PS4 Hahn Solo, part 4

[ladyabaxa]

When last we left our intrepid biologist he had just killed the last of Dark Force's three incarnations in this game and was told to follow the light.

Before that, however, we need to rewind a little because there was the little matter of opening Vahal Fort for grinding. That meant Hahn had to defeat the Dominator trio that serve as a sorta boss fight at the end of the Silver Soldier job. The Thunder Claw was somewhat effective on them.

Nazan was not helpful.

Neither was getting Doubleslashed. This actually took several attempts using Astral to destroy the Dominators one at a time. At least they missed basic attacks about 30% of the time and Phononmaser did single-digit damage.

Just getting in and out was a pain as he, like Raja, couldn't run from Life Deleters due to low Agility and would inevitably be Stasis Balled. This was remedied by equipping the Swift Helm and using it in battle when Life Deleters appeared to get enough agility to run away. So, yes, the resident biologist "snuck" into Camp Death Machine by running through its corridors screaming his head off and trying not to get shot because Hahn has all the subtlety of a herd of stampeding elephants.

Back to our regularly scheduled program, hello De Vars! Zie gets a screenshot this time because Hahn would use some actual strategy on this fight.

Of course "strategy" means still using Astral as the main workhorse.

Which is just fine because, since it counts as a magic attack, it triggers De Vars's Disrupt Arm counter attacks. Normally this would be bad since Disrupt Arm hits the entire player party but like most group attacks it does less damage to one target. Hahn swapped in the Swift Helm for the +Agility and +defense but kept one Psy Shield for the slight Mental boost to his damage.

This was far better than eating regular attacks which had a high chance of critical hit.

Once the Astrals were spent it was back to Nawat. If Hahn is anything, it is consistent.

Then it was off to Sa Lews. Raja taught me to be careful with this boss but I had a cunning plan. Flaeli would still hurt but without a factor 3 weakness Hahn took a much more manageable 134 damage. This was far preferable to what Raja was put through.

Before the fight Hahn actually ran back to Dezolis to buy a Laconian Dagger. He again wore the Swift Helm and spent two turns buffing Agility and Dexterity (yay, he finally had a use for Vision!) before going on the attack.

Like De Vars Sa Lews also has a counterattack. Being the magic-using one of the pair zie responds to physical attacks by hitting the entire player group with Legeon. As mentioned before when I discussed Astral back in part 1 Legeon is a factor 2/energy attack and is thus resisted by the Plasma Field.

Let's see, Hahn can weather a flurry of Flaeli, Tandle, and Hewn spells... or he can stab Sa Lews over and over again and be hit with ineffective Legeon spells. The choice was not difficult. This is definitely a fight where being a knife wielder worked in Hahn's favor.

A winner is us!

 

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHCi8ZXgM4Y

Here's the obligatory video for De Vars and Sa Lews.

While Hahn is on Rykros let's have him introduce some of the lovely invaders who have been trying to murder him. First up are Crimson Heads. They've traded the Fire Breath of their lesser Stone Head brethren for blasts of energy. Ray Breath is easily resisted by the Plasma Field.

Next up are Death Bearers. These enemies love to raise their own attack power with Shift but since they have low Mental and no immunity to factor 10 Hahn easily kills them with Savol.

Cula-Bellr round out the bug trio for this game. (Rule of 3!)

However they've gone straight to breathing lightning which is not pleasant even in the Land Rover.

Run away, RUN AWAY!

Cula-Bellr will appear as non-vehicle random encounters on Rykros and yes that Lightning Breath absolutely will shred Wren and Demi. Where's a giant can of Raid when you need one?

Inside the towers Hahn finds that Savol is only marginally useful against Dark Witches. Eh, they're already pretty fragile.

Illusionists are even harder to kill with Vol/Savol than Chaos Sorcerors as they too resist factor 10 and have higher Mental. Eliminate gets around that and gives me a chance to include a screenshot of Hahn finally getting to use that skill.

Twin Arms vs. Savol, Twin Arms lose. This is essentially what any period of post-Savol grinding looked like for Hahn - piles of corpses with not a scratch on 'em.

Finally in our little biology tour we have Le-Faw-Gan. These are part of a series of enemies that defies the rule of 3 as there are actually four enemies using this sprite: D-Elm-Lars, Xe-A-Thoul, Le-Faw-Gan, and Gi-Le-Farg. They think they're all special and they do resist Savol fairly well but Hahn could also just Eliminate them if he wanted to. He could also knife them down as their Gifoi, Gizan, and Tandle spells weren't a threat. Note, however, that for androids this enemy line is quite dangerous. They all have inherent energy damage on their attacks (except the Xe-A-Thouls who instead inflict electrical damage). Le-Faw-Gan and Gi-Le-Farg can also use Tandle. Solo Wren had little choice but to run from these enemies as they also have significantly more hit points then other enemies around them. (D-Elm-Lars: 777, Le-Faw-Gan: 888, Gi-Le-Farg: 999, and of course the Xe-A-Thouls are a boss fight but have 1520 hit points each.)

In short, unless you know what you're doing, if you're playing a solo character you probably want to steer clear of any enemy with this sprite.

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The 3k meseta reward is a prime example of why I do my grinding in Vahal Fort from as soon as I can get in there. The time per encounter is roughly the same but Sol Dews are not cheap and we're going to need them by the barrel before the end.

Part Three | Index | Part Five

Comments

[shining-armour.livejournal.com]

Eh, I always wondered what Vol was suppose to be, it looks some eletric ball.

Time to go super fantasising! What would something like Legeon feel like ? I imagine tons of energy blasts blowing up and you being destroyed by them.

Dominators would be scary if you were right in front of one, imagine their giant robot arms clashing into ... and if it was twice...

I've been wondering randomly, but if Hahn was at level 1 and was attacked by De-Vars' physical attack, how much damage would he take ? I have no clue why I wonder these, but I am guessing roughly about 270.

One more thing; What factor is Another Gate ?

[shining-armour.livejournal.com]

This is random, but maybe this is what Legeon would be feel like ... know the way when you touch a light bulb that is switched on ? And it is really hot ? Well, imagine it being 100 times hotter, a lot more eletricity going into it, a lot more energy and nuclear power, and it being turned into 1 huge burst of light, and about 10 of them.

One more thing: The Ripper enemy uses 6 sprites, well not all of them are 100% the same.