Part 38: First in the line of fire, first into hostile lands; Tanks leading the way

~Update 18: First in the line of fire, first into hostile lands; Tanks leading the way~

A quick note: Due to Feene being voted for the ending Heroine, she will be the mother of all of the Final Star Children. This is going to be a complete family affair.



We open with the final Team A(wful), helmed by Cecil the Dark Knight. The name was suggested by user TracerK.



Following that, we've got Kagero the Ninja. Name suggestion came from Sword_of_Dusk.



Finally, the team is backed up by Olivia the Bulleteer. This name was chosen at random.



Final Team A(wful) sets the stage for the following teams in terms of stats. RNG has apparently decreed that Enzea will be getting steamrolled by a group of Star Children that take damage, move, and hit, like a formation of fucking Panzer tanks.

The weird stat spread is mostly caused by equipment. It evens out once their training is completed, as we'll see in a little bit.






Commander Keene's Team "Just Like Daddy!" will fill the Team B slot. Originally Commander Keene suggested two Lancers flanking a Hunter, but was kind of non-committal about the Hunter. Since Feene was chosen as Wake's destined heroine, I took a small liberty and felt it was more fitting to have a lady Paladin fill that middle position.

Team Just Like Daddy! is composed of Ryusei and Yu the Lancers, backed up by Cecilia the Paladin. TracerK suggested the name for a possible Female Dark Knight, so I decided to re-purpose it for a Paladin.






Sword_of_Dusk's Team... uhh... "RPG" I guess? Sword_of_Dusk was so busy suggesting names for all of the individual characters that he didn't suggest a name for his team. Let's just call it "Team Dusk".

Anyway, Team Dusk will be filling the Team C slot. It is captained by Morrigan the Witch, and includes Scorpion the Ninja, which are two more characters that Sword_of_Dusk suggested names for. It's rounded out by another Paladin, who was randomly named "Rook".


So there we go. The last group of Star Children that will be making the making the charge to save the world (and do some house cleaning). Somehow we have ended up with slightly over half the group composed of dedicated tank classes. They won't be beating anything in terms of speed, but they'll be able to safely wait for their turns behind the fucking Spartan shield wall they've brought along.





After some heavy training, the kids look a tad more balanced in terms of stats. SPD is still an ongoing issue, even after I served up an all-you-can-eat buffet of SPD enhancing fruit. Not like it will be a big deal either way I suppose, considering they can vastly overpower anything the game has left to throw at them outside of these upcoming DLC bosses.

You may have also noticed that it's a little brighter around the ol' Academy. After some equipment farming, Wake/Feene, Team Just Like Daddy!, and Team Dusk (weirdly enough), are now wielding the power of Light. Team A(wful) v4 has meanwhile doubled down on Dusk. Here is a quick recap of how that came to be:



First of all, you will want to grab yourself the following classes: Ninja, Trickster, and Thief. They don't have to all be in the same team, you can slot them in anywhere.

You also need to level them all up until they unlock their special skills. It doesn't take long, so don't worry. I believe it's around Level 10 for most of them, which at this point in the game is stupid easy to grind out. This is the combination you are looking for:

Invisibility (Ninja) - Causes monsters to ignore you. Unfortunately it won't stop some monsters from blocking doors or chests, so you will have to fight them occasionally. It also only lasts for a limited number of steps, so you'll have to keep using it as you explore.

Visual Aid (Trickster) - Reveals all the traps on the current floor. More importantly, it will allow you to see which of those Purple Chests are rigged. Purple Chests are where the good shit is, but at this stage of the game about half of them are booby-trapped. Also, Visual Aid cannot foresee the "Defeat all monsters trap". You may want to carry some Escape Hatches (or a Dungeon Master) in order to escape from the Labyrinth when you don't want to fight your way out.

Lockpick (Thief) - Let's you open the locked Purple Chests.

It is possible to get items or accessories which will do largely the same things (Detailed Map, Stealth Badge, Keys), but it's more effective and less expensive to just create the Star Children. It takes almost no effort, so there's no reason not to. So what kind of spoils can you get by doing this?







Gooooood stuff. Wandering around the Sub-Labyrinth "Treacherous Halls" nets me a lot of powerful equipment for pretty much every Child. Apparently Star God got a little drunk at some point and spilled a bunch of gear around Pandora.



Wake also gets some new weapons, including one called Starlight Edge which has a +5 to Light and is better than any other current weapon. This is enough to change Wake/Feene to Light element attack instead of Dusk, which is sweet. At the very least it will even the playing field a tiny bit with Alec.

Speaking of, it's finally time we take care of those little threads. Between the leveling and all the new equipment, we should be on solid enough ground to take out all the remaining threats.



Hiding out in the Sub-Labyrinth "Fool's Repose", at the very end, are the wandering spirits of the walking jokes that are Rus and Clau. The Quest "Fallen Disciples" needs to be picked up first (which means you need DLC access).

Is this truly the best use of our time?

Just let me have this. I need a little pick-me-up right now.





Structurally, this fight is identical to the story fight. Rus and Clau have just been buffed to Level 65. I actually beat these two before I trained the next generation Star Children, just to see if I could. The Star Children we've had for the past two chapters managed to fight them at roughly 20 levels under, while Wake/Feene were 15 levels under.

Rus and Clau suck.



Sending Rus and Clau to hell for good and turning in the quest offers us the reward of "Chain Slicer", which is a weapon for Wake. It's a little situational. It has a huge speed boost, but it completely neuters attack. Despite how much I value the SPD stat in this game, 1400 ATK is too much of a drop for my liking.

Not to mention that this happened before I go item hunting and wind up with the Star God swords. No way I'm giving up more ATK than this and Light element. Plus, Chaining is kind of useless to me at this point.



Now, this leaves us with two more things to do. Both of those things are not fun or easy, even after leveling everyone into the mid-60's (which is complete overkill for the end game. I beat the story on my Vita with Wake at 55 and Star Children in the late 40's.

In the interest of showing respect to Alec (and because he is more difficult in my opinion), we're going to have our rematch with Monokuma.

Monokuma's Revenge is the beefed up version of that Monokuma Strikes quest we did WAAAAY back in the LP. He was mostly harmless back then, but that is not the case this time (well, kind of).



We go back to the place where the bear first laid down the challenge, Blue Garden.

You came! I'm surprised to see you here in such utter despair. It's wonderful!

Oh! What a cute--

Don't.

Don't what?

Don't say what you were about to say. Me and Narika ran into him before and she said what you were going to and he did this whole stupid spiel. Just trust me, he sucks and he needs to be destroyed. We can gut and stuff him later on if you really want.

Wait... what?




Monokuma is now taking things seriously. His defenses laugh in the face of everything else in the game. In fact, his stats in general laugh in the face of everything else in the game. I don't believe there is any standard enemy or boss in this entire game that even comes close to Level 99.

The "Serious" enemies are Level 99, but those are EXP grinding enemies and their stats are not anything absurd. You can safely start fighting those guys around level 40.



Anyway, Monokuma is very dangerous to Wake/Feene. You'll want to keep their health maxed whenever possible. A critical hit from "Time for Punishment" or "I'm Mad At You" is probably going to kill them in one shot even at max HP. "Good Mornin'" is a Light element attack and that may just end the battle at any point that Monokuma decides to use it. During one of my practice runs it hit Wake/Feene for 5500 damage, and that is at Level 65.

I decide to go the Ether Release route during this battle, but you need to be careful of this. He can easily knock out one of your individual Star Children, and that will cause an Ether Break if you are at Level MAX.



Damage wise, this battle is going to drag on your end. His defenses are so high that pretty much everything short of a crit will just graze him. His HP is also likely above 70k.

So make sure you bring along an ample supply of Multi-Potions. You'll need to heal pretty much every time Monokuma gets a turn, and sometimes it will take 2 Multi-Potions to top off.



Bonding Drive will hit the hardest, as usual. Unfortunately, it still barely dents this bastard.

So this fight entirely comes down to whether or not you can survive Monokuma's attack turn. He's not as insanely quick as Dark Alec, so you should have lots of time to heal in between. Just use your strongest attacks to chip away at him whenever the chance is available.

Alternatively, you could take the turtle strategy. Monokuma might be going all out this time, but his MP still isn't quite up to snuff. He has 3000, and his skills burn about 300-500 each.

I've never seen him use a normal physical attack unless his MP is out, so if your defense and healing can hold him off, then he should fizzle out in 6-12 spells.



His physical attack still hurts, but it's a little more manageable than the spells. It can hit two zones, but if you position your teams correctly then there is a chance he'll whiff one of them, as he did in this screenshot.



Taking him down and turning in the quest gives out Upgrade Parts EXA, which are the ultimate weapons for the Heroines.



They are really good. Of course, if you have managed to beat Monokuma's Revenge, then there isn't much need for these weapons. That's usually the kick in the teeth with these things, isn't it? Hell, I don't even use Feene's ultimate weapon, because it bumps her Dusk element too much. I want Wake/Feene to maintain their Light element attack.



Well, that brings us to this. Our BFF is still chained to the mortal coil, and we can't just leave him be. Let's do this, again.



There he is...

Are you certain of this?

You know that pessimism isn't really my thing... but if we don't make it out of this, I don't want Alec's soul to be stuck here for eternity.

We need to do this now. I don't want to have any regrets.

I understand. Let us put his soul to rest, then.



Alec's soul has apparently been working out over the past few days. He's now Level 70 and his stats have received a bit of a boost. He's just as dangerous now as he was when we fought him in the story.

Like Rus and Clau Round 2, this battle is identical to the story battle. Whatever strategy you used to beat him then will be the go-to strat this time as well.




In hindsight, this heavy defense oriented Star Child group works to my advantage somewhat. They hold up pretty well against buffed Alec. Wake/Feene are still a concern, but Multi-Potions will keep them kicking.

I took the "Ether Release" route here as well. I boosted the Ether Density to MAX to give myself a little breathing room and cut down on Alec's bullshit of hitting you three times in a row.



As with Monokuma, chipping away while the kids fire their Multi-Potion loaded Super Soakers is a solid plan. Waiting him out is not an option since he doesn't use MP skills at all. Bonding Drive also wasn't hitting quite as hard as it did when the story battle happened. I tried it during a previous run and it only scored about 8000 damage. It's not enough to end this in two strikes like it did previously.



He doles out a lot of Glow and decent EXP when defeated. Really though, this isn't about any of that. This is about making sure Alec is set free.

Take it easy, Alec. We'll give Enzea a few extra stab wounds just for you.



Turning in this quest gives Wake the Impact Gauche weapon. Unfortunately, this has already been rendered obsolete by the treasure hunting trip from earlier. Still, at least we helped out Alec one last time.

That clears everything up. Only one thing stands in the way of saving the world, and that is kicking Enzea's smug god-complex ass.