Adam R. Wood (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} zotmeister) wrote in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} disgaea,@ 2007-11-12 13:57:00 |
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Hardcore, Episode 6
[For links to earlier entries, visit my journal's listing.]
This episode is fun. Lots of very unique battles. None are too difficult, and some quite rewarding. It's simply a matter of knowing how to handle them... and not being too greedy. The latter is tough in a hardcore: the basic idea is to squeeze every last bit of experience out of a battle so that you don't get creamed later on. Episode 8 is a real stinker, so I only have so much time left to get up to par...
My reckoning about Maderas last entry may have been premature. The equipment he came in with included a Statistician 11 on the Chain Mail. Not seeing anything I was willing to unequip from the humanoids, I let him keep it, and filled his third slot with a Dark Orb with a Statistician 13 one of the Prinnies had. I think Maderas may manage to be useful after all.
Calamity Woods: Twenty-seven opponents, all Level 12. Gotta love it. High enough for all of them to have access to a special attack. I scan them to see who has spells; one has Heal and Ice, a couple others Mega Wind... nothing compelling. My main priority is to not let anyone in my party get poisoned if I can avoid it. This is virtually impossible - there are just too many poisoners out there. I have a little trouble at the onset when the level-24 Hobbit uses the Demon's Breath I gave it (somehow I failed to finish it off first turn) to put Laharl and Flonne to sleep - silly me - but it isn't anything Maderas can't fix. An Imp diagonally out from the bottleneck manages to really piss me off, poisoning one unit after another, so I decide not to wait to merge it, and use Turbulence just to be sure. Little bastard. Of course, why I had my units going that far out onto the bridge is beyond me - I should have been leaving the front tile open, a tactical error I remedied at this point. Flonne uses Power of Love to help make amends, but somehow I forgot to heal her, so I finish the rest of the map without my gunman. No big deal, really. Paralysis, oddly, became the real nuisance, as I frequently had to abandon merging plans due to my units being stuck in the wrong place. Final score: Maderas gets a 24 and two 12s, Etna gets a 13 and six 12s, Laharl gets two 36s and two 12s, Hoggmeiser gets two 12s, a team attack between Etna and Sirius the Zombie got a 12, one of the bloody enemies took out their own 24 (GRRRR!), and I got a 36 captured. Surprise! Not one I'd have preferred to capture - it's just a Boggart - but it's still six levels higher than even Etna. So much for racking up KOs in the Base Panel, but I'll take it.
Back at the castle, I pay the 15K+ bill - Axis was 10020 alone - and claim a Snake Kidney. Rare, because I could. It didn't even take that long. For a change. I move equipment "up the ladder", with Axis getting Maderas' extremely valuable Statisticians, Maderas getting what the lead Zombie had, and so on. I leave the bottom Prinny unequipped, because I doubt it matters.
Ritual Site: Ah, the completely unexploitable map. Only one enemy. Nothing to do but smack her down and claim the Bonus Gauge - which happens to really excite me, given that there's a Bushido Lance in Slot 0. Laharl comes out alone, moving to the tile behind the Base Panel and defends; he takes acceptable damage from a Wind Cutter, and now Sardia is within ganging-up range. I let Laharl lead the combos; this lets him take the counterattacks, and use his own. She manages to drop two Zombies (in one Blade Rush) and Flonne (with a Hurricane Slash) before she drops; Laharl gets all the credit.
The Bushido Lance is a straight-up 37 Attack (one Gladiator 4 is the only Specialist within), which of course equates to 85.1 Attack for Etna. I move the two Specialists I subdued back in the Item World segment into the new weapon.
Witches' Den: Hey, the left-fielder doesn't have a glove! All the rest have Paw Gloves... anyhow, since there's no merging here either, it's just a matter of getting that Bonus Gauge up. I almost get it to 4... oh well, that's 2000 HL I'm not getting.
Flonne is the lucky one this time around, with a rare RQ44 Magnum among the spoils. Switching it to her is a no-brainer. Its rarity matches the two Muscles Hoggmeiser has on, however; that's a little tougher to decide on, but I make the switch. Hoggmeiser won't be as useful as a lure, but now Flonne may actually start surviving attacks.
Writhing Shadow: Perhaps you're wondering if I have some secret trick for actually winning this battle without relying on the backup from the vassals.
...Of course not. You've gotta be kidding me! But that doesn't mean I can't try to pick off, say, one before they arrive. It might be possible, if one were to get them to attack each other a bit and lay a BIG combo on one of them, but I didn't prove the theory this time around. Maybe if I'd whored more weapon mastery.
At any rate, when the cavalry arrives, the basic idea is to try to capitalize on their near-kills to leech some experience off the level-75 big boys. I start by putting a Zombie (otherwise known as "chump cannon fodder") in a back corner and watch the carnage ensue: down to five Alt. Overlords, two of which are at around 500 HP and relatively close to the Base Panel. Hmmm. Unfortunately, I underestimate how many units I need to get a kill, not to mention how quickly the vassals finish off the battle, so I basically screw up by being too conservative. If I need a next time, I should remember to pull out all ten and go for broke. Ah well - that's part of why I'm chronicling this.
Nightdwellers: Sheesh. The Prism Rangers... And as if they weren't sufficiently silly on their own recognizance, this battle has Warp on every panel of the map except the Base Panel. This makes tactics unreliable at best. What one can do is "shuffle the deck" - have one unit sit on the Base Panel and defend, waiting for the enemies to find themselves in an easily assailable formation after a warp. This actually can be a bit irritating or even dangerous, since Demon's Breath might put that shuffler to sleep and you'd be stuck waiting for them to wake up or get knocked out, but that doesn't happen to me here. (Perhaps I should move one strong unit out into the wild just so I'm not stuck doing nothing if that happens.) After two shuffles, two Pucks find themselves adjacent to the Base Panel, with no one else near; I go for it. I don't try to merge enemies here for the most part, given how very random their positions end up being, but the final turn I do manage to take out the Warp Geo Symbol and a two-enemy merge, even tossing it into the Base Panel first for the one extra KO credit.
Etna lucks out again with a Bushido Lance, this one a straight-up 45 Attack. Good timing, too, since her favorite person to poke with a stick is up next... and given that, I decide it's time to invest in the last Muscle from the Hospital. The rare Muscle Star I get doesn't match rarities with anything I have... grrr... but it does have four Specialists: +108 RES (so much for enemy mages), +38% mana (useless), +7% poison resistance (ENORMOUSLY valuable), and +7% paralysis resistance (not too shabby). I would have LOVED a Sentry on there, but no such luck. I give it to Etna, along with Laharl's King Orb; Laharl gets the old Muscle/Orb pair Etna had; Flonne gets her glasses back from Hoggmeiser as well as the Muscle Dream; Axis gets the Cross-Trainers (!), Hoggmeiser gets back the Muscles he had earlier.
Heart of Evil: Mid-Boss's sadism (or is it masochism?) resurfaces, with a ring of ten level-17 Pucks around the Base Panel. My tactic here is a bit unorthodox, even for me: I take my seven strongest units and place them all side-by-side in a line one tile behind the Base Panel. Note that this stretches all the way across the gap between Pucks, so none can get along the edge and Demon's Breath more than one. I take out three before I end turn; they manage to do a good job of Demon's Breathing each other as they take out Choux. As my healer, his loss is an unfortunate one, but as only two of the Pucks remained after the next turn, I'm confident. I blame Alquen's falling asleep on the job as the reason there were two left rather than one, not that it matters much since I have a whole other turn before the Gargoyles get in range. I finish the Pucks off and line up the party in my usual diagonal line to prepare for the new opponents. They go down without too much of an issue, and at this point Vyers is on the front line. No need to play Shotgun Tag, though: between Axis, Maderas, and Hoggmeiser, he's stuck in a bucket. Laharl and Etna rebunker for a few turns; Mid-Boss doesn't know how to retreat, and doesn't even attempt to go back around the tree at the corner of my formation, preferring to stay put and smack at Maderas who, with Flonne nearby, is proving to be resilient. Vyers never even spends any SP before Etna comes back out to finish it off with style (Avalanche).
I go through the motions of starting the next Episode, and decide to "purchase" the Holy Orb, and lo and behold, I manage to screw up my button-pressing to the point that I collect a non-rare one - and rather crappy at that. I decide this is not a good omen and that I've jumped the shark for the time being, and give my fingers some remedial exercises, in the forms of Samurai Warriors and Crimson Tears... - ZM
[For links to earlier entries, visit my journal's listing.]
This episode is fun. Lots of very unique battles. None are too difficult, and some quite rewarding. It's simply a matter of knowing how to handle them... and not being too greedy. The latter is tough in a hardcore: the basic idea is to squeeze every last bit of experience out of a battle so that you don't get creamed later on. Episode 8 is a real stinker, so I only have so much time left to get up to par...
My reckoning about Maderas last entry may have been premature. The equipment he came in with included a Statistician 11 on the Chain Mail. Not seeing anything I was willing to unequip from the humanoids, I let him keep it, and filled his third slot with a Dark Orb with a Statistician 13 one of the Prinnies had. I think Maderas may manage to be useful after all.
Calamity Woods: Twenty-seven opponents, all Level 12. Gotta love it. High enough for all of them to have access to a special attack. I scan them to see who has spells; one has Heal and Ice, a couple others Mega Wind... nothing compelling. My main priority is to not let anyone in my party get poisoned if I can avoid it. This is virtually impossible - there are just too many poisoners out there. I have a little trouble at the onset when the level-24 Hobbit uses the Demon's Breath I gave it (somehow I failed to finish it off first turn) to put Laharl and Flonne to sleep - silly me - but it isn't anything Maderas can't fix. An Imp diagonally out from the bottleneck manages to really piss me off, poisoning one unit after another, so I decide not to wait to merge it, and use Turbulence just to be sure. Little bastard. Of course, why I had my units going that far out onto the bridge is beyond me - I should have been leaving the front tile open, a tactical error I remedied at this point. Flonne uses Power of Love to help make amends, but somehow I forgot to heal her, so I finish the rest of the map without my gunman. No big deal, really. Paralysis, oddly, became the real nuisance, as I frequently had to abandon merging plans due to my units being stuck in the wrong place. Final score: Maderas gets a 24 and two 12s, Etna gets a 13 and six 12s, Laharl gets two 36s and two 12s, Hoggmeiser gets two 12s, a team attack between Etna and Sirius the Zombie got a 12, one of the bloody enemies took out their own 24 (GRRRR!), and I got a 36 captured. Surprise! Not one I'd have preferred to capture - it's just a Boggart - but it's still six levels higher than even Etna. So much for racking up KOs in the Base Panel, but I'll take it.
Back at the castle, I pay the 15K+ bill - Axis was 10020 alone - and claim a Snake Kidney. Rare, because I could. It didn't even take that long. For a change. I move equipment "up the ladder", with Axis getting Maderas' extremely valuable Statisticians, Maderas getting what the lead Zombie had, and so on. I leave the bottom Prinny unequipped, because I doubt it matters.
Ritual Site: Ah, the completely unexploitable map. Only one enemy. Nothing to do but smack her down and claim the Bonus Gauge - which happens to really excite me, given that there's a Bushido Lance in Slot 0. Laharl comes out alone, moving to the tile behind the Base Panel and defends; he takes acceptable damage from a Wind Cutter, and now Sardia is within ganging-up range. I let Laharl lead the combos; this lets him take the counterattacks, and use his own. She manages to drop two Zombies (in one Blade Rush) and Flonne (with a Hurricane Slash) before she drops; Laharl gets all the credit.
The Bushido Lance is a straight-up 37 Attack (one Gladiator 4 is the only Specialist within), which of course equates to 85.1 Attack for Etna. I move the two Specialists I subdued back in the Item World segment into the new weapon.
Witches' Den: Hey, the left-fielder doesn't have a glove! All the rest have Paw Gloves... anyhow, since there's no merging here either, it's just a matter of getting that Bonus Gauge up. I almost get it to 4... oh well, that's 2000 HL I'm not getting.
Flonne is the lucky one this time around, with a rare RQ44 Magnum among the spoils. Switching it to her is a no-brainer. Its rarity matches the two Muscles Hoggmeiser has on, however; that's a little tougher to decide on, but I make the switch. Hoggmeiser won't be as useful as a lure, but now Flonne may actually start surviving attacks.
Writhing Shadow: Perhaps you're wondering if I have some secret trick for actually winning this battle without relying on the backup from the vassals.
...Of course not. You've gotta be kidding me! But that doesn't mean I can't try to pick off, say, one before they arrive. It might be possible, if one were to get them to attack each other a bit and lay a BIG combo on one of them, but I didn't prove the theory this time around. Maybe if I'd whored more weapon mastery.
At any rate, when the cavalry arrives, the basic idea is to try to capitalize on their near-kills to leech some experience off the level-75 big boys. I start by putting a Zombie (otherwise known as "chump cannon fodder") in a back corner and watch the carnage ensue: down to five Alt. Overlords, two of which are at around 500 HP and relatively close to the Base Panel. Hmmm. Unfortunately, I underestimate how many units I need to get a kill, not to mention how quickly the vassals finish off the battle, so I basically screw up by being too conservative. If I need a next time, I should remember to pull out all ten and go for broke. Ah well - that's part of why I'm chronicling this.
Nightdwellers: Sheesh. The Prism Rangers... And as if they weren't sufficiently silly on their own recognizance, this battle has Warp on every panel of the map except the Base Panel. This makes tactics unreliable at best. What one can do is "shuffle the deck" - have one unit sit on the Base Panel and defend, waiting for the enemies to find themselves in an easily assailable formation after a warp. This actually can be a bit irritating or even dangerous, since Demon's Breath might put that shuffler to sleep and you'd be stuck waiting for them to wake up or get knocked out, but that doesn't happen to me here. (Perhaps I should move one strong unit out into the wild just so I'm not stuck doing nothing if that happens.) After two shuffles, two Pucks find themselves adjacent to the Base Panel, with no one else near; I go for it. I don't try to merge enemies here for the most part, given how very random their positions end up being, but the final turn I do manage to take out the Warp Geo Symbol and a two-enemy merge, even tossing it into the Base Panel first for the one extra KO credit.
Etna lucks out again with a Bushido Lance, this one a straight-up 45 Attack. Good timing, too, since her favorite person to poke with a stick is up next... and given that, I decide it's time to invest in the last Muscle from the Hospital. The rare Muscle Star I get doesn't match rarities with anything I have... grrr... but it does have four Specialists: +108 RES (so much for enemy mages), +38% mana (useless), +7% poison resistance (ENORMOUSLY valuable), and +7% paralysis resistance (not too shabby). I would have LOVED a Sentry on there, but no such luck. I give it to Etna, along with Laharl's King Orb; Laharl gets the old Muscle/Orb pair Etna had; Flonne gets her glasses back from Hoggmeiser as well as the Muscle Dream; Axis gets the Cross-Trainers (!), Hoggmeiser gets back the Muscles he had earlier.
Heart of Evil: Mid-Boss's sadism (or is it masochism?) resurfaces, with a ring of ten level-17 Pucks around the Base Panel. My tactic here is a bit unorthodox, even for me: I take my seven strongest units and place them all side-by-side in a line one tile behind the Base Panel. Note that this stretches all the way across the gap between Pucks, so none can get along the edge and Demon's Breath more than one. I take out three before I end turn; they manage to do a good job of Demon's Breathing each other as they take out Choux. As my healer, his loss is an unfortunate one, but as only two of the Pucks remained after the next turn, I'm confident. I blame Alquen's falling asleep on the job as the reason there were two left rather than one, not that it matters much since I have a whole other turn before the Gargoyles get in range. I finish the Pucks off and line up the party in my usual diagonal line to prepare for the new opponents. They go down without too much of an issue, and at this point Vyers is on the front line. No need to play Shotgun Tag, though: between Axis, Maderas, and Hoggmeiser, he's stuck in a bucket. Laharl and Etna rebunker for a few turns; Mid-Boss doesn't know how to retreat, and doesn't even attempt to go back around the tree at the corner of my formation, preferring to stay put and smack at Maderas who, with Flonne nearby, is proving to be resilient. Vyers never even spends any SP before Etna comes back out to finish it off with style (Avalanche).
I go through the motions of starting the next Episode, and decide to "purchase" the Holy Orb, and lo and behold, I manage to screw up my button-pressing to the point that I collect a non-rare one - and rather crappy at that. I decide this is not a good omen and that I've jumped the shark for the time being, and give my fingers some remedial exercises, in the forms of Samurai Warriors and Crimson Tears... - ZM
