Picture of Your Games the 14th

[Keyrock]

A couple of fun mini-bosses:

I lost on the first try (standard for MegaTen boss battles, mini or otherwise, unless you by chance happen to have a favorable party composition) and won on the second in both cases. The Shiki-Ouji fight, in particular, was a ROFLstomp once I rolled up on him with Jack-o-Lantern (pretty much the strongest fire wielder at this point in the game) in my party.

My current party:

 

 

[Keyrock]

SMT V's second boss:

 

Mother Goddess Nuwa

Why are snake ladies always so sexy?

I actually managed to beat her on the first try, which is rare for a MegaTen boss, even on Normal, never mind on Hard difficulty, which is what I'm playing on. The usual process is: Run into boss, get wiped, find weaknesses of said boss in the process of getting wiped, retool party, try again.

While my party wasn't optimal, by chance I happened to have a fairly good party composition for the job, mainly because of Jack-o-Lantern, but also because no one in my party was weak to force damage. She never even killed any of my party, though she came very close several times. I was feeding Jack-o chakra drops like crazy while he blasted her with Agilao. You only need to get her to 50% HP to win the fight. Good thing because she has a ludicrous amount of health.

After the battle I got potentially the first meaningful choice in the game. I'm sure it's not binding, way too early for that. I'm going the neutral route, so I chose accordingly.

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Keyrock

[melkathi]

"Hello, my name is Nuwa. You killed my snakes. Prepare to die."

In green my corrections to her statements.

[Keyrock]

25 minutes ago, melkathi said:

"Hello, my name is Nuwa. You killed my snakes. Prepare to die."

In green my corrections to her statements.

I'd like to take a moment to dispel any and all rumors that Beefstik has 6 fingers on his hand. 

[LadyCrimson]

Nothing special ... it's just to say that even after 4+ years, FFXV can still impress visually in many ways/moments. Sure, much of the "world" is empty, but for some reason it's still fun/relaxing to just romp around in. I guess that's how I felt about Death Stranding, too, environmentally.

[melkathi]

Painted my mechs garish colours so I can recognize them on the battlefield:

And finally got a mission where Hourse Steiner was so desperate to get a merc company to do their work, they paid me extra shares and I got to salvage a mech.

[Malcador]

Should have asked them to give you a scout lance.

[Keyrock]

Had a scrap with this mythical Irish hunter:

He whooped my ass the first time. The roles were reversed once I retooled my team.

Turns out it was all a misunderstanding, we could have avoided clashing swords with a few words.

I was excited when I found out that I could fuse one of my favorite mid-game demons:

Thoth has strong light magic, but, more importantly, he has Megido +1, an AoE almighty spell. I generally shy away from AoE and random target attacks past the early game because you tend to run into demons with more resistances and mixed groups, thus AoE spells are a quick way to end your turn prematurely. The one exception is almighty spells, since they can't be resisted. I LOVE AoE almighty spells.

Anyway, here's my current party:

[melkathi]

Securing the landing zone and watching the battle from afar - Independent flyers and mech engaging the Lyran Commonwealth counterattack.

Main force landing.

[Malcador]

Well, it tries to be funny...

[melkathi]

Can't even trust David Bowie to give you proper quests...

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

Can't even trust David Bowie to give you proper quests...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=u3MX-rUtS6M

[Amentep]

On 11/26/2021 at 11:32 AM, Keyrock said:

Had a scrap with this mythical Irish hunter:

Yeah, he was a tool. I took a couple of tries to beat him - had a decent party but kept getting slowly wiped. Finally I crushed him. I need to merge me a Thoth - just got a few levels so may be time to play merge-o-mania.

[Hurlshort]

Enjoying a 14% kentucky bourbon stout while playing Disco Elysian is the only way to play.

[Keyrock]

Not Tom Hiddleston. 0/10 Would not cast in a Disney+ series.

[LadyCrimson]

 

To DLSS or not DLSS ... (chose RT with no DLSS for the moment)

Nerd-Lord has a huge bedroom every 80's teen would've died for.

[LadyCrimson]

I'm going to Rick Roll through the Universe!

I agree, more pockets is always better.

[Gfted1]

Nerd-Lord doesnt have any trigger discipline with his element guns.  

[LadyCrimson]

Dysmantle isn't a big screenshot game but...
...being a "survival" game the chr. has few hitpoints. You'll be dodge-rolling constantly. It's not difficult, but yeah, you can't tank/take a lot of hits at all. At least initially. Thus it's not a "horde" type game. One big or a few lesser enemies at a time (so far).

Map space. You find/activate signal towers to expose a section of map. Some gates/easy entry points you have to do tasks before you open/use them. Eventually you can fast-travel between towers if you have materials to craft the thingie. The signal towers are also what keeps enemies from respawning if you upgrade them - so you can decide what sections you want to still respawn, or not.

Digging for treasure.

Fishing. There's no mechanic involved, just reel out and it auto-fishes. Each fishing spot is limited/runs out of fish. I think all of the materials/gatherables (like plants) are limited - they do not respawn (you can plant/farm a bit for some food items). Except deer for meat/hides. Not sure if enemy respawning keeps deer from respawning as well.

Edited December 1, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Keyrock]

I'm starting to get some of my all-time favorite MegaTen demons. Exhibit A: Alice:

I love how pure evil her presentation is and she has some great voice lines. My favorite is "Just die already." She says it with such weariness and contempt, it's *chef kiss*. She may have a spot on my team all the way to the end (not necessarily on the active team most of the time) due to having very strong dark magic and no weaknesses. It depends on how good her stat progression is going forward.

Speaking of demons I'll still be using in the endgame, I also fused Idun:

She's got a spot on my team going forward, even if she spends time on the bench, for the Golden Apple skill alone.

It's a unique skill, thus I can't transfer it to anyone else, it costs a ton of mana, but it's so freakin' good. She has an extremely high magic stat, +4 healing affinity (which I boosted to +5 with a sutra), and I put Heal Pleroma on her to boot. All that adds up to her being one of the absolute best healers available. Once I unlock the last skill slot I'll put Bowl of Hygieia on her and at some point probably ditch one of the attack skills (most likely Zanma) in favor of Boon Boost. Have her cast Bowl of Hygieia then Golden Apple once her turn comes back around. Now all team members have boosted stats for 4 rounds and HP well beyond their normal max. Good times!

As for my boy Beefstik, I've been putting Dracostrikes on him:

They are physical attacks, and thus use strength as a damage modifier and can critical (which happens a decent amount because of my fairly good luck stat and the Bloody Glee skill), but they are considered elemental in terms of affinity. Great for a physical build.

Looks like I have a hot date with Surt in the near future:

[melkathi]

Low visibility she said...

[melkathi]

When the visibility is good, the battlefields can be quite pretty

 

Of course some of the special missions...

Edited December 2, 2021 by melkathi

[melkathi]

The gang isn't small, it's a startup

[Keyrock]

These 2 again:

You got it, sexy snake lady.

I really like the special concersations demons familiar with each other have sometimes:

[Keyrock]

Onward to the inevitable scrap with Surt(r). I'm not bothering to spoiler tag this since the game makes it crystal clear that you would be fighting the norse fire giant in advance.

This was one battle where my physical build was a detriment because Surt has counter. I have a variety of dracostrikes which count as elemental attacks in terms of resistances but count as physical attacks otherwise, thus they can trigger counter. When Surt would counter he would hit me for half my health. Luckily, I have a strong healer at my disposal, several actually.

Despite my physical build being a detriment, this was a really easy boss fight. Surt has a very one track mind in terms of the types of attacks he uses. I'm sure I'm not spoiling anything by telling you it's fire, fire, and more fire. He does occasionally use physical attacks, and he does hit hard, but 80% of the time he wound up using some manner of fire attack. I happened to have 2 demons with the fire block skill, one in my active party and one on the bench ready to sub in if necessary (it wasn't).