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Trails in the Sky The 3rd: Low Level Game, 100% completion, Nightmare Mode


Ronlyn
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Hey there everyone!!!

 A long time ago I said I would eventually cover all the games of The Legend of Heroes VI and dammit I'm not quitting on this one so here we go:

 

I'm done all the way up to chapter 2 and I'm upload Ch3's bosses and stuff, get ready because this one I'm pretty sure will break my knees at some point.

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Chapter 3 is done, and ohh boy the game is not joking around with the hate against me:

 

Golden & Silver Road Forced Battles

Spoiler

Chapter 3 finally shows it's face and I'm sweating bullets: Our whole team needs to split up into two parties to get past this particular place, which has a boss at the end of both sides.

Since I cannot purchase quartz/slots without hurting my endgame (or even making it straight up impossible) I must abuse a really funny thing about the inventory: All items/quartz are available to both sides until someone equip said thing.

the teams are:

Golden team: Kevin/Julia/Mueller/Josette
Silver team: Ries/Joshua/Kloe/Tita

Battle wise, both sides have a somewhat easy forced battle which I decided to end up fast since the sepith there wasn't worth the pain of waiting sepith up turns.

 

Doppel Ries

Spoiler

I decided to go Golden Road first if only because even without extreme optimization, Grail Sphere can carry any team at this point in the game (and maybe everywhere if you stack enough speed on Kevin).

Ries? and her mirrors can potentially become a pain in the balls if you don't check which thing reflect both mirrors, so the real solution is to pop your s-crafts to remove the magic reflecting ones so you can focus on both destroying the remaining mirrors and slow down Ries? on her rampage (good thing she decided to hate Josette, she can have her after she spend her S-craft).

Even with both spacing my team and giving the doppel a scapegoat sometimes, I was SO CLOSE to get smoked that I wouldn't be mad if I got an useless quartz as drop (good thing it was Defense 4: I need those for earth walling later down the line).

 

Doppel Kevin:

Spoiler

After removing everything from Kevin's team, I get Ries & Co ready for their ride against The 3rd meta game: Kevin? will straight up pull out Grail Sphere to negate two instances of damage for every enemy on screen, which is kind of problematic when you have a timer on your head without it.

All cannons are capable of both dish out tremendous damage or straight OHKO someone if they score a deathblow proc, so our first order of business it's to buy time for the team via petrosphere and clock down. After that, Tita will use her quite charitable smoke cannon to remove that pesky barrier while the rest of the team try their best to remove as much enemies as possible before the other tanks reach our hideout in the corner.

after we get alone with the doppel, just sit tight and keep the pressure since unlike the other one this one's a chore since he's slower and I got Joshua to send his turns to gehenna.

 

Edited by ronlyn
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Chapter 4 it's right out of the furnace:

 

Le Locle Forced Battle

Spoiler

Chapter 4 it's a reality and Ries decided to take a nap in the duration of it, which means Joshua will tag in until further notice.

Battles are quite simple: Wererats are quickly dispatch and even thought I would like to farm for sepith along the werewolves, these annoyances summon reinforcements until there are five of them on the battlefield so alas.

At least I can feed some experience to Josette to avoid her use in the near future.

 

Doppel Anelance

Spoiler

Time for some clone wars: Anelance it's our next addition to the dream team and of course we have to win the rights to have her.

This Doppel comes with some aids and all of them are irrelevant if only because Clock Down & Evil Eye destroy any kind of chance for them to be actually dangerous, Hell she can even reposition the party with one of her crafts if they get knocked out of position.

We get Jinu and Anelance attached to it as prize (What? Did you really thought I would deal with Anelance WITHOUT Jinu? you wish).

 

Saint Crox Forest Forced Rescue

Spoiler

Here, have a filler fight for a NPC that I will only thank because I can farm time sepith without the fear of reinforcements.

 

Doppel Scherazard

Spoiler

The birds which follow the boss are quite susceptible to confuse so chaos brand will be abused with good reason: Doppel Schera is fast as hell, can interrupt casters while dealing good damage, Aerials that can shave off more than half of everyone's hp and immunity to both status effects and stats downs makes her quite annoying if you don't peg down her adds.

Obviously we get the real deal after that and sadly, Heaven's Kiss will not see the light of day until CH6 rolls in (thanks for the quartz thought).

 

Doppel Agate

Spoiler

Hands down the hardest battle until now. Doppel Agate and his bulls are simple yet surprisingly effective: Group up and whack them till they die is the name of their game and unlike most bosses, they have the stats to consistently delete any caster of the team without max HP, which is a problem when Agate also sport stuff like Spiral Edge (AT delay with 9000+ damage), Draguna Edge (Linear arts cancel craft that will smoke Tita if he gets to her unprotected), Flame Smash (The only reason my entire team is running for the hills) and later down the line he can even toss Dragon Dive to straight out kill an unsuspecting party. All of this is joined with the neat fact that you cannot reduce his stats outside of move so yeah... better to split up the team.

Once I get setup, Petrosphere & Clock Down are put on good use to delay those brutes while Kloe/Kevin use Ascension to remove them with Tita/Joshua keeping the walls for Agate's onslaught until I get him alone so I can kill him without issues.

We get the man himself and he will be an asset to the fight....once CH6 kicks in *sigh*

 

Astarte

Spoiler

After the whole deal with Agate just outright moping the floor with me, I welcome Astarte and his rather simplistic approach with open arms.

Yeah, he can totally smoke the whole team if I dare to face him without earth wall, but since the cut-scene powers are set to the max in this one, I can be quite negligent in my strategy here.

Kevin's new S-craft does tons of damage here and since I'm forced to equip it as S-break, my best bet is to boost his STR as much as I can while Joshua tags in with Phantom Raid to remove the Exiles from the picture. Once that's all said and done I pull out clock up ex along dark matter and start buying time while Kevin recharge his CP to keep thrashing Astarte and the rest just pelt him to keep things going as fast as we can before he summons more adds (good thing they just disappear without granting experience after his death).

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally done with Chapter 5. This one was quite the issue (And by that I mean I was getting my ass handed to me a whole weekend)

Fifth Plane Forced Battle

Spoiler

After a long time, Estelle makes her grand entrance into the party which would be amazing...if it didn't mean Kevin is out of commission for the entire chapter 5 with Ries taking his place.

Thanks god Ch5 only got one mandatory fight which is just yet another chance to farm some sepith while giving the experience to my leftovers and while the highly expected Devil lurking at the end is quite the challenge, the problem lies more around speed/movement issues and Grail Sphere is no required in the solution of any of those.

The two party members got after this are endgame material: Richard has some of the best crafts in the game and really decent arts casting potential with his orbment resembling Kevin. Renne is also quite the boon since she's the only member to come with her orbment fully upgraded which means no investment needed until the very end.

Sadly both will not be touched until said endgame (outside of a special battle) but alas they are welcome nonetheless.

 

The Arachne Sisters & Arachne Zigma

Spoiler

Time to do some plague control: the arachne sisters (Evros, Thaleia & Graia) are without a doubt the most annoying bosses in this game outside of optional stuff if only because the first two minutes are entirely up to the RNG.

Let's see... Graia & Thaleia can interrupt arts, check...Evros & Graia can use devil eye to either petrify or AT delay the poor fool, check.... Evros & Thaleia can reduce either STR or SPD (god forbid your earth wall user get hit by the SPD one), check....ALL THREE CAN MOVE AROUND THE WHOLE MAP AND ENSURE AoE ARTS ARE LESS EFFECTIVE, FRIGGING CHECK.  

In terms of what to do, there are two little spiders trying to intimidate you, but sadly for them I did the nasty and Chaos Brand them into my team (with mixed results). Next I try my best to clock down the sisters & earth wall the party to ensure my clock up ex/dark matter casts don't get throw into oblivion.

Once things are under control, I make sure everyone's has clock up ex & earth wall active before separate them and kill Evros last. Why? Because the darn thing summons her big momma and if I dare to kill it before the others that's a reset since the big one plays dirty.

Arachne Zigma is capable of do all the stuff his daughters can...but with a small AoE effect which makes keeping the walls up quite the challengue because even with cast 2, the wall won't come out before the big devil can suck someone's life to regenerate his own (most of the time this also kills said target).

After some shenaningans, I managed to defeat it and thanks god I received an useful quartz (sadly no Gold Gem) because hell if I'm gonna dare touch that battle in a LONG TIME (I expended the WHOLE last weekend getting plastered).

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Chapter 6 it's finally here and before getting into it, first I must show these if only because I'm being quite lazy this year:

 

The Status:

Spoiler

VNxXD8K.jpg

Everyone got level 2 slots in their orbments.

 

Now, here's the main event:

 

Chapter 6 Forced Battles:

Spoiler

Finally on the fated chapter: From now on assume everyone but one party member will be killed to ensure our exp gains are as low as possible until the dreaded endgame (My goal is to have the whole gang between lvl 119 and 122).

The first trial pits us against 16 unavoidable encounters against black knights in order to continue our journey. Since they're annoying at best, I decided to take this opportunity to grind my designed tank for certain boss to her endgame level.

Spoiler

tPujSnh.jpg

 

 

 

The Ravens Redux 2.0 - Revengeance:

Spoiler

After a boring & unnecessary grinding spot thank to the game's shenanigans, the time for some guests stars to show their faces has finally unfold and our first contestants are.... The Ravens....yeah....

This battle could be dangerous if they had any access to AoE crafts but  instead we have a bunch of clowns who I can rush zerg until they get locked out in either a reviving cycle or trying to oneshot my team with their S-crafts (which I abuse to ensure Zin is the only one alive at the end). At least it's the perfect spot to test Zin's damage output since I will need him in a far more dire situation in the future.

 

The First Guardian:

Spoiler

The first obstacle in this particular plane is Phillip of all people: He can potentially destroy your team if he manages to grab you outside of earth wall jurisdiction so better be careful.

What really can make it or break it is his aids who can spam ragna bind to both eat your protections and deal a ton of damage, so better get rid of those with anti sept (no more casting) & Silver Thorns (they're doing my job better than me).

Next time, Kevin will once again flex his S-craft to nice results.

 

Edited by ronlyn
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Continuing with the pain train that is The 3rd's Lategame:

 

The Looking Glass Forced Battle:

Spoiler

Starting off the 2nd trial (AKA "Forced Anelance Zone") and we have some random battle that's yet another excuse to feed exp by force to the team. Since Kevin's lagging behind he gets the whole deal, which means both him and Ries are in the same tier of speed (VERY IMPORTANT FOR LATER).

Next time, redux fights 2.0 - SC Revenge

 

Grant:

Spoiler

Time for this pain in the ass: Grant & Co are quite easy to tame and destroy since they just gonna melee on you or toss grenades to blind you (complete waste of time since arts is basically our game right now).

What really make this battle long is the fact I'm forced to bring one of the WORST possible team ever: Since Josette needs exp to avoid her meddling in the future I got TWO completely irrelevant party members once everything is set (Anelance's AT Delay is "serviceable" but don't expect her to pull out astounding numbers without buffing her and reducing her chances at surviving critical blows without earth wall 24/7).

 At least she's now out of the way and rightly so, since next fight is quite dicey without her assistance.

 

Carna:

Spoiler

After dumping the bimbo and bring some actual magic artillery, Carna & Ladies are next and god lord they're a complete nuisance: All of them carry rifles which means long distance attacks and arts cancels, which also means getting interrupted while eating lots of damage and accomplish absolutely nothing.

After doing the normal preparations (Clock Down, Petrosphere, Clock up EX, you name it) I need to remove the aids ASAP before going against the blue haired rambo (If they let me hit them with AoE even better) Since Carna will also spend some of her turns buffing her allies, which translates into one turn where she isn't bringing the pain upon you.

Next time: I'm already feeling the salt in the air.

 

Kurt:

Spoiler

*Vietnam Flaskbacks* UGH, I still feel kind of sore after his whole deal back in the SC (Which I may try again on nightmare after dealing with Crossbell).

Anyways, unlike that unfortunate encounter back in the last game, Kurt comes out as surprisingly easy to deal with since in order to avoid getting scooped by Shadow Spear wannabes, you need to be right in front of his face to ensure his AI goes for physical hits which are easy to tank with the right tools (Same goes to his lackeys).

Unlike the last two fights however, Kurt must die first since once he reaches below 10000 hp, he will spam both his healing move and defense buff in order to both annoy the living hell out of me and make more difficult his death via S-craft (Even with Richard going ham with the best STR boosting gear I can manage at the moment cannot do more than 7000 hp in a single S-craft) so I better deal with his friend who are willing to help to the cause with less issues.

Good thing Kurt decided to repent for his sins last game, because the final encounter of this particular trial is HELL. How much? let's find out.

 

The Second Guardian:

Spoiler

Gonna be real here: This one took quite a lot of time (in fact, it's the reason why these part are coming out this weekend...and I started with this one Wednesday).

Kilika is quite simple: She got lots of speed, really damaging moves fused with a REALLY LONG REACH that would make her ex blush, two lackeys that are quite easy to deal with but will distract you or even worse, eat your earth walls/grail sphere shots to ensure the she devil decimate the poor sap, and finally an AoE move with the same reach as Aerial to get you out of that silly turtling idea once you're alone with her.

After she cleans the floor with the party enough times to being able to see my reflection in concrete, I managed to reach a reliable way to get pass this pretty lass: Dark Matter EX wasn't mentioned until now since I didn't need to rely on it but that this is OP as hell against most bosses who can move, which means I spam the loving hell out of it with Olivier (Only reason Kloe didn't take his slot), While Joshua (our survivor this time), Anelance and Kevin make sure we have a team to face her off once the devils are deal with.

Even after this whole process and getting on the verge of winning, she somehow got knowledge of my plans and decided to target Joshua at the end, which was the most nerve breaking experience I got to live in a while because she can easily three turn the two remaining party members.

Good thing the RNG decided to be merciful and gift me the Onyx Gem on the first winning attempt because I'M NOT DEALING WITH HER AGAIN....Because there are worst stuff to come on the 3rd trial.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Time for some hi-jinks on the 3rd Trial:

Lt.Colonel Cid & Royal Army Soldiers:

Spoiler

Time has come for the dreaded third trial and we're off to a horrible start: Unlike most bosses who sacrifice some variety in their move set to have several flunkies to harass you, Cid decides to ignore this premise and bring a devastating art that can cover the entire screen, an arts interrupting move which can also deal tons of damage and a surprisingly lethal close combat which even has an AT Delay move for the giggles. This whole thing has a cherry on the top with a team of soldiers with the ability to inflict Blind (meh), Faint (crud) & Freeze (straight up reset the match) with their normal attacks and we got SIX of those running around.

The first few turns are spend both staying alive while casting Silver Thorns on everything in the field to ensure we get control of the battle before Cid can successfully cast Arc Prominence to make everyone easy picking for the grunts. After that, we're home free to both buff/debuff speed & start actually damaging Cid to end this ordeal before confusion runs out.

 

Impregnable Fortress Monster Chest:

Spoiler

Time for a throwback fight with monsters inside a chest. Not that it hard, but quite nostalgic.

 

Captain Amalthea & Special Ops:

Spoiler

Since we're dealing with Richard's issues, of course we have to face his fox lady in combat:  Kanone is arguably more easy to deal with since even though her moves are AoE with nasty effects (Poison/Seal) most of the time she will try to beat down whatever is in front of her until death (Kloe in this one) so our real concern are those Special Ops who can AT Delay the team and deal significant damage in the process. Silver Thorns/Chaos Brand are the way to go once again (so awesome that even if I lost Julia after the fact, I got this one on the bag).

 

General Morgan & Royal Army Officers

Spoiler

Our second to last encounter put us against some angry old man with a Halberd and some bozos. Morgan can potentially delete your whole team if you let him, which is not the case since he can only deal AoE damage when your team is bunch up, something quickly fixed by casting Grail Sphere and GTFO in a diamond shape (Not before casting Chaos Brand on his adds).

Once this is all done, things are so easy that I even went back to maximize my sepith count since this is one of the last chances I got before endgame.

 

I don't know if anyone is actually watching this but, Next time I will have THAT ONE BOSS to deal with so get prepared for some clutch gameplay

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Here I am, with the defeat of Divine Blade (less preparations that I would expect but A LOT MORE close calls that I was prepared for):

 

The Third Guardian:

Spoiler

So...We finally got the chance to face the Mary Sue of the serie, the Divine Blade, The one Ouroboros decided to make a plan for years just to get it out of their asses: Cassius Bright and ohhh boy the man will make sure you remember his name.

Cassius comes in all his lonesome to face us and honestly you should be grateful since the bastard alone can two-three turn even a fully leveled team if you let him do his stuff: Hundred Blows is Estelle's first S-craft repurposed as normal S-craft (which translates as HURTS A LOT), Armor Rend is a linear craft which can AT Delay everyone inside his range while doing horrendous damage (which means get hit by it and restart because now you have done it), Lightning Flash is just a random target craft which may or may not kill (not that is a good plan to roll the dice here) and Phoenix Wave, his trademark S-craft which is basically death to everyone without immunity and he will use it whenever he feels like so better git gud.

But the WORST thing Cassius can do that will no doubt reduces your chances of winning is Quilingong: A craft with the nifty ability to buff his STR and SPD to absurd levels. How much you ask? Now ALL his moves are OHKO (Without it Characters with HP above 17000 could survive some of this. Now you need at minimum 20000) and his speed.....well, even at max level with specific gear you will only reach 130- 132 speed at most, Cassius will blow your speed out of the park at 177 (And this is assuming he just get a 25% bonus on both, otherwise that number goes to the 200) which is more than enough to double turn you on a common basis and TRIPLE turn you every now and then.

Thanks to Blue Asian, I decided to cheese as much as allowed this fight and bring the heavy artillery: Kevin,Richard and Schera (our survivor) will keep the walls AT ALL COST and do some important buffs (Clock up EX or die basically) while Tita will ram her Orbal Gear into his face until near death which means everyone but Ms.Harvey needs to die before the finishing blow. 

Of course this is easier said that done with the elusive man occasionally getting turns before walls are up (Kevin being a prominent example of this mid-fight) so this also involve some praying that he focus on Tita to ensure you don't lose you formation and die painfully (which happen around 20-30 times before this winning attempt).

Rest in spaghetti Cassius: I don't wanna cross you EVER again......unless you get another try in an optional door or something, but what are the chances of that?

 

The missing grinding sessions:

Spoiler

NtfOCTa.jpg

The Looking Glass Forced Battle

66RQs93.jpg
MLSaRx8.jpg

Vs Kurt

ExV0PKe.jpg

Morgan & Pals

 

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  • 5 weeks later...

After being absent for a WHOLE MONTH because July was particularly kind of a horribly time for my well being, I got around that nasty stuff and I'm back with some more content: 

The Capuas Strikes Back

Spoiler

After getting some rest from getting a quite nasty accident on my feet, I'm back for some more Trails as I finally get near the end.

Our last trial gets us back at the Glorious from SC and after some nice looting and dodging, I get to face our next boss battle: Dom & Kyle are back for some blood and unlike their other incarnations in the last two games, they decided to throw all their minions at once and get serious right off the bat.

Like Cid's battle, going straight for DPS will get you killed quickly, so once more Chaos Brand saves the day while I try my best to gain control over the whole battlefield since Dom can delete my team quite fast and Kyle needs some restrains to ensure he doesn't eat all my walls.

I also show up Kevin's setup for almost the rest of the game: 8cp per turn means I can keep Grail Sphere active almost at any time and where that's not the case, I can use normal walls to wait out the next one. Yes, this is REALLY OP and No, I won't ban it since this is fully required to not get plastered by the next bosses ahead.

The Enforcers Triumvirate

Spoiler

After some rather harsh trivia thanks to Campanella, I managed to harness the one and only Time Gem of the game without New Game + shenanigans. This goes straight into Kevin because he's just the perfect support and using him as other stuff in Lategame is kind of dumb (Maybe just make him a potent arts user in the next chapter but that's it).

Leaving the topic aside, we got not, or two but THREE Enforcers to face head on and my lord, they are quite the team: Walter will rush you down and try to delete everything on the field (If the S-craft on his first turn didn't gave you a clue I don´t know what to tell you), Luciola will attack and when anyone reaches below 20000 hp she will start using Teara or even revive her folks, and finally, Bleublanc is just annoying by both dealing damage and trying to inflict status effects (Luciola can do this too but at least it's just one move and not her entire repertory).

First of all, I need to cast petrosphere to Walter in order to slow down his murder moxie while Bleublanc eats a clock down to reduce his annoyance, they I proceed to apply clock up ex on everyone while laying around clock down to make this one more bearable. One things are said and done, blasting out Bleublanc is due (And if you can, also hit Luciola with AoE arts to ensure she stops hitting on you and get trapped in a loop of interrupted healing thanks to Agate).

The secret of this one is to react accordingly: splitting up the team is nice on the start to avoid death by AoE attacks but as the time goes on, do try to reunite your team since S-crafts will come out rarely and saving some nice EP for more burst damage is ideal.

Overall, this one is a tough cookie if unprepared, but it can be done quickly if you shut down their speed/mobility. Not so much for the last battle of CH6.

The Final Guardian

Spoiler

 

After going back to the garden to refill and grab some forgotten characters, I took off to face off The Schwarzritter (Which name you can bet your hair I just copy/paste so instead he will be called Not-Loewe because SPOILERS) and his friend D-Phantom.

Unlike certain battle in SC, I actually HAVE TO rely on the RNG and he doesn't straight up release his S-craft and hilariously overkill my entire party since at this point I'm don't think anyone outside of Zin/Orbal Tita can tank anything significant.

After this rocky start, Not-Loewe will use Silver Thorns, Zero Storm to interrupt arts or normal attacks that can kill most casters in one hit while D-Phantom will mostly try to slam people via normal attacks or AoE moves, all of them which must be tanked with earth wall/Grail Sphere otherwise boom goes whoever got hit.

As to how I'm dealing with this, curiously enough you want Not-Loewe as close as you can manage (you can even enclose him between your team like I did) since D-Phantom will always try his best to stay near him, making stuff like spamming Hell's Gate after both clock down/orbal down more easy to implement. After the automaton gets out of the picture, Not-Loewe will do mostly the same things, while making earth guard/La Teara part of his arsenal after he hits 50% hp (He can also use them when the robot reaches critical health but sadly for him, that's why Estelle's here for).

What really ramps up the difficulty for this fight is just before the end of it: When the man reaches 10000 or less hp, he will spam his cloning ability, which wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't trying to low level the deal, resulting in both Joshua and Renne surviving the show (I'M NOT risking another 30-40 minutes of fumbling around trying to deplete his HP while blocking the 10% hp restore bonuses from the turn bar). Good thing Chapter 6 is done, since I will need all my brain power to figure out what in the loving hell I'm doing against the final chapter and thus, final set of battle from this trilogy. STAY TUNED.

 

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