Part 73: Chapter LXIV - You seem to enjoy the cries of the weak.
You seem to enjoy the cries of the weak
Two shifts of note: Adding Emmy to the fourth union worked out so well to train Irina to learn Rejuvenating Water that I’m going to repeat that for other units! So Emmy gets switched to the leader spot. I also swap Allan out for Roberto.
- Battlefield Video: Base 3
Now, to Base 3!Music: Clash of Opposites
Mission: Defeat the command squad and assault their base!
We’re facing groups lead by qsiti, it seems.
The first thing these groups do is cast some buff spells on their fellow soldiers, already a different approach to well, pretty much all other battles so far.
Got you!
Don’t underestimate your foes!
We’ve closed in pretty well and are almost at the base. We’re in decent shape, but I’ll have to watch Rush and Torgal’s HP.
That probably would have killed Rush’s Troop if not for that dodge.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
That should be the last of this wave.
Yeah! This is our big chance! For you to hang back and heal? I couldn’t agree more. There won’t be any fighting this turn.
Torgal’s squad takes down the first wave, but Reinforcements arrive immediately.
It turns out that obelisk at the front of the base has a bunker at its base.
Hey, Caustic Blast managed to hit a second union for once!
Scumbags!
The new groups have some Hex casters, and those are no jokes.
Good timing on the heal, because I think trouble’s about to hit.
Well, that would have hurt a lot more if not for the healing.
I think some caution is in order. I’m ordering a round of healing and ailment-clearing.
Another wave of immediate reinforcements. This one is coming from behind us.
It took a while, but Violet is finally becoming the fighter I remember her as from my first run.
Are you all right?
There’s still more of these guys?! There are, but we can’t engage them, because only union I is close enough for any unions to even march to. That’s bad news for Emmy’s group, which is still Silenced, and therefore completely screwed.
Get up, we gotta win this! …Well, that’s one way to clear pesky status effects.
We got a few whacks in, but not enough to finish them off this turn. But the other two enemy unions march into range, so we don’t have to waste a turn doing that ourselves.
Come, opportunity knocks!
Psionics is a Good Art.
Come on, finish them off!
That does 2096 damage, but that’s still not a lot. It’s only about a quarter of this union’s HP.
It’s easily bested by the other units.
Too many deaths… It seems like we’ve got to waste another turn, because the other baddies won’t come out to play until we wipe out this one. I’m not bothering with Lugh’s Revenge here.
Hex users are pretty pesky opponents even when the status’s don’t land.
Watch and learn!
I’ll win this and show you what winning really looks like! The number of enemy unions in these Base battles is steadily increasing. With Base 1, there were only 9. Base 2 had 14. Now we’re up to 18.
I was getting tired of this fight anyway. I reach BR 47 from it.
learned 
Nimble Double Strike III! learned 
Hartshorn II!
learned 
Addle III! learned 
Mighty Quadrille! class changed to Master Bard!
- BOSS Video: Ludope the Vengeful
Music: Slipping Through your Fingers
I… hear them… 
Crying out to me… I have borne many accusations...
But you, you are far more cruel. Just look at the destruction you’ve wrought!
Graaarrr! How can you ignore their cries?
The voices of my precious subordinates that you so brutally slaughtered!
You seem to enjoy the cries of the weak. I, Ludope the Vengeful, shall have you make your own, as you WRITHE IN AGONY!
Raaaaahhh!!!Music: Press to Victory
Mission: Defeat Ludope!
We’re up against Ludope the Vengeful and his Qsiti bodyguards. Unlike the previous fights, the extra units aren’t just speedbumps to slow us down, they’re pretty tricky to deal with. So I need all the help I can get here.
Cyclops!
Uh-oh. It’s never good when a boss’s art is listed as “???”.
I’ll make you wish you’d never been born!! Galaxy is Ludope’s special attack, and it’s a doozy.
Don’t be fooled by the low “Total Damage” number – that’s due to Cyclops’s damage resistance. This spell basically halved the HP of every union.
These enemy unions can heal themselves, although fortunately it’s not that effective.
Galaxy did a pretty good number on us.
It’ll take us a little while to recover from that.
Because I had the trigger prompts on manual, I was able to hit all four of them, thus delaying the final enemy’s action, letting me kill him before he could get an attack. This is one reason why I don’t put turbo on.
Two unions critical and one dead, thanks mostly to the Galaxy, but it was the additional unions which really stung. I’m actually going to deliberately ignore reviving Rush because I want Emmy to learn Rejuvenating Water.
Wildfire is a high-level Invocation art. If that had hit one of our normal unions, it’d probably have killed them.
Palsy Skein is a high-level Evocation art which can cause paralyze, and if it wasn’t for the dodge bonus I get for this being before a unique art, it would certainly have killed Emmy.
Oho! It’s been a while since we’ve seen Hundred Flowers. This one did 18573 damage.
Cyclops is immediately proving its worth by drawing the attention of most of the enemy unions.
In addition to being miniature mystic menaces, these munchkins may make more of them merge into the melee.
You merely delay the inevitable!
Extra union count: 1Unfortunately, Emmy hasn’t got anywhere close to enough AP to use Rejuvenating Water, so I’m leaving Rush dead still. I’m going to pick the option for Emmy that uses the least AP possible so she can build up, without getting killed, obviously.
Ludope vs. Cyclops is a good matchup, because it keeps both of them occupied, and they are very unlikely to be able to kill each other.
Fortunately for Torgal’s silenced union, it does not rely on magic for healing.
Couldn’t finish this union off. Extra union count: 3. Yes, I’m reusing the same image as before. That’s to try and cut back a little on useless images. I’ve got 130 pictures in this update, sheesh.
Would you hurry up and get 130+ AP so I can revive Rush, Emmy’s Squad? I’m prioritizing moves for her which cost no AP.
Well fought! Yes, feel free to break deadlock to attack the Cyclops. I don’t mind at all. Gaou finished them off.
This is of course, not good. … Geez, what am I doing. I might as well just replace half these comments with “Generic comment on a negative development.”
Finally I can stop screwing around. Everyone is ordered to revive. Torgal’s union has managed to recover from the curse on its own. Funny, they recovered from silence on their own as well. Just lucky, maybe?
There you are! Now go on out and fight!
All right, back in action! That’s all I wanted. Rejuvenating Water doesn’t clear statuses, and it’s apparently not a guaranteed full heal either, since Torgal’s Squad wasn’t topped off.
You’re better than you look! That was actually pretty lucky, because while summons are resistant to most status effects, they are specifically weak against Enthrall, like what the Bewitch Hex does. And an Enthralled summon is a real pain to put down. If that status had landed, the heart would have been pink.
These hexes can really wear your unions down, as well as making it hard to retaliate. A real double whammy, if you’ll pardon the pun.
The Summon has a lot of HP and can eat up a lot of healing which you’d hope goes to other unions. Extra union count: 5. I guess you can blame a lot of those on me screwing around trying to get Rejuvenating Water to trigger.
Remember how Animalcule is great because it poisons, silences, and paralyzes? Well, when you have enemy unions casting two or three of those effects separately, it’s like a poor man’s Animalcule.
And what would have been a one-shot with Acala’s Wrath does a Reasses into Thumb Up Ass II.
Even though the Cyclops is absorbing a lot of attention, the Flank Attacks have killed our Morale, which is pretty dangerous in boss fights.
Extra union count: 8! 
I really need to crush these guys or else they’ll never stop coming. Rush and Torgal will be pretty useless until they stop being paralyzed, which would mean that I need to spend one (or two!) of my remaining unions to clear those status effects. I don’t like that idea, so instead I’m focusing on lowering the enemy morale to stop the cycle.
Another thing from the Details I Never Noticed files: Cyclops can use its “neck” plates to block.
They REALLY don’t like Cyclops. Cyclops is tough, but not even it can stand being piled on by all those vicious arts turn after turn.
One Bluff and Dispirit later, though, our Morale is getting back to where I’d like it.
I order Rush to use Talisman’s Gift, but I don’t know why, since my next order is to have Rush’s union killed, which will cancel it out. I order Torgal’s union to break Deadlock and attack a different union to get better attack commands.
And I am rewarded by taking out another enemy union.
Ha ha! Even without the dodge, Rush is immune to Enthrall, thanks to the Ragna-Rock.
We don’t get to see this very often, so here you go, a rare treat.
And now it’s gone. Not a big loss since all the dangerous attacks this fight are Mystic arts anyway.
Emmy gets intercepted on the way to Kiss Of Life Cyclops, and all three statuses land.
Pretty devastating.
You’re not half bad! This clears out two more unions at the same time. Only one more left besides the boss now.
This was a poor choice for an order, since without a cure for the deadly poison, the silence won’t matter. 
Ludope isn’t officially in critical health, but I bet he’s pretty close if he’s using this.
Cyclops dying might have been a blessing in disguise, since now, instead of having to heal it in little chunks, I can do it all at once with Kiss of Life. Summons actually only have 9999 HP, but their actual HP is hidden because they have a bunch of resistances that lower the damage they take, so it seems like they have a lot more.
I owe you-
Be Prepared isn’t just a good motto for the Boy Scouts.
Are you all right?
Watch and learn! And that’s the last of the adds. Whoever had “eight extra unions” wins the pool. Oh wait, NO ONE had that.
I am tired of this fight, so let’s pull out the big guns whenever we can.
Ludope is finally knocked into critical, just before he wipes out Kate’s Pack. 
A decent attack. Irina revives Kate’s Pack. A good thing, too, because…
This… can’t be! This… is my grave. At least… the voices are gone now. I can finally… rest… in peace. learned 
Rejuvenating Water II!
learned 
Restorative Herb III! learned Eye Cream IV! learned Maledict III! Guest-Starring dead weight Roberto actually finishes off Ludope.
This accessory Remnant Pagus gets is not merely Qsiti-specific, but Pagus-specific. It lets him use the weapon art 
Megalore, which is another whole-battlefield art. It has the same trigger conditions as the Gae Bolg (3+ enemy unions, can’t be in deadlock).
Try something new! As you say. It should be helpful knowledge. How should I focus my training from now on? I’ve found myself plagued with uncertainties of late, thus I’d value your opinion, Master Sykes. Combat arts, for sure! A knight without a proper command of combat arts is but a disgrace. Hey. If you’ve got time to be standing around, why don’t we go get me some Demon Bone? Alrighty. Appreciate it. C’mon, let’s go. We won’t be. I don’t feel like tracking a demon down right now. However, if Rush has not made Ninja by the time I finish Base 5, I probably WILL go looking for fights until he hits Ninja, and looking for a Demon is a good an idea as any. But first, we have to check in at Ghor.
New Arts Summary
learned Nimble Double Strike III! learned:- Hartshorn II!
- Eye Cream IV!
learned:- Addle III!
- Maledict III!
learned:- Mighty Quadrille!
- Mighty Quadrille II!
class changed to Master Bard! learned Rejuvenating Water II! learned 
Mystic Missile!
learned Megalore!Heartache is not just qsiti specific, but Pagus-specific. It gives him the weapon art
Megalore, an area-effect attack which hits the whole battlefield. It’s trigger conditions are pretty similar to those of the Gae Bolg, but possibly slightly more lenient.The higher the number of the base, the larger these updates will get, but I don't intend to split them into separate updates.
Poll: A couple of side-quests will open up after we finish Base 6, which we can do before Koenigsdorf. One has some world lore which is somewhat relevant, and the other will grant Jager the ability to summon the Lob Omen. Should we do one or both of these quests before the final showdown at Koenigsdorf?
Next Time: Do you think I’d allow them the chance to hurt you?