Shadow Hearts 3 challenge: Wrapping up disc 1 North America.
First off, I head to Arkham and do the first round of trials. Even with two PCs, two of the challenges are very easy (heck, one even "restricts" you to two PCs! Haha). The other two not so much.
Basic Beastology II's restriction is that you must not let any enemies get turns. The first two fights aren't so bad (the first is against three thugs from the Chelsea theatre, second against Prison Guards from Alcatraz) but the third is rough. Four mafia thugs who have ~170 HP and require two solid hits to go down. It's not really feasable until after Vegas and even then it's dicy. Basically the PCs get six actions max (first PC doubles, second D-Combos, first PC doubles again). Two of the enemies start grouped together, and the combo of Red Bounce and Bright Rage takes them out (hits both their weaknesses). The others are solo but again can die to combos. However, one mistake spells doom here, as does running out of MP midfight (which totally happens to me one on attempt.
Basic Beastology IV requires you kill a 35-HP boss who takes 1 damage from everything, but the last hit must have 30 hits. To make matters worse this boss is Ronwei which means your Stock is getting owned if you don't do it right away. Special skills (including Shania's) are banned here, so stellar magic is the only answer. Even after Vegas, the four highest-hit spells available (the two earth and wind spells) do only 5+7+8+9 = 29 hits between them, not enough! But wait! You get a bonus hit for knocking an aired enemy into the ground, and Gale Rod (the 7-hit wind spell) does in fact knock enemies down. So there's the thirtieth hit. Anyway, use two non-Shania PCs (Johnny and Ricardo for me), have the first PC use one of the high-hit spells, then unleash the aforementioned combo using a D-Combo followed by a Double, collect 15 silver points and a statue for Shania.
So now let's talk about Chichen Itza randoms. (1 reset)
Eliops are little pests. They don't do too much damage (4-5HKO) and can be OHKOed easily enough with Red Bounce or Shania physicals, but you can see up to four of them at once and if they get a second turn they will double for actually significant damage. They also use Fast Ring status which is a bit dickish and can help you screw up so that they see that second turn.
Jig Ruta are light mages who need two hits to go down. They're vulnerable to Instant Death and you get that as a ring status in this dungeon which could help, but I never actually get it to land. They use either Bright Oracle (kinda not too scary due to their crappy SAtk, despite hitting Shania weakness) or stock-breaking attacks which are much more annoying. They can also cast Arc Shield to make physicals less effective, although the only enemy that this makes particularly tankish is the Guanna.
Speaking of which, Guannas are big ol' bags of HP who immune most everything status-wise you'd like to hit them with. Their own turns aren't too scary, either relatively undamaging Red Bounce or a decently damaging (3HKO Johnny, 4HKO Shania) physical that inflicts Apathy, a relatively benign status that mostly prevents you from profitting from the long fights against them. Rage Shania just misses the 2HKO, so Johnny can chip in for the victory.
The scariest fights are probably against four Eliops and one Jig Ruta, which can definitely get out of control. Ambushes by anything are also potentially deadly.
Jeb Niglas (1 reset)
This challenge makes bosses feel very durable, and Jeb is yet another improvement in this regard. 350 more HP than the previous boss and only somewhat better PC offence (new belts and a few levels) means he takes even longer. Dunno how long this trend will continue!
Many of the same strategies that worked against Edna applied here. Johnny's Arc Cure, Rage, and Dark Edge (Jeb's light element) are still useful, as are Shania's smash-face (particularly Hard Hit), Red Nova, Howling, and Cure Plus. Johnny also may chip in Hard Hits or Red Novas if necessary. Evil Shade is an option over Red Nova, but "even laggier than Red Nova" isn't my cup of tea even though it does a lot more damage (though needlessly higher MP cost).
Jeb himself is kinda badass. He'll occasionally use Seal (which I don't have a blocker for), which is MT, quick recharge, ~50% accurate like Edna's status only a bit more dangerous. Fortunately it's seriously rare (never saw it more than once per very long fight) so whatever. More often he uses light magic (both a line attack and a circle attack), which is of course a good choice against Shania, solidly 3HKOing her. And borderline 2HKOing Johnny because the kid is fragile. He also uses an extremely damaging physical attack (solid 2HKO on Johnny and even 2HKOs untransformed Shania, though not transformed mercifully) which also removes stock because he's a jerk. Finally, once when his HP drops below half HP he'll cast Barrier which is a complete joke (reduces magic damage which I'm not using anyway by like 15, big deal); unfortunately the super-fast recharge means it's not much of a wasted turn. If he doubles, he'll almost certainly kill Johnny, or finish someone off and smash something else. He can mix a physical and light spell into his double, or two light spells, the second being the powerful Holy Pulse combo magic. This might well kill Shania in anything short of La Sirene but I never see it against anyone but Johnny.
Jeb's pretty clearly better than Edna in a few ways (in addition to what I've already noted, he also has more speed) and Johnny being 2HKOed by his magic is incredibly frustrating. So I drop his belt for a Blood Jewel, which gives +1 SDef and a cool added effect. Actually, this added effect is even cooler than I thought; it basically makes him immune to running out of SP as long as I nail a judgement ring whenever he does run out. I will definitely be buying a second at some point. Anyway, +1 SDef means Johnny is definitely not 2HKOed by magic, although throwing in a physical there obviously does it. So it's another game of "try to keep the non-Shania PC alive", using all the same tricks as the last battle, and trying to gauge appropriate time to use doubles and combos (though these are much rarer due to Jeb's stock attacks). The offence is certainly the scariest of any boss yet (that physical is mean) so it's a tricky fight, but ultimately doesn't really require many new strategies, just better applications of the ones I already know.
Next we get inferior random battle music and a boss which I can't use Shania against! ffff
EDIT: Forgot to say that my levels were 20 Shania / 18 Johnny against the boss.
