Part 66: Pre-Update 55: Salamander pre-fight overview
Pre-Update 55: Salamander pre-fight overview
Salamander
HP: 23000, STR: 60, TEC: 55, VIT: 50, AGI: 41, LUC: 55
Skills:
Avarice Claw: Uses the arms. Deals 160% melee STR-based Cut damage to one party member, with line-piercing effect. Attempts to inflict poison and fear on the target, with a 40% base chance. The poison component has a base damage of 150 (around 254 adjusted for level). Has a 120% speed modifier and 99 base accuracy.
- Crushing Tail: Uses the legs. Deals 3-6 instances of 130% melee STR-based Bash damage to random targets. Can hit the same target more than once. Has an 80% speed modifier and 80 base accuracy.
- Hellfire Breath: Uses the head. Deals 400% ranged TEC-based Fire damage to each party member. Has a 1% speed modifier and 150 base accuracy.
- Infernal Rounds: Used in response to a Baby Salamander being killed. Uses the head. Deals 10 instances of 250% ranged TEC-based Fire damage to random targets. Can hit the same target multiple times.
- Heal Cry: Uses the head. Heals all enemies for 3500 HP. Purges ailments and binds. Has no speed modifier.
- Normal:
Flame Marrow. 100% chance. Sells for 13000 en. 1 needed to make 
Laevateinn (+174 ATK, +2 TEC, normal attacks become Cut+Fire).
"Metallic marrow that burns continuously. Hard to work, but can grant fiery qualities."
- Conditional:
Flame Breath (Kill while afraid). 100% chance. Sells for 25000 en. 1 needed to make 
Agneyastra (+201 ATK, +10 Force gain, +25 TP).
"Lizard tongue so hot it can scald you. It'll cool unless taken while it's afraid."
100% 
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100%Disable resistances:
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75% 
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25%A giant creature that wears flame itself as armor! It seeks to incinerate its foes.
Salamander is certainly a fight.
Firstly, remember the Baby Salamanders from all the way back in the middle of the 2nd Stratum? Salamander will summon one every 3 turns. By this point, their damage is irrelevant, but that's not why they're dangerous. Baby Salamanders are dangerous in this fight for two reasons: firstly, Harsh Cry (50% defense debuff, 70% base head bind chance). More importantly, though, if you kill a Baby Salamander, Salamander will retaliate with Infernal Rounds. As you can see over there, Inferno Rounds is all but a guaranteed game over that not even Fire Wall will save you from. She will do this for every single Salamander that's killed on a given turn, incidentally.
Avarice Claw already hurts quite a bit on its own, but the fear and poison propel it into dangerous territory. Salamander's 60 STR means that even the back row hit (effectively 80% damage) will still hurt a lot, possibly enough to one-shot some of our squishier party members.
Crushing Tail, mercifully, has a -19 base accuracy penalty, meaning it'll miss a lot more than most other skills, but you still shouldn't count on that to save you, since any amount of hits above 3 can potentially leave your party in a bad state.
Hellfire Breath almost necessitates Fire Wall. 55 TEC plus 400% damage is death for almost any class, and even Ursa's Bikini Armor still puts her at extreme risk of dying.
With that out of the way, onto the characters. Firstly, though:
Forced
Sophie: I am going to get conditionals as soon as they're available from here on out, and for Salamander, that means taking Sophie along for Evil Eye. Each type of bind is also useful in the Salamander fight.Damage dealers
Zack: Zack can do quite a bit with Ice Chaser, but the issue is that he'll need at least Stardust and Jackie accompanying him, with preferably Rheine in the mix too.
Freyja: Since Sophie is being forced, Freyja has the potential to deal yuuuuuuge damage, but that would involve some slight RNG luck on my end.
Stardust: 150% Ice resistance plus compressed Frost Jars equals bye-bye Salamander.
Asriel: If Phoebe is voted in instead of Ursa, Asriel is pretty much going to always be at near-death. Aside from that, he's still a somewhat-consistent damage dealer, even if his numbers aren't that impressive.
Jackie: Jackie won't deal quite the same ridiculous damage that Stardust can, but she can still put out significant hurt. Sophie being in and, therefore, most likely inflicting some evasion-disabling ailment/bind on Salamander means that we won't have to worry about Jackie missing.
Tyler: Tyler can hit Salamander's Ice weakness with Spear Assist while he waits for Delayed/Cross Charge. He really doesn't do a lot else.
Ranger: Believe it or not, Ranger's actually a sub-optimal choice for Salamander, mostly because of the damn Baby Salamanders. They'll eat Ice Wave hits, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that Ranger will accidentally trigger Infernal Rounds because of that.Defense
Phoebe: Phoebe can nullify Hellfire Breath for most of the party (I say "most" because it will trigger on Flame Breath from Baby Salamanders), and reduce the damage of front-row Avarice Claw and Crushing Tail hits.
Ursa: Ursa can't really do anything about Hellfire Breath or Infernal Rounds, but she's honestly slightly better for dealing with Avarice Claw and Crushing Tail, especially if Realga is constantly buffing her max HP. Support
Nadia: Nadia can try blinding one of the Baby Salamanders to set up Hazy Arrow, I suppose. She can't really do a ton to Salamander herself, aside from Hazy Arrow, since Sophie will be taking care of disables on that front.
Realga: If Ursa's in the party, Realga will be absolutely invaluable with all the damage that Salamander throws around. Hell, an Overheal + Desperation Ursa can probably tank one cast of Hellfire Breath.
Milly: Milly's sole job is, was, and always will be to buff everyone's damage to ludicrous levels. With a level 20 Frost Fantasia, she could turn Salamander's 150% Ice weakness into a 190% Ice Weakness.
Colette: Given that Salamander's conditional requires killing her while she has fear on, Colette dealing good damage with Ailing Slash isn't out of the question. Fairy Robe's also a decent "I need whatever Avarice Claw inflicted off right now" panic button.
Rheine: White Noble can purge off Harsh Cry's defense debuff, and Link Order means Rheine can contribute quite a bit to damaging Salamander.Vote for a maximum of four party members, at least one from each category.