Postgame Ch. 34 - boss is sending me (to the death screen)

[Anima]

(spoilers obvs, but i did keep most of them tagged)

I'm being absolutely tossed like a salad by the boss of this extra chapter Dominus. Using Sunshine and Liberating Fang gets me to almost halfway with luck, but that's about all I can manage. Sure, I could be a better gamer, but the difficulty spike between this and literally the rest of the game is ridiculous. No items + one party member, I'm suffering out here. Not to mention there's plot behind this, they absolutely just ruined our party's lives and had a potential resolution behind a jacked up superboss.

Tips appreciated, also want to know who else is suffering.

Freakin' consul skeletal grabby hands. Hate 'em.

[VertVentus]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Reynatis/comments/1fus76b/comment/lq2l741/

Originally posted by Myself:

JP Twitter also noted how difficult it was, some going 27 or 40 losses back to back.

So it seems like you can't use items, Burst Time is disabled from half HP, and your MP is constantly draining, so you need to be Lv. 99 with MP Infinity (all skills maxed out across all 6 characters)?

https://twitter.com/periodas931/status/1841038521869431082 Here's a sub 2 minute no damage clear with high Stress, Liberating Fang for phase 1 then Hound Storm spam phase 2. They have their abilities in a comment below: MP Infinity (max out skill/ability levels across every character), Awakening Up, Magic Power Up, Infighter, Caligula.

https://twitter.com/tukuyomiblossom/status/1841303251976880173 Another person who also spammed Hound Storm, as there's some invincibility frames on activation on top of the cutscene slow motion.

https://twitter.com/HeartorYou1/status/1841399688492372226 Another person who spammed Hound Storm. Their abilities are Awakening Up, Magic Power Up, Caligula, Infighter, MP Infinity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uueA-1ty3yI Here's a sub 5 minute clear. They also opt for Hound Storm spam but do demonstrate the dodge timing on the giant AoE sword spam. This one went private... So I'll post instead a 12 minute clear with Sunshine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZPqhLrDMcE

https://twitter.com/Sakurasawa381/status/1841849674661277723 Another 2 minute run. MP Infinity, Precision Up, Long Ranger, Monark, Combo Effect Up, slightly faster.

[Anima]

Thanks! Didn't know there was a subreddit, and thank goodness for JP twitter.

[Alice]

I'll give some tips too in case someone wants them, I just beat him.

I recommend using Hound's Straight too, it does a decent amount of damage, it's fast and it has really good mobility between stances where you are too far away and need to cut distance fast while doing some damage.

Pay close attention to the phase you are in (For what I noticed, it changes every time he does his Final Menace) as this will affect they way he attacks. It won't change the attack in itself, but it will add more and more steps and will proceed to the next attack faster (leaving less breathable room between his attacks, basically). I try to avoid burst starting from 2nd phase because he would usually iframe it.

[VertVentus]

Hound's Straight is interesting, while I saw someone get a 1 minute clear with Hound's Thrust with double the Power%.
https://twitter.com/periodas931/status/1842494457226412390

It is worth noting that the boss has lower Defense of C (Melee) compared to their Shot Defense of S (Long-Range), so that's why it's quicker compared to Hound Storm (Long-Range) spam, even if it's more safe via i-frames.

But yeah, I think the general properties of the fight are:

• No items.
  
• Need to time dodges for the sword rain in a circle around them thrice. Or shell out for the Radiance auto-dodge DLC if you're really struggling.
  
• Half HP seems immune to your Burst Liberations.
  
• Can't get too far away or you yourself will get Burst Liberation'd.
  
• You can jump over his telegraphed red circle AoE while Liberated, but I think the timing is tight.
  
• You can deal enough damage during phase 1 and use your Final Menace to skip his first sword rain FM.

[BLANK]

I noticed that the dmg I deal compared to the videos seems to be lower. Have they nerfed the dmg or something? Same level both melee up skills equipped paired with final menance and infinite mp and this is at lv99. I can spam lib or wolf thrust or iframes but I noticed that the dmg is fairly different

[VertVentus]

Are you at 99% Stress too? That's the red aura around Marin, one perk about all 3 Additional Episodes is that you need to start them with 99% Stress. You can't build it up by intentionally being Liberated to go trending, and you have to flee from optional encounters or it'll reduce Stress by 20% each time you win.

Me personally, I won twice with Hound Storm spam at 99% Stress but my first attempt was low HP and never triggered his FM. My second one I was full HP but managed to dodge his FM. Both times I used a Turbo Controller.
I also almost won a third time inbetween, but I got chipped during his FM and greedy trying to use my FM when he was at 6k HP remaining.

[BLANK]

Yeah 99% stress but when I watched the video I can see 6k-7k+ worth of dmg for wolf thrust or 1.3k-2k+ dmg for lib swords. Is there crit on this game? I don't think so since none of the stats makes any sense

[Alice]

I had a similar issue at the time, also had 99% stress but it felt like I did no damage with some of these skills, however I did have some defensive stuff. After watching the video, I tried that set up and got fairly close with: Awakening Up, Magic Power Up, Infighter, Caligula and something else that I cant remember rn (and im not in my PC atm, I can check it better tomorrow) but its also one of the offensive options.

[VertVentus]

That's pretty much it, don't forget to charge the Hound's Thrust attack itself by holding the button before releasing for more hits and the explosion.

• Melee (Hound's Thrust) = Magic Power Up (Attack), Awakening Up (Attack & Shot Attack), Infighter (+20% Melee), Caligula (+15% Melee, you can also see Caligula on Marin's body)
  
• Long-Range (Hound's Storm) = Precision Up (Shot Attack), Awakening Up, Long Ranger (+20% Long-Range), Monark (+15% Long-Range)

They also forego MP Infinity I think for perfectly timed melee evades that fill the entire MP bar and the 11 hits, probably for Combo Effect Up because they reached 50% damage bonus earlier with 70 hits (normally you'd reach 30% without it).
If you don't time it, then you get a fraction of the MP bar and only 1 hit, then can't Burst Liberate for the slow motion effect to wail phase 1 with normal attacks + Liberating Fang into a Final Menance, so you could replace Awakening Up instead of MP Infinity for Combo Effect Up.

Magic Resist. Up is Defense (Enemy Melee Attack, which Dominus has an SS rating of), Interference Up is Shot Defense (Enemy Long-Range Shot Attack, which Dominus has a C rating of), Comprehension Up is both, but that won't help you here even at 0% Stress for +20% Defense.

[Umigatsu]

MP Infinity + Hound's Storm + Wizart to buff shot attacks and HP.
Hound's Storm can stop locked him + gives you invulnerability frames if you mash it.
It should remove around 10k HP of the boss

[BLANK]

Ok big news! Manage to finish the fight... got lucky but I'll take it! So I had awakening, final menace, mp infi and combo boost for passive. I had lib fang and wolf storm for attack. Start of fight, domi daddy does this big mp absorb move! Make sure to dodge this and activate liberation, then attack + lib spam to get ult

Here's the big thing let lib finish first, if he does the zoomie big scythe OTKO move, where he slices you multiple times then use it, if he does the big upward swing make sure to use lib fang at least once before using ult.

This causes the boss to send out his own lib fang and once you end ult animation there's a high chance to get another free lib mode. Then repeat!

Note: he seems to spam lib fangs if you also uses yours, so i make sure there are one or two instances of lib fang to ensure that I get free lib mode

Also I think the main key here is skipping the sword rain, as if you skip it, it makes him unable to use the anti lib mode skill he has, although his AI seems to break as he spams zoomies big scythe Marluxia attack, if he does this and he should be around 150k or less hp, then spam wolf's storm for the i-frames...

Lastly, the only attack you need to watch out for again is the big scythe multi hit one and try to keep the combo going as I saw my ult do 10k at least 2-3 times and that was at 130+ combo? I might be wrong but i was in pure gamer mode so mb if this wasn't accurate
Honestly I got lucky with this soul like boss man i think I had 500+ run or something.... heck I even considered opening the last wizard passive slot

PS... wtf is that ending???? :( so back to Kingdom Hearts solo mc then?

[Anima]

Originally posted by BLANK:

PS... wtf is that ending???? :( so back to Kingdom Hearts solo mc then?

I like to think that (joke theory) the mayor absorbs his powers and becomes the new protagonist

[BLANK]

Originally posted by Anima:

Originally posted by BLANK:

PS... wtf is that ending???? :( so back to Kingdom Hearts solo mc then?

I like to think that (joke theory) the mayor absorbs his powers and becomes the new protagonist

So uh why did Michiro became the antagonist? And there's no way its over an argument

[Anima]

Originally posted by BLANK:

So uh why did Michiro became the antagonist? And there's no way its over an argument

Honestly still trying to figure that one out. Maybe somehow he thought being a scapegoat/sacrifice would make our guy realize "the necessity of love"? Maybe he was contacted by the Consul (does that even make sense. I don't think so)? I need someone to dissect this for me.