Need some tips for facing the Sealed Demon

[Federico]

My party's currently level 17 and I'm finding it quite difficult to overcome this fight. I'm mainly concerned about the following:

- Lack of party damage: Only the fighter seems to consistently deal ~45 damage, assuming I cut the enemy's defense by half first. Even with that debuff (and using a blue skill) the Thief only manages a measly ~17 damage. The wizard *can* hit similar numbers to the fighter but it requires disenchanting and I usually need to use him for heals all the time.

- High enemy damage: This is par for the course, but the fire attack does half my party's HP. A wizard's Heal isn't quite enough to bump them back up but it's close enough I guess. Lacerate can easily do 65% of a character's HP.

- Darkness: I have no reliable way to remove this except for Remedies and the amount of actions it takes really puts you back from the POV of the action economy. Is there something I'm missing? Considering that blindness affects all offensive actions (including spells) it seems like something I *need* to deal with.

- Void: I'm unsure what this does but I'm fairly certain it's a debuff of some kind? Does anyone know?

I'm thinking I might have to come back later. I'm unsure how many HP it has but I feel at some point it just wears me down. As soon as a character goes down, it's fairly hard to come back from it.

Tips?

[Critical Games]

Hi Federico - sorry for the delayed response! It's been years since I last played this fight, but I still had some of my old save files (and I know what the boss' abilities do). So hopefully I'll be able to help! Note that this is definitely one of the hardest fights in the game, but you're not too underlevelled. It looks like I did this fight at level 18 or 19 on my last test playthrough.

Note that if you don't have any other Ultimate Weapons or Armour, it might be worth doing some of the other side-quests to get them, as that'll make it a lot easier. I can detail them if you need help there =)

Lack of Party Damage: I've just done a run of this boss without any Ultimate Weapons or Armour, and I can get my damage a lot higher. Specifically, if I inflict the boss with the Broken and Disenchanted statuses to lower its Physical and Magical Defence stats, then Copycat with Thief deals over 70 damage, and Mage's Water 3 spell deals in the mid 80s. The boss has 1000 HP, so with Warrior dealing 40 with normal attacks (or more with Dazing Blow), it shouldn't take *too* long to bring the enemy down.

High Enemy Damage: My general strategy was that if someone needed healing, I'd make healing them up a priority. So I'd leave one character attacking, and have the other two heal up. I was level 19, and Lacerate was doing around 45% of my HP (depending on who it hits, due to the colour element system). But if you can get some of the other Ultimate Armour, that would probably help mitigate the damage a lot.

Darkness: So Blind has an 80% chance of disappearing after 2 turns (after which it will run that calculation every turn if Blind hasn't yet been removed). Remedies are the only other way to deal with it, sorry. The way I tackled it was to use a Remedy on one character (so that I could keep someone attacking), and then to re-up my debuffs on the boss and do some healing with the other characters. Certainly, though, there's an element of RNG.

Void: This ability doesn't inflict any debuffs - rather, it removes your positive debuffs. So if you've got Haste, Barrier, or Sharp on your characters, Void will remove those statuses. So the idea was that this a boss where you'll spend less time buffing your own characters, and more time debuffing the enemy.

Honestly, there are some things I'd adjust about this battle now (I made this in 2014/2015), and 8-Bit Adventures 1 has a very limited system when it comes to showing Buffs and Debuffs, which makes the messaging a little confusing, so I apologise for that. But I hope this info helps =D

[Federico]

!! NOTE FOR READERS: SIDE QUEST SPOILERS BELOW !!

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a thorough response!

Since I started the topic, I've gone back and attempted some of the other side missions as the only piece of Ultimate Armour I had was the knight's helmet (which I believe you obtain by satiating the culinary appetite of a soldier in Azurerus.)

So far, the only thing I've found success with is storming the pirate's ship. I'm currently bashing my head against the boss atop the Skyforge (and I've had to retreat from Missing No. to formulate a different strategy or level up some more.) In both cases I think an extra level or perhaps a better strategy could do the trick. Generally speaking, I find the difficulty in these side quests to be similar: if one turn goes wrong, I'm unlikely to recover.

Thank you so much for the mechanical explanations! That's one of the things I missed so much when playing the game though I totally understand the technical limitations of the engine.

Originally posted by Critical Games:

Lack of Party Damage: I've just done a run of this boss without any Ultimate Weapons or Armour, and I can get my damage a lot higher. Specifically, if I inflict the boss with the Broken and Disenchanted statuses to lower its Physical and Magical Defence stats, then Copycat with Thief deals over 70 damage, and Mage's Water 3 spell deals in the mid 80s. The boss has 1000 HP, so with Warrior dealing 40 with normal attacks (or more with Dazing Blow), it shouldn't take *too* long to bring the enemy down.

By cutting the boss defense in half I was able to do ~45 damage with Dazing Blow, and around ~30 damage with Copycat. I do not know if Disenchanting will have further effects on the knight & thief attacks but I'll give it a spin! Knowing the total HP of the boss is *mega* useful.

Originally posted by Critical Games:

High Enemy Damage: My general strategy was that if someone needed healing, I'd make healing them up a priority. So I'd leave one character attacking, and have the other two heal up. I was level 19, and Lacerate was doing around 45% of my HP (depending on who it hits, due to the colour element system). But if you can get some of the other Ultimate Armour, that would probably help mitigate the damage a lot.

I've taken this tip to heart. Sadly the knight is quite pitiful at party healing (Heal does ~48 healing to every member) but it can definitely come in clutch. I find most boss party-wide attacks do at least 55-60% of my HP, which I can sort of deal with. It gets difficult if my haste drops and they manage another attack before I can get my healing in though =P

Originally posted by Critical Games:

Honestly, there are some things I'd adjust about this battle now (I made this in 2014/2015), and 8-Bit Adventures 1 has a very limited system when it comes to showing Buffs and Debuffs, which makes the messaging a little confusing, so I apologise for that. But I hope this info helps =D

The game works *extremely* well, given the limitations of the engine. I too despair for knowing the state of the debuffs (in particular when I've slashed their defenses AND have poison going) but it's understandable.

I'll keep on trucking!

PS: Since I have you here, 2 questions.
1) Is the weapon icon on the skills at all related to the weapon equipped by the character? That is, do those skills get a buff if you're equipping that type of weapon?
2) Why does Scorch often do 0 damage when targeting green enemies? Oil spill never does even when targeting the same enemies and it's one of the things I'm still racking my brain trying to figure out =P

[Critical Games]

Originally posted by Federico:

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a thorough response!

I'll keep on trucking!

PS: Since I have you here, 2 questions.
1) Is the weapon icon on the skills at all related to the weapon equipped by the character? That is, do those skills get a buff if you're equipping that type of weapon?
2) Why does Scorch often do 0 damage when targeting green enemies? Oil spill never does even when targeting the same enemies and it's one of the things I'm still racking my brain trying to figure out =P

You're very welcome Federico! Thanks for playing the game =D

If you're having trouble with some of the side-quests, maybe you could try going to the Final Dungeon first and doing part of that content - just in case you find that an easier way to gain some more experience and items. The point of no-return is clearly marked, so have no worries about overstepping it =)

To answer your questions:
1) The weapon icon on the skills is just representative of the attack and animation. So it's only visual; it doesn't change the strength of the skills themselves.
2) I'm really sorry to hear that! I honestly don't know why they would be. I just tested it out on my end to make sure, and it worked as normal - e.g. Scorch dealt 64 damage to a green enemy. The damage calculation pulls from Thief's Dexterity and Agility stats, but it'd be strange for them to be low enough for the attack to do 0 damage. So that's a confusing one for us both XD

[Federico]

Originally posted by Critical Games:

If you're having trouble with some of the side-quests, maybe you could try going to the Final Dungeon first and doing part of that content - just in case you find that an easier way to gain some more experience and items. The point of no-return is clearly marked, so have no worries about overstepping it =)

Oh that does it! I was worried I'd miss the cut-off point. I might just keep going for a bit first then. To be honest, I've been trying with these side quests for a few days now and I'm itching to get back to the main story proper =D

Originally posted by Critical Games:

To answer your questions:
1) The weapon icon on the skills is just representative of the attack and animation. So it's only visual; it doesn't change the strength of the skills themselves.
2) I'm really sorry to hear that! I honestly don't know why they would be. I just tested it out on my end to make sure, and it worked as normal - e.g. Scorch dealt 64 damage to a green enemy. The damage calculation pulls from Thief's Dexterity and Agility stats, but it'd be strange for them to be low enough for the attack to do 0 damage. So that's a confusing one for us both XD

Thanks a lot for the clarification! Scorch only *sometimes* does the 0 damage thing (just often enough to be noticeable) so it's really nothing to worry about.

I know you're working hard with the recent release of 8-Bit Adventures 2, so I won't keep you any longer. Thanks for helping out!

PS: I really *do* love the game. Been getting all my friends who can get on board with the old-school structure and aesthetics to give it a go. Can't wait to try Tales Across Time and the 8-Bit Adventures 2 when I'm done.

[Critical Games]

Originally posted by Federico:

Oh that does it! I was worried I'd miss the cut-off point. I might just keep going for a bit first then. To be honest, I've been trying with these side quests for a few days now and I'm itching to get back to the main story proper =D

I'm glad that helps! I'm always worried about missing the cut-off point in RPGs myself, so I try to make sure that it's very clearly told to the player in my own games =D

Originally posted by Federico:

Thanks a lot for the clarification! Scorch only *sometimes* does the 0 damage thing (just often enough to be noticeable) so it's really nothing to worry about.

I know you're working hard with the recent release of 8-Bit Adventures 2, so I won't keep you any longer. Thanks for helping out!

PS: I really *do* love the game. Been getting all my friends who can get on board with the old-school structure and aesthetics to give it a go. Can't wait to try Tales Across Time and the 8-Bit Adventures 2 when I'm done.

That's so strange about Scorch! After all these years, it's hard to know where or why that would be, so I really appreciate your understand there.

And you're very welcome! I'm happy to help in any way and at any time that I can Federico, so just let me know if you have any other issues =) I really appreciate the kind words and support, and I hope you'll really love 8-Bit Adventures 2 especially, as it follows on directly from the first game =D