Part 86: Max Difficulty Fight

Side Update: Maximum Difficulty Fight



Hello and welcome to a special update, that I’m putting out early because I’m psyched that I managed to actually win a fight at the max difficulty setting! As a reminder, here are the settings, with the notable standout being that all enemies get an extra 50% bonus (after equipment) to all of their stats!



This is jumping ahead a bit, so consider the units you see a sneak preview to what they’ll become later (Though I think Bobby is the only one who’s drastically changed). We have Kyrie as a Marked/Warmage, Sophia as a Vessel/Mender, Anadine as a Reaver/Demon Knight, Reiner as a Spymaster/Ranger, Azure as a dual wielding Gunner/Ranger, and Bobby as a Lich/Sorcerer.



Up against us we have a crew of 7 enemies (8 if you count the bandit Kawa, but I ignore him and he does nothing so I’m not counting him).



A neat thing about battles in the arena is that enemies’ stats, equipment, and abilities (other than classes) aren’t revealed until you start the fight. That’s because they’ll actually adjust to whomever you send in, rather than having a set level.




Once I actually start the fight, we see that we have a Plague Doctor/Gadgeteer with somewhat low offense, but defensive stats to rival a buffed Mongo. This guy could be really annoying since he has a pretty wide array of support moves.



Next up is a Fellblade/Werewolf with an absolutely ludicrous attack stat, as well as quite high defensive stats thanks to his shield.



Further left is a Desmogr with an even higher attack stat and high HP to boot. He can most-likely 1-shot or nearly 1-shot most of my people.



Next to him is a Duelist/Plague Doctor with a bit lower attack, though it is still quite high. Since all of the Duelist abilities have high modifiers, he’s also a major threat.



Finishing off the front row is a Date Sylphite (maxed out Earth Pekite). Still has low HP, but its defense means that no physical attacks can even scratch it, and its decent res means it will probably survive a few hits from magic before going down.



In the far back we have a pure Peddler. While his stats are all pretty balanced, they’re all pretty solidly above what I have to work with. Probably not an offensive powerhouse, but Peddler abilities are all about support anyway.



And lastly, there’s the Druid/Wizard who I forgot to screenshot at the start. His equipment gives him the auto-res buff, so magic won’t be doing much. His Mind is also really high, especially since most of my units have pretty low Res in general, let alone against a 50% bonus.



Because we start so far apart, I just have Azure focus to blast whoever’s in range next turn.



The Peddler buffs the Fellblade’s crit chance and the Duelist puts thorns on a good chunk of the enemy team.




Anadine buffs up, but does not move forward so she’ll act earlier in the round.



The Druid buffed the Peddler’s defenses and then moved forward, so Reiner opens the fight up with my first bit of damage.



The Fellblade responds by leaping over to Reiner and dealing about 1/3 of his health with it.




Kyrie whacks him and manages to inflict all 4 conditions before being teleported over to the other side of the arena.



The Plague Doctor used a gadget to heal the Druid and give them regen, while Sophia focuses on weakening the Fellblade.



And the Sylphite hits Kyrie for about ¼ of her HP with a basic cast of earth.



As a Lich, Bobby has access to the Blood Magic passive, which makes him use HP instead of MP for casting spells (2% per 1 MP), so he can do things like hit fire off Sorcerer spells turn 1. Annoyingly, both the Duelist and Druid have Evade Magic, so I can’t hit everyone. I am still able to take off about half of the Sylphite’s health while softening up almost everyone else. Bobby also gets hit by all 4 thorns counters, leaving him at about 120 health after the cast.





But Azure is able to use the bonus from focusing to take out the Sylphite with a Magic Bullet.





The Peddler hastes the Duelist (less than ideal), and the Duelist heals both of them. Anadine then finishes off the Fellblade, and falls just short of being able to kill the Druid or Duelist. Instead I just have her hit both of them from range and then retreat back so she doesn’t get killed.



Which was a good idea, because the Druid takes out Reiner and he has a lot more Res than she does.



Kyrie goes up and nearly kills the Druid, but the Plague doctor comes up and heals that nearby group back to full.



Sophia heals Kyrie, and I decide that casting a map-wide attack would probably get Bobby killed so instead I have him start reanimating fallen enemies before the Duelist can bring them back.



Speaking of the Duelist, they’re very annoying and cripple Kyrie.



But now that I get to go again, I have Azure weaken the Druid.



And Anadine takes advantage of boosted damage to take out the Druid with a whirling blow. She has a shot at the Duelist, but whiffs.



In my genius, I teleported her down specifically to try and keep her away from the Desmogr. But I put her just on the edge of his range, so he 1 shots her, dealing about 500 damage with this hit.



Because she’s crippled, Kyrie can’t kill the Duelist, so she settles for whacking him. The cripple procs, which is nice, but the Plague Doctor just uses a potion to heal him back up.



The cadaver slows the Desmogr, and then the Duelist comes in close, and I think Sophia or Bobby are dead. Instead he just poison bursts, which doesn’t kill either of them. Though Bobby is functionally useless for a turn on 4 HP.



Sophia runs over to the side and revives Anadine. I could do the full health cast, but I revive her low for the damage boost. Bobby spends his turn healing himself with a potion while awkwardly looking at the Duelist blocking him in.



Continuing the combo that’s worked so far, Azure weakens the Duelist.




Anadine then swoops in to kill him, and then heads north to absolutely obliterate the Plague Doctor.



But the Peddler undoes some of my efforts by reviving the Duelist, who then kills Anadine with a cast of poison.





After a blast of magic from the still crippled Kyrie, Sophia kills the Desmogr.



Bobby reanimates someone, I tried for the Druid, but couldn’t remember the name, and the Peddler uses the 2nd copy of Phoenix Ashes to revive the Sylphite. There were definitely worse ones for them to pick, so I’m happy with that.



Not too happy with the Duelist deciding to kill Sophia though.



Kyrie continues her streak of landing cripples as she hits the Duelist again.



Bobby keeps my numbers up.



Though my zombies ended up in position for the Peddler to hit them all with a boosted rock. The Duelist then weakens the same group, mostly because he was crippled and thus couldn’t kill Kyrie.



Thankfully he runs behind the Peddler, so I take him out with a beam. The Peddler dodges the blast entirely though.



Meanwhile the Sylphite uses its turn to revive the Druid, who I apparently just did not reanimate.



The zombies surround the Peddler, having dealt a total of maybe 40 damage to him. Of course, the Druid decides that 3 enemies for 1 friend is a great deal, and hits all 4 of them for over 200 damage.



Bobby then kills the Peddler with a Locus cast.



Kyrie gets charmed by a trap left by the Peddler from earlier.



Luckily, the Druid decides to hit her, breaking the charm but not killing her.



Azure falls just short of sniping the Druid,



So Kyrie finishes them off with just a little bit of overkill.



And that’s that!

This was definitely a close fight that I only really managed to pull off due to status effects keeping the Duelist from killing my people, which also meant he used spells that drained his MP and prevented any extra revivals. The boosted stats made it really difficult for anyone but Anadine to blitz anyone down, while they could kill me pretty easily. Azure was especially hit hard by the boost, since most of her damage came from attacking twice.
The zombies were also helpful because they really seemed to distort the AI’s priorities, acting as big sacks of HP for them to whack instead of hitting my important people.

My only real disappointment with this is that it was just on flat ground instead of one of the more interesting arena maps. I tried for quite a while to get one that had both a good enemy team and a good map, but it just didn’t happen. Still, I hope that the fight satisfactorily demonstrated what the max difficulty would be like.