two-stage, party-wide Debilitate and curing itself of any debuffs by its use of Dekunda.

So you basically have to spam Dekunda yourself and not bother with debuffing the boss, which ultimately makes any sort of debuffing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ worthless.

[Prometheus]

Originally posted by Rox:

My main gripe with this fight is the constant spamming of the two-stage, party-wide Debilitate and curing itself of any debuffs by its use of Dekunda.

So you basically have to spam Dekunda yourself and not bother with debuffing the boss, which ultimately makes any sort of debuffing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ worthless.

Bosses that use Dekunda are easier than those that dont. It means you can hit them with an attack that does a debuff as a secondary effect and they will always waste an action on their turn.

[Frogge]

idk I just used dekunda/dekaja and one of the syntehsis skills that give the enemy pierce/slash/blunt weakness to speedrun the first phase and then spammed fire for the second phase.

the spell shield is a red herring and using a def debuf makes the boss waste a turn. its way easier than any of the bosses you are forced to fight on blight/bad weather imo

[archonsod]

Worked out pretty easy for me. Hulkenberg as Paladin using Holy Knight Proclamation sucking up pretty much everything but the tail swipe (frost breath being blocked by the mage) and just having everyone else wail on him till he fell over twice. Given he was averaging 20 damage when clawing Hulkenberg I figured it was borderline over what would happen first, Hulkenberg going down or the inevitable heat death of the universe.

[s_teamboatwillie]

okay, with the jester repel, she didn't even put up the magic shield. I'll maintain that it's just a dumb mechanic

[Laynero]

Most ♥♥♥♥♥♥ moment of the game.

[Laynero]

Idiot, who designed this fight, I hope you happy.

[friketje]

This fight sucks so hard. I didn't had acces to dekunda, so gg. Also couldn't break the barrier.
The difficulty spike is ridiculous. Louis beforehand is a joke. And then this. The game is realy easy before this and out of nowhere you'll need perfect preperation and strategy that requires knowledge of the boss you don't have.

[s_teamboatwillie]

Originally posted by friketje:

This fight sucks so hard. I didn't had acces to dekunda, so gg. Also couldn't break the barrier.
The difficulty spike is ridiculous. Louis beforehand is a joke. And then this. The game is realy easy before this and out of nowhere you'll need perfect preperation and strategy that requires knowledge of the boss you don't have.

all the dragon fights are super gimmick-y like that. The others are "optional", as in, you need those for the "true" ending, but they all need some dumb trick. Honestly, I thought the rest of game after this fight was ... not really good. It could have ended at the opera, for me