Part 44: The Phoenix and The Reaper
Update 44a: The Phoenix
Well, here we are on Mt. Dhini. If you wander around the summit, there's a nasty surprise waiting for you.
Music: Boss Time
Meet Lapis. This is the game's only real superboss, and it's...interesting. It's a rare boss that trips up just about any “normal” strategy, which I like a lot since boss fights in this game are basically all the same.
Lapis starts off by ambushing you and using this attack. This not only lowers everyone's current MP to zero, but also drops your maximum MP to zero. As such, casting in this fight is effectively impossible.
Songi has nothing on this creature. Lapis only uses physical attacks, and it's basically impossible to survive an attack from it without being crazy high levels (if even then). As you can see, my usual strategy of “Noa and Vahn spam Arts while Gala spams Orb/Spoon” doesn't really apply when everyone is dying in one attack. But perhaps I can make a variant of that strategy?
First, I gave Vahn and Noa similar setups. Since they can't realistically survive Lapis' attacks, they might as well hit as hard as they can. They also get my two War Icons so they can occasionally counter him and negate his attacks.
Gala, meanwhile, gets the Speed Chain. I decided to maximize his defense with the other accessory slots which was a total waste, but the Speed Chain is all that matters anyway.
Now the battle becomes about proper Phoenix distribution. I have 99 so I can afford to spend them freely.
Gala always goes first thanks to the Speed Chain, Lapis always goes second because it's crazy fast, and Noa and Vahn go last.
If Vahn or Noa are KOed, Gala uses a Phoenix on them and the surviving character uses a Phoenix on Gala. This way, because of how the turn order works, Lapis can kill Gala and then Gala just gets revived. If it decides to kill Vahn or Noa again, then I repeat this step until it kills Gala and Gala gets revived in the same turn. This is pretty much the only way to get everyone back in the fight once someone gets knocked out of it.
If Gala gets KOed, then Vahn and Noa both use a Phoenix on him. Lapis will kill one of them before they get to use it, and then the other revives Gala. Then I go back to the above step.
If all three characters start the turn alive, Vahn and Noa attack and Gala does whatever (he might as well attack too). Not only does this give me offense, but it also opens the possibility that Vahn or Noa will counter thanks to the War Icons, which has the additional perk of preventing Lapis from killing someone that turn.
Lapis is not actually all that durable, and it takes a relatively small number of attacks to kill it as opposed to Cort or Songi or whoever. The trade off is that I don't get to attack very often since I spend so much time throwing Phoenixes around.
Phoenixes used: 20
Sadly, Noa did not survive the fight, but I'm sure I can catch her back up with the Crimson Book. Ooh, and what's that item I got?
Hmm...
This is a very curious accessory, and I think it has pretty good potential if you have a character who is a dedicated attacker already. It works kind of like Berserk, but also kind of not.
Basically, it makes us lose control of the wearer, and they act randomly. Sometimes the character does nothing. Sometimes the character just uses one attack.
Sometimes they lay waste to their enemies. I don't know exactly how far a character can go with this, or if it's really worth the random nature of the accessory, but it doesn't seem to care about AP so it's a good way to make a truly dedicated attacker.
Update 44b: The Reaper
Honestly, the straightforward fight against Lapis is probably the best way to do things. All you really use up is a bunch of Phoenixes, and it's fairly reliable.
But what if you want to take Lapis out with a little more style?
As you know, Lapis starts off by rendering magic unusable. But there are several key failings in the way this battle is set up that can be used to circumvent that. First, go into the fight normally.
Then run away. I believe the Spikefish Flute works for this, but I just equipped someone with the Chicken King.
Now trigger the fight again. Our current MP is still zero, but our maximum MP is back to normal. But because our current MP is still zero, Lapis' AI doesn't know it needs to nuke it again so it just uses its physical attack to murder someone.
Once again, the strategy revolves around Phoenix distribution and the Speed Chain. In this case, I gave the Speed Chain to Vahn, as well as a certain other something.
If Vahn gets KOed, Noa and Gala both use a Phoenix to revive him.
If someone else dies, things get a little different. Vahn uses a Phoenix on the downed party member, and the other uses a Magic Fruit on Vahn.
Once again, this relies on Lapis attacking a specific character. If Lapis attacks Vahn, he dies before the Magic Fruit fills his MP. If Lapis attacks the Magic Fruit user, they die before they can fill Vahn's MP.
(by the way, Vahn can't use the Magic Fruit on himself. Since he gets his turn before Lapis, Lapis will respond by nuking everyone's MP again. In other words, Vahn needs to get an MP refill and then get another action in between Lapis' actions.)
But, if Lapis attacks the character that Vahn revived, everything falls into place. Now Vahn has exactly 200 MP.
Hey, you know what Vahn can do with exactly 200 MP?
Goodbye, Lapis.