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With his identity crisis behind him Seth was off to Rykros. He had to defeat the two guardians of Rykros to prove he was true Protector material. (Seth a protector, that's kind of a scary thought.)
The immediate question was: which guardian would Seth attack first.
5499 hit points, basic attacks deal factor 1 type damage, 40 strength, 178 mental, 42 agility, 52 dexterity, 240 attack power, 0 defense, 0 magic defense, immune to factors 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14
Sa Lews is a caster with Flaeli, Hewn, and Tandle at zir disposal. Zie will respond to physical attacks by casting Legeon.
5499 hit points, basic attacks deal factor 1 type damage, 94 strength, 64 mental, 42 agility, 235 dexterity, 286 attack power, 0 defense, 0 magic defense, immune to factors 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14
De Vars is a bruiser who is all ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK. Zie will respond to magical attacks by using Disrupt Arm.
Of the two Seth had an immediate answer to Sa Lews. He could use the same strategy Hahn utilized by equipping the Plasma Field and attacking to lock them into long strings of ineffectual Legeons. Before he did anything Seth restocked trimates. There was nothing on the green planet he could equip so other than the Guard Rod there was no reason to bother with treasure chests. Sure he could sell all that stuff but it would be peanuts compared to the piles of meseta he would inevitably accrue in the final grind.
The Power Shield would continue to prove useful for the rest of the game, Sa Lews being no exception. Seth needed whatever bonus to his attack power he could get.
There was much stabbing and some trimate useage but the fight was always well under control.
I knew De Vars was going to be the tougher fight of the pair because of that pesky factor 1 immunity. I made sure to grab a screenshot of Corrosion doing the minimum of 1 damage just to demonstrate that yes, enemies really will use a factor 1 resistance value of 00 as immunity. Fortunately these were the only two fights where Corrosion was off the table and Seth had options for both of them.
But wait, you'd think that having a factor 1 resistance would render Sa Lews and De Vars immune to weapon attacks. After all weapons do have factor values assigned to them and factor 1 is basically the default, non-elemental type, right? That's true! However Laser, Plasma, and Laconian weapons all share a dirty little secret: they all deal energy damage (factor 2). No wonder Lassic/Lashiec was worried about Laconian weaponry back in the first game.
He was going to have to fight De Vars head on, taking the flurry of physical attacks and keeping his eye on his health. Swapping the Plasma Field for a Reflect Shield would help a tiny bit. He was killed once when I underestimated De Vars's attack power.
Good thing Seth brought lots of trimates, eh? With Sa Lews on lockdown he didn't even need to fly back to Dezolis to buy more between fights. Killing DF3 had put Seth at level 61 which he remained at throughout his trip on Rykros.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbBHofkgWjA
After picking up Elsydeon it was time for the final grind. First, Seth passed everything he wouldn't need to team mates stuffed away in his dimensional pocket. These were:
- Elsydeon (Chaz equipped, the game auto-equips it to him so this was technically never in inventory)
- Psycho Wand (Rune equipped)
- Algo Ring (Chaz equipped)
- Palma Ring (Wren equipped)
- Mota Ring (Rika equipped)
- Dezo Ring (Rune equipped)
- Rykros Ring (Kyra equipped, just for the heck of it)
Yes the Rykros Ring isn't equippable by anyone in the vanilla game but neither Seth nor Hahn can equip the Swift Helm in the vanilla game either. These were changes I made in the interest of game balance for the party select hack. I might be soloing but getting character balance issues ironed out has always been the main goal of all of this. I wanted to make every piece of gear useful for someone in the roster although I still haven't found any good use for the Silver Shield.
There's a reason I've never mentioned that particular item. The Plasma Field has less 3 defense but a useful factor 2 resistance and 7 more magic defense. The Reflect Shield has 2 less defense but offers 12 more magic defense. The Laconian Shield has the same 5 magic defense but 4 more defense power making it a straight upgrade. The only thing the Silver Shield has going for it is the fact that as a light class shield it can be equipped by everyone who isn't Wren or Demi but the Psy Shield is pretty much always going to be better overall because of the magic defense, +1 Mental, and factor 11 resistance.
Why yes I have put quite a lot of time and thought into evaluating the different shields in this game.
There are a few other tweaks I haven't used and one that hurt me - I removed the electrical resistance from the Palma Ring (changing it from factor 7 to factor 12 resistance) to make solo Wren take full damage from PD2's Light Showers. Ever notice that every boss post Kuran (except De Vars) has some way of inflicting electrical damage? They do! Yeah, that's specifically there to mess up Wren because he's immune to all the status effects. If Gryz and Raja have to suffer so does Wren.
The following were items Seth had to cart around:
- Land Rover
- Ice Digger
- Hydrofoil
- Aero Prism
- Mahlay Shield
- Power Shield
He didn't technically have to carry the two shields around but he was definitely going to need their buffs in the final battle so they got slots in that 40 item limit.
Seth rebased in Nalya, put Chaz into the party, and prepared several macros for the final grind. He needed one each for the Thunder Claw, Tornado Dagger, Corrosion, and the Guard Rod. Then he let wandering bio-monsters KO Chaz and headed into Vahal Fort. Once he was in there tearing through bots was little trouble. Immunity to Stasis Ball transformed every appearance of a Life Deleter into a cry of "hello 10k experience!". He would get chipped down but repeated Guard Rod uses at the end of encounters would take care of that.
At level 85 Seth was nearing the meseta cap and had a bunch of repair kits to toss out. I had already deleted the Tornado Dagger macro and sold it off. His knife attacks were far more effective. Seth flew to Dezolis, stocked up on sol dews, then returned to Nalya.
At level 99 Seth was overcapped in Strength, Mental, and Agility with Dexterity sitting right on the cap. It was strange getting only +HP for the last fifteen or so level ups. Stat growth was never much of a problem for him. He finished at 9,881,221 exp, just 100k below the experience cap and 954,512 more experience than Raja needed to reach level 99 although he had a bit less meseta in the end. When the dust settled Seth would perhaps go on to found his own school of archeology. Well I guess the school all video game archeologists, tomb raiders, and "historians" graduated from before starring in their respective games had to start somewhere.
Only the final boss remained. Here are the Profound Darkness's stats again.
Profound Darkness 1:
8240 hit points, 194 Strength, 76 Mental, 45 Agility, 61 Dexterity, 232 Attack, 0 defense, 0 magic defense, weak to factors 6 and 13 (x3), immune to factors 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14, has three abilities:
- Shadow Breath: deals damage to one player character with a base power of 112 modified by attack power, subtracting magic defense and checking against factor 1 resistance (3/8)
- Ray Breath: deals damage to one player character with a base power of 72 modified by strength, subtracting magic defense and checking against factor 2 resistance (2/8)
- Fire Breath: deals damage to one player character with a base power of 32 modified by strength, subtracting magic defense and checking against factor 3 resistance (3/8)
Profound Darkness 2:
9240 hit points, basic attacks deal factor 2 type damage, 149 Strength, 152 Mental, 45 Agility, 254 Dexterity, 352 Attack, 0 defense, 0 magic defense, weak to factors 6 and 13 (x3), immune to factors 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14, has three abilities: (3/8 - attack)
- Another Gate: deals damage to all player characters with a base power of 148 modified by mental, subtracting magic defense and checking against factor 1 resistance (1/8)
- Distortion: deals damage to all player characters with a base power of 128 modified by strength, subtracting magic defense and checking against factor 4 resistance (2/8)
- Light Shower: deals damage to all player characters with a base power of 120 modified by strength, subtracting magic defense and checking against factor 7 resistance (2/8)
Profound Darkness 3:
12999 hit points, basic attacks do factor 2 type damage, 99 Strength, 199 Mental, 45 Agility, 251 Dexterity, 354 Attack, 0 defense, 0 magic defense, weak to factors 6 and 13 (x3), immune to factors 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14, has three abilities:(3/8 - attack)
- Megid: deals damage to all player characters with a base power of 112 modified by mental, subtracting magic defense and checking against factor 6 resistance (3/8) -technically this ability will not work if PD3 is tech sealed, however PD3 is immune to factor 11 and can't be affected by Seals
- Evil Eye: puts one player character to sleep with a base power of 64 modified by mental, subtracting mental and checking against factor 11 resistance (1/8)
- Cancelling: resets the stats of all player characters to their base amounts (exact same thing the Psycho Wand does, just different targeting) (1/8)
The first and second forms actually have 4120 and 4620 hit points respectively because they form shift at 50% health. That meant Seth had to somehow survive long enough to inflict a total of 21,739 damage.
Seth didn't really have many options as far as gear. The Cyber Suit and Laco Dagger were a given, nothing better for either of those slots, while I again opted for the Plasma Field to benefit from the factor modifier. That just left the head slot. I decided to use the Swift Helm for the extra physical defense with the option to swap to a Laco Circlet if it looked like Seth was taking too much damage from magical attacks.
Those magic attacks, particularly Shadow Breath, were going to hurt regardless and Seth had little choice but to play the first phase risky to conserve sol dews. I didn't grind to level 99 just for the hell of it. He needed every hit point he could get to make the stockpile last. Taking those risks got Seth killed several times. Being killed in the third phase was particularly frustrating because it meant a long, risky struggle to get back to PD3.
As for offense Seth had to save those 18 Corrosion charges for the last phase. That meant it was time to break out the Power Shield.
Critical hits with that Laco Dagger were still pretty satisfying.
PD1 was no slouch either. A chain of Shadow Breaths at the start had me worried but Seth got through phase 1 using only 5 sol dews.
With the arrival of the second phase it was time to raise the defenses and drop any and all physical attacks to one damage.
Distortion and Another Gate still packed a punch though.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR6OHZyUPhE
When phase 3 started I had Seth leap immediately to the attack, having learned after Hahn's run that waiting to attack until later would sacrifice precious damage output. Hahn could make up for that with Nawats. Seth could not. There turned out to be precious little time, too, as the first Cancelling was PD3's 5th action affording Seth five knife attacks and one sol dew use thanks to two useless Evil Eyes.
It wasn't just about attack power. With his buffs dispelled Seth would also take much greater damage from PD3's physical attacks.
Depending on the dice rolls and whether or not I had the defense boost from the Mahlay Shield active physical attacks could do more damage to Seth than Megid. I did use the Power Shield to boost attack power, reasoning that the attack boost might be better if it could shorten the fight. PD3's critical hits made me cautious so I swapped back to the Mahlay Shield.
Without that attack boost Corrosion was definitely the heavy-hitter for Seth's side.
As the fight dragged on I worried about the ever-shrinking sol dew tally. Seth was battered down to 227 hit points, putting him at the top of Megid's threat range. I didn't plan on using a sol dew that turn but I checked to see how many there were to get some idea of how many attacks Seth had left.
Then Seth attacked and finished off the Profound Darkness. It wasn't as close as the DF1 fight ended up being but it was getting down to the wire.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfc5lnlj6fY
Rebellion complete, Seth walked away a rich man free to do whatever he wanted. One thing was certain - blowing up the Algo solar system would have put a serious cramp on exploring ruins on its planets. He couldn't have that!
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OK, Not sure If I am reading Fresh Feelings PSIV dump properly, but Re-Faze has 597 mental, now how much would a level 1 Seth take from Megid ? Possibly about 400 ? Seth seems to take a lot from Megid, and Re-Faze's Megid can do about 290 damage, so I would presume Seth would take atleast 350 damage.
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Re Faze was carefully designed to be unwinnable and the developers did a good job. It might be possible with a full level 99 party with an android for Barrier and someone who can heal everyone but that is simply way too much work for me to put into one pointless fight.