The Let's Play Archive

Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight

by Ragnar Homsar, Dr. Fetus

Part 140: The Original Sin: Mistakes Were Made

The Original Sin: Mistakes Were Made





Also, Ur-Devil casts Twilight's Gleam after Eternal Exodus, which is why I said hanging onto your Force was completely pointless.

We're now in the 3rd phase, so I'll list the details of that here.

Phase 3:
Now from here, Ur-Devil has 3 different patterns. The first pattern chosen is random. On subsequent loops pattern B will be used if pattern A was used previously, pattern C will be used if pattern B was used previously, and pattern A will be used if pattern C was used previously.

Pattern A:
Pattern B:
Pattern C:
Then it converges at turn 5.
Once Ur-Devil falls below a certain HP threshold, he'll summon 2 Blue Ur-Eyes and 2 Yellow Ur-Eyes, and moves onto the next phase.

On Standard, Ur-Devil will transition to phase 4 once he drops below 34% (95200).
On Expert, the HP threshold is 51% (142800).

So this phase is one you really don't want running for long. For one thing, the very first move is uses is Value of Solitude, which punishes you for having a 5 man party, or 5 living party members. Not only that, the turn after that is random on the first loop! You have no idea what Ur-Devil is going to cast. But let me go over the problems of this pattern in more detail.

The best way to deal with Howling Winds with this party is for Flavio to use Chain Dance, a move that increases aggro by 440% and increases his evasion by 600. This can be combined with his Speed Up passive to increase his overall evasion to 800, reducing Howling Winds' base accuracy to 19. However, the elemental moves have a base accuracy of 160, which will only get reduced to 80. So if Flavio uses Chain Dance there, he'll be taking all the damage from those elemental attacks and die. Meaning that no one can deal with Howling Winds on the next turn, and then Ur-Devil will use Despise Solitude, which has the opposite effect of Value of Solitude, and punishes parties that dared to bring less than 5 living party members. So if someone gets killed by Howling Winds, I lose. Let me reiterate. The turn after Value of Solitude is a dice roll that can cause me to lose if I guess wrong. Great fucking boss design, Atlus.





There isn't really much I can do right now. But you know what?



Fuck guessing games! There is no way I am dealing with that bullshit.





Yeah without Transform, Knight can't really do much.



At least I still have Chloe.





I really love the Apple Matcha Shaved Ice. It is the only thing that is making this fight remotely fair.



And here Ur-Devil used Sunlight's Dawn to give the party their Force back. Like with Ur-Child, Ur-Devil will take away and give back the party's Force at certain points, though Ur-Devil doesn't do that nearly as often.





Even though Knight has his Force back, I'll build up his Force back to 150 before using Transform.







Oh great. See if I decided to take my chances and not have Flavio use Chain Dance if I didn't Blind Ur-Devil, I would have lost the fight instantly, because Howling Winds would have killed someone, and then Despise Solitude would have killed everyone shortly afterwards. Though thanks to the Blind, I now know what sequence of patterns Ur-Devil is making use of for this phase without having to sacrifice anything.



I would have liked it to hit Flavio, since he could have gotten another Hazy Arrow off.



Now I'll set up a Delayed Chase. But unfortunately, the Blind wore off, so I'm in danger of losing the fight again once Value of Solitude comes up.



Even though Despise Solitude deals less damage if everyone is alive, it still deals a large amount of damage, especially since I have everyone in a Bikini.



And I'm putting up Dauntless Orders in case something goes horribly wrong.



1000 damage would actually be respectable in most other cases. Sadly, not here. Though I suppose every little bit helps.



Yeah, Despise Solitude still hits pretty hard. Also this is the first time in the fight my team has actually taken damage.



Okay, I think it's time to stop playing around.





And time to start actually dealing damage to Ur-Devil again.



Since I know that Ur-Devil will use My Sorrow, I prepare an Ice Wall, even though it can only nullify one hit per party member. But there isn't much else I can do about it.



Yeah, the elemental attacks are the main thing I'm worried about, which is why I had everyone wear the Bikini Armor. I can easily deal with the physicals, but I don't have many ways to shut down the elemental skills. Without the Bikini Armor, they would have been hitting for at least 600 damage per hit.









Finishing up the combo.



Dance with Lunacy will be used this turn, so that means Chloe should use Barrier.





Nope.





And it's gonna take a while to whittle down Ur-Devil's HP to 51%. While I generally disagree with most of the “HP bloat” complaints the game has gotten, I will fully admit that Ur-Devil falls under it hard.





And at the end of the first loop, Ur-Devil will cast Recluse's Glory, and restores some TP to the back row. Not that I really needed it in this case.



You know the drill.



Value of Solitude comes out this turn, and unfortunately, this is the only way I can deal with it. Oh well, I still have a decent chance of Blinding it.



In case it doesn't... well, I'll just have to hold onto my butt and pray.



Ur-Devil is once again a useless sack of crap.





I guess watching Ur-Devil whiff most of his attacks isn't all that exciting, but there really isn't much else I can do with this party. The Story mode party certainly has the tools needed to deal with the boss, but they are not the best ones for the job. I mean the only way I can deal with Value of Solitude with this party is to either bind his legs, which depends on Chloe hitting it with Legcut, and I really don't feel like burning her Force Boost right now. I mean, setting Ur-Devil up to kill my party members is easy enough, but engineering such a situation where I don't get screwed over in the long run? Not so easy.

Really, the only reliable way to avoid Value of Solitude is by using the Hexer's Sacrifice skill to instantly kill one of my party members, but I don't have that skill on me. But hey, there's a tip if you're thinking about trying this with a Classic mode party (You maniac.) Though to be honest, a Classic mode party would have a bit of an easier time with this than a Story mode party.







Since Ur-Devil is a useless sack of crap right now, and I've already listed out his pattern earlier, I'll just skip ahead a bit.





That should shut down the 3rd Value of Solitude.



I decided to use Arianna's Force Boost to get some buffs up on everybody, and I'll spend the last turn of it refueling my front line.



Yeah yeah, go ahead. I don't care.



Wait, fuck! NO! I FORGOT TO USE BARRIER!



Shit, this fight just went south real fast!





Fortunately, Transform functions as a full heal, so I can buy Knight more time at least.



I'll dispel the Poison from Chloe.



While Arianna will ensure that she does not die to one of Ur-Devil's attacks. Unfortunately, I made a big misplay here, one that's possibly game losing. I thought My Wrath would end up coming out this turn, when in reality it's Value of Solitude. And Ur-Devil still has his legs bound.



So I ended up having Bertrand completely waste his turn, when I could have cured Knight's Poison or uncursed Flavio or Arianna.





At least Chloe's out of the danger zone now.





Now to cure Knight.



Great, now all I have to do is cure Flavio, and then I'm all se-





AW CRAP, I DIDN'T REALIZE UR-DEVIL WAS THAT CLOSE TO HIS NEXT PHASE!



Ugh, it's really hard to keep track of Ur-Devil's exact HP when that HP bar is all I have to go on.



This really screws up my plans. If I knew he was that close to the next phase, I could have held back for one turn and set up an Accelerate.

Oh right, so the new adds and the new phase:

Ur-Eye (Blue)
Level: 99
HP: 11000
STR: 99
TEC: 99
VIT: 75
AGI: 65
LUC: 85
Exp: 0
Attack Type: Bash
Skills: Damage resistances:
100% 100% 100% 100% 0% 125%
Disable resistances:
100% 100% 100% 0% 0% 100% 100%
0% 0% 10%
100% 100% 100%

Ur-Eye (Yellow)
Level: 99
HP: 11000
STR: 99
TEC: 99
VIT: 75
AGI: 65
LUC: 85
Exp: 0
Attack Type: Bash
Skills: Damage resistances:
100% 100% 100% 125% 100% 0%
Disable resistances:
100% 100% 100% 0% 0% 100% 100%
0% 0% 10%
100% 100% 100%

The other 2 Ur-Eyes show up in this phase. They're all pretty much the same enemy, aside from their weaknesses and the damage types of their versions of Wave of Ruin. And here's Ur-Devil's pattern in this phase:

Phase 4: If the Ur-Eyes die early, Ur-Devil will skip any end of turn actions he was about to perform and immediately skip to using Amplify.

On Standard, Ur-Devil will go back to phase 3 and will not do any more phase transitions, meaning that the third phase permanently loops. On Expert, Ur-Devil moves onto phase 5.

Somewhat similar to phase 2, but Ur-Devil doesn't spam Howling Winds if you somehow haven't killed off the Ur-Eyes at the end of this phase.





I'm gonna try to land an Arm bind so I don't have to deal with Dance with Lunacy on the 2nd turn. This is because I want Chloe to use her elemental wall once Knight takes out all the Ur-Eyes. There are gonna be 4 Waves of Ruin coming out, so I need everyone to make use of a wall once that happens.





And here is where I realized that I fucked up.

By wasting Bertrand's turn earlier with Fire Wall instead of dispelling the ailments off my party, I can't dispel the curse on Flavio. And I have to use Summer Rain this turn to weaken the Ur-Eyes, because I need him to use his elemental walls on the next turn. Akashic Nova isn't capable of one-shotting the Ur-Eyes, especially since Darkness Shroud will wipe everyone's buffs this turn.



I could just revive him, but the problem is that Ur-Devil casts Darkness Shroud at the end of this turn and Flavio will revive with no buffs at all. Arianna is the only one available who could buff him, but she's much faster than Bertrand. Meaning that even if Bertrand revives Flavio, he's just going to die again, especially since Darkness Shroud has negative priority.

The worst part is, if Chloe's Arm Bind doesn't land, (unfortunately, that has a pretty high chance of not happening at this point) I'll have to use Fairy's Robe the next turn, meaning that only Bertrand and Arianna can use the elemental walls. And while Knight and Chloe will be shielded from the first Wave of Ruin, the 2nd one will take them out. Meaning that they get redirected to Bertrand and Arianna instead. And if when Bertrand dies, it's checkmate for me. Forgoing Fairy's Robe isn't an option either. Killing all the Ur-Eyes still has Ur-Devil cast whatever skill he was going to cast on the next turn. And Bertrand's LUC stat isn't stellar compared to Ur-Devil's so he has a high chance of getting Panicked or Paralyzed. The fight is essentially over if that happens since he won't be able to cast Perfect Defense to block Eternal Exodus.



I missed the screenshot, but Chloe failed to land the Arm bind.

And that means I've lost the fight.



But I might as well go out swinging.