Wild Arms XF Elementalist/Geomancer/Berserker/Nightstalker fiesta update:
4-8-A (Chelle final) [7 resets]: Um yeah.
So the biggest issue here is the Stealth Stalkers. They're immune to everything I can do, except Exploder Gems, and only if said Exploder Gems also target at least one of my own allies (ow). There are eight of them, they hit hard and accurately and as if that isn't enough, their attacks carry a 25% chance of instant death. ffff. They're bulkier than the ones fought in the previous Chelle fight; it takes 2 Exploder Gems from maxed MAG to take 'em down. My one PC who doesn't have MAG+25% needs three, even with a book equipped.
Eventually I realise I do need to commit to magic damage with these in a big way. I also have to do so efficiently, which means killing as many as I can at once. To start the fight, four immediately close on my location, I get into position and use rings' property where if you wait on the spot without acting, your evade goes up (still doesn't get their accuracy down that much... to around 70%, as opposed to 100%. I'll take it). Once they do all close in I try to find ways to hit all four at once while only hitting one of my PCs. Two well-placed gems do it. The huge difficulty is not killing my own PCs, and often I have to; it's worth killing one of my own to prevent 2-3 Stealth Stalker actions pretty easily.
I revive, move up the stairs and repeat this with a second group. It's a little easier this time, because there are only three in this group, and I'm better able to prepare. Still the same problems exist.
Finally there is one lone straggler. Easy enough to take out, but it takes 2-3 more Exploder Gems. So now I've used 6-7 and several Revive Fruits, possibly even a Potion Berry as well. Did I mention I only have 16 inventory slots? Yeah.
That leaves Chelle. It's possible to take out her sleep-inflicting bodyguard without getting in her range (which causes her and her other bodyguard to not attack you); this is a bit dishonourable but I'll take it. Elementalist spells rule the day here. Then I get in her range... kinda. I do this with shenanigans: throw one of my allies about to get a turn into her range, then have that ally use Shut Out, so she can't move. Chelle doesn't pack ranged attacks in this form, so Shut Out kinda wrecks her. I quickly move in to try to kill the other mutant, this one uses misery. Misery is terrible, not much I can do about it if it hits. lol packing misery cures with my inventory issues.
Okay, so Chelle herself. Shut Out... isn't near as complete a lockdown as it often is, because Chelle mechanically gets 3 turns in a row, and Shut Out wears off after 20 turns... so there's a far greater chance it wears off when Chelle is about to act compared to most bosses. And it wearing off since she can instantly puree anyone who isn't nicely wedged into a corner and hurt anyone else pretty bad too. On one reset it wears off right before she was getting a natural double. Four turns in a row! She uses this to kill one PC wedged in a corner with two physicals, and then, my formation broken, Predator Barrages the other two into oblivion (the fourth was already dead).
If she does break out at a bad time I can buy myself time by throwing her down off the cliff, then re-engage. I do this once on the winning run, finishing the fight on the lower level. With my inventory entirely gone and two PCs dead, of course, because that's how I roll. I do most of my damage with elementalist spells (the upside of equipping everyone for that; shuriken aren't an option), and though she has 20% resistance minimum this still suffices.
For this team this is essentially two separate but very difficult battles in a row... and one where the inventory limit poses a huge problem. I have to say though, HP Regen (Nightstalker) and Move & Heal HP (Geomancer) both paid off in spades here, they gave me back a lot of HP between phases of the fight and saved me some berries for sure.
4-8-B (Piedras Blancas): oh fuck another boss
Elementalist EQ on everyone to make Sand Eater weaker. Beyond that, the general philosophy is to try to keep most people (especially lower-HP types) away from the sand so that he can only hit them with Sand Eater. The physical 2HKOs the frail and 3HKOs others so I definitely want to keep that down. He gets quite a lot of turns, but nothing healing can't take care of. He can't be grappled, but he has no elemental resistance so I basically just lob spells at him for like, a while. Enough that I run out of MP on my fastest character.
Complicating things are the four Forsaken Mutants which try to make a mess of things. When one appears, dealing with it is a high priority. Grappler attacks work well for the one which doesn't fling misery, spells work reasonably well against all of them. I have to kill them before dropping Piedras below half HP, or he might eat one and become all but invincible.
About the only other thing to note here is that Piedras has so much HP that I actually run out of MP with my main two blasters, but fortuntely I can use MP Shift off Nightstalker OC from one of my physical attackers to recharge one of 'em. Comes down to two PCs with most items gone but I win first try.
4-9-A (Tormenta Triad 3) [4 resets]: It's like the first Tormenta Triad fight which already caused some problems, but now there are 9 clones who do non-negligible damage themselves which really adds up. Magic Block/Reflect are good to have, elemental resistance is sadly useless as the attacks are all non-elemental despite names and appearances.
Ball lightning fight of course, blitzing down one of the brothers (I go for Lluvia, the fastest) is key otherwise they OHKO someone every turn, never mind what the clones do. (Illusion can save me, rarely.) Nightstalker + Accelerate gives me some turns. They have loads of elemental resistance but throws work kinda okay (Lluvia has high defence) and Combination Arts and Exploder Gems are absolutely the best. I try to revive people as quickly as possible too.
Once Lluvia falls the battle is far from won, even with the clones departing. This is because the other two brothers still do high 2HKO damage with their own turns, which they now use separately! So yeah, the blitzes continue. Viento dies next because he starts much closer than Trueno (Trueno also has the least range on his attacks, since they're modelled after lightning... if lightning could be used post-movement). He has too much evade for physical anything to be of much value, but CAs are still go.
If I can make it to just Trueno in not totally crippled shape I win, but that takes several tries.
4-9-B (Tormenta Triad 4) [2 resets]: Haha this fight. After a few failed tries to try to get something useful out of things like Item Toss to finish the final brother off, I realise I'm going about it all wrong. The brothers still do respectable damage here, but it's not as bad as the previous fight, and of course there are no clones. I move quickly and toss them all into the centre of the battlefield, onto the tiles with no RFX boost. Then I start beating on all of them with whatever (physicals primarily against Trueno), but especially Exploder Gems, which I can use to hit all three for decent damage. I'm able to survive long enough and chip them all down until one Exploder Gem can finish them all of at once, bypassing their limit. It's so cute how they talk about how badass they are becoming as the others die... in the middle of the Exploder Gem's damage figures appearing which takes out the survivor.
4-10-A (Katrina 2) [1 reset]: Feeble Mind gets set again on one PC to actually kill her. The demons can be taken out with whatever.
Katrina is nasty though! Elementalist EQ and Magic Blocker both help, but yeesh, she has high 2HKO damage (OHKO my Nightstalker) off stupid good speed. It gets a little less stupid good when I toss her onto a desert hex so she doesn't get her speed boost. She doesn't move, so there's a lot I can do to abuse that, even using transport to move my own PCs into and out of her range (Feeble Mind and her spells both have range 5, so that's equal). She's immune to Replace for some reason, sadly. Anyway fortunately she helps deplete her own MP some (though she'll regen it if nobody is in her range) and I'm able to get the Feeble Mind turns I need.
4-10-B (giant bird): The bird's spells are roughly the same power as Katrina, but fortunately she only has about half the speed. Still pretty nasty of course, since this time I have to do 2900 damage (a fair bit). The bird has high Res and resists all elements, but grapple damage works pretty well, as do Combination Arts. Still a big pain to survive what the bird can do without dying myself; I have to heal a lot of course, and hope for help from Magic Blocker/Illusion. Like Katrina, I can escape the bird's range if need be; she'll move, but her spells can't be used after moving. Like Piedras, this fight is rough, but I do win first try.
4-11-A (Charlton 2): With the Tormenta Triad down, I identified two remaining fights I expected to cause me a lot of grief. One is, obviously, the final boss. The other is this fight. I beat it first try anyway, due to shenanigans.
Charlton will only use Call Servant if any of his minions are dead (it's really full revival, gameplaywise), so I don't kill 'em. Instead, I try to toss the ones in my path to Charlton away. It mostly works, though a couple are able to catch up to me as I fight Charlton sadly.
Charlton himself takes reasonably decent damage from elementalist spells, so I use those and toss them around. The problem is his own turns, which come frequently. Dark Destruction not only 2HKOs and forces out my limited healing, but can inflict misery (misery'd PCs can use Combination Arts at least). This is very bad. Less bad at first is Energy Drain, which drains health equal to 16% of Charlton's missing HP. That's not too damaging by the start of the battle, but once he's lost over, say, around half of his HP it starts solidly 2HKOing and adding decent healing. And those are mostly all he ever uses; physicals exist but are rare. So with his speed he threatens to completely overpower me, while occasionally zombies sneak in range and inflict disease. Shut Out is an option of course, but it only forces Dark Destruction spam, and while it means he's not healing that's really no better. I'm not winning this.
But then I spy something. Not too far from where Charlton starts, there is a pillar surrounded by empty void on one side, and a high cliff on the other. If I throw Charlton there, it'll be kinda like Shut Out. By itself that isn't too special, Dark Destruction is range 6. BUT. What about vertical range? Elementalist spells are unusually good about this; the default for most things is 4. Is Dark Destruction 4 too? Seems possible. I eye the landscape, and notice that yes, near this pillar there are a couple panels within elementalist range which are exactly 6 squares higher. So I should be able to use Elementalist spells from there. I try it out, getting my non-elementalists out of range, and... yes, no Dark Destruction! So I cheaply lob elementalist spells until Charlton dies while he can't do anything. Only a small number of combinations of abilities allow this, since I believe only grappler can get Charlton there (he has Anti-Knockback) and only a few things have vertical range higher than 4 (Drop Kick would be another, Berserker's Penetrator would allow ranged weapons to do it, since all paths from above go through the cliff).
Oh yeah I do kill a John Doe at this point, and learn that Call Servant itself has no vertical range; Charlton is able to summon one on the cliff above. Waste of time. So the grapplers just toss away John Does non-fatally until Charlton dies, then my weakened team goes around and picks them all off. Not a fast task, but not too hard of one either, since John Does kinda suck until they've auto-revived a couple times, and that doesn't happen often.
4-11-B (final puzzle): My team can't actually do this by the strict version of the rules... there are five platforms, so I need five PCs to reach them all, due to lacking Warp or anything with 6 range to hit the final two switches without getting to their platforms. Once I allow five it's simple enough; unequip weapons and toss all the PCs up so I can reach every platform, activate the torch switches with Fire and Freeze, activate the third switch with whatever.
4-11-C (Charlton final): Haha no I have no chance at doing this one honourably, so I do the usual "get away as much as possible and let the fight play out" strategy.
5-1 (Weisheit final): This fight kinda makes me sad. The previous Weisheit fight gave my team all sorts of difficulties; this one is really easy by comparison. Sure, part of it is that I can get Asgard II out of the way via grapple moves (though he has good mobility so it takes a while of having one of my PCs chase him down), and I get that "Weisheit + Asgard, together" is presumably what the design team thought would make this fight difficult. But... compared to the previous fights, the terrain is just so awful for Weisheit; I don't need to Shut him Out and can just kite him with grapples and such. All my PCs have Ignore Move Cost and he doesn't. Additionally, in the previous Weisheit fight, all six of his golem flunkies charged you at once. Here I can take everything out at my leisure, and in fact three of the golems I never engage at all. So yeah, toss him around, use elementalist spells and CAs, etc. Easy by the standards of this team vs. bosses.
5-2 (gate victims): CAs kinda wreck them, as do shuriken physicals to a lesser extent (they actually have poor evade, just flying status to mock other physicals). It's not a trivial fight and I do get in one scare at one point as the status adds up but it's a pretty RNG one so there isn't much to say.
Almost done. The end doesn't look easy, though...
