Just another day. Amassing and training groups of cute girls turned out to be a lot more time-consuming and heartbreaking than I had expected. The fact that my luck seems to have gone really rotten lately only adds insult to injury. This whole experience sometimes feels more exhausting than plodding up Canton Avenue.
I'm of course talking about Lemuria of Phosphorescent, which has just celebrated its first anniversary not long ago. Frankly I don't even remember how I got into browser games, but after suffering through the monotonous Gun Blood Days, which I quit playing months before its termination of service this April, I somehow discovered Lemuria of Phosphorescent and the rest is all history now. Before I knew it, I had been playing it rather actively for more than half a year. Although at one point I was unsure if I were actually getting anywhere in the game, joining the top guild on the server had certainly cast away all my doubts and essentially motivated me to put some more effort into the game.
A few weeks ago I would have probably sneered at a team like this, but now I'm laughing at myself for spending so much time and energy putting together teams with a balanced build, which should have ideally produced Strikers who could deal, withstand and avoid damage. Sounds too good to be true? It sure is. The balanced build, while decent for early parts of the game, begins to fall short of specialized builds as with many balanced things, its weakness lies in the fact that it lacks an edge that makes it truly stand out. With this team, the idea was to ditch agility completely in favour of defence. Quite a bold decision considering that the Keyblade master Justina's skill 光滅刃 (Attack + 20%, Evasion + 24%, Shield + 50) actually meant that I could have gone for a dodge ball team instead, as the vanguard's skill affects the whole team against bosses. However, I was quite adamant on creating a team who is so tough that even the bosses struggle to scratch them, since the Shield ability can virtually reduce all damage to just 1. A normal Justina was picked specifically for her Shield ability, because her rare skill シャインズハルト (Attack + 35%, Hit + 20%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 150) is purely offence-oriented, and I wasn't too keen on making her a pure damage dealer. Shield is just too good a ability to pass on. It's such a shame that I missed out on the best meat shields so far - Mugino with her rare skill メルトダウナー (Attack + 45%, Defence + 10%, Shield + 70) and Misaka with her normal skill 砂鉄ブレード (Attack + 35%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 100, Shield + 80).
The lovely Touka was well-suited for a build that centred on defence thanks to her skill 封刃・神鳴 (Attack + 35%, Defence + 24%), and she's doing pretty nicely as a damage dealing tank so far. Hopefully this was the last time that I had to make changes to her. Although Justina's younger sister Ingrid - the girl who administers destruction, despair and demises - could have benefited from a balanced build due to her skill 終焉を詠う詩 (Attack + 25%, Defence + 20%, Evasion + 18%), I wasn't about to change my mind on the theme of the team, and so another powerful paper tank was born. Now that I think about it, a rare Ingrid would have been quite amazing with a build that concentrated on attack and agility, since her damage would go through the roof with 闇より深い絶望 (Attack + 40%, Amour-Piercing Damage + 200). I just love my paper tanks too much.
Now this is where things get a bit interesting. The second team has swimsuit Touka as its vanguard, and while her skill 時雨月 (Attack + 30%, Evasion + 18%, Shield + 60) is very similar to Justina's, their builds are different as Touka focuses more on survivability than dishing out damage. Not that Justina can't survive better than Touka, but the latter's ability to actually dodge a lot of attacks is pretty great, especially when faced against enemies with amour-piercing skills. Another good thing about Touka is that she can heal herself or the team with her randomly activated leader skills, which is another reason why I put her as a vanguard. This applies to Justina as well, since she can heal every team simultaneously with her leader skill. It's taken me a pretty long time to finally fuse Touka's special weapon, which significantly improved the stat bonuses of her equipment. If only weapon fusion didn't require a certain material that the random number goddess likes to tease me with every day.
Despite not appearing all that threatening, swimsuit Sasha is easily one of my strongest Strikers, and the only one with a ten-star rarity. All those extra stat points she gets to expend meant that a balanced build was highly viable for her. Like all ten-star Strikers, Sasha came with both her normal and rare skills, though I later removed the normal skill エルダースマッシュ (Attack + 50, Attack + 25%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 180), which is not as impressive as it seems, and kept the more useful アム・リル (Attack + 35%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 150, Hit + 50). Apart from how redundant it was to have two offensive skills, I simply did not wish to waste points on getting over 400 luck, which was required in order to ensure 100% activation rate for two skills. Sasha's lack of a defensive skill can be a little worrying at times, and I might just bite the bullet one day and let her learn ゴッズフィンガー (Defence + 25%, Evasion + 25%). Why is luck such a troublesome stat?
Strikers with skills like Cami's ミストラルグロウ (Attack + 30%, Evasion + 36%) are generally not held in high regard due to the fact that the dodge rate is capped at 85%. Everyone knows that the random number goddess is one sadistic lady, and when something with a success rate of 60% fails eight times in a row, staking lives on anything less than 100% is just absurd. Yet into absurdity I go, because I wouldn't want it any other way. The ideal build for characters like Cami, as far I'm concerned, is one that hits hard and dies fast. There can never be enough attack with a build like this, but it's meaningless to have all that raw power if the hits didn't actually connect. And though Cami's profile describes her as a master archer with perfect aim, her dexterity is not really that good. Thankfully, the agility buff that Cami gets from her skill gave me enough points to dump into her dexterity. She certainly won't miss her mark now. Alternatively, I can definitely see a more agility-oriented build for Cami, with the right equipment to supplement her dexterity. It does feel like a bit of waste to throw so many points into agility with the whole dodge rate cap thing though.
I think not.
I'm of course talking about Lemuria of Phosphorescent, which has just celebrated its first anniversary not long ago. Frankly I don't even remember how I got into browser games, but after suffering through the monotonous Gun Blood Days, which I quit playing months before its termination of service this April, I somehow discovered Lemuria of Phosphorescent and the rest is all history now. Before I knew it, I had been playing it rather actively for more than half a year. Although at one point I was unsure if I were actually getting anywhere in the game, joining the top guild on the server had certainly cast away all my doubts and essentially motivated me to put some more effort into the game.
A few weeks ago I would have probably sneered at a team like this, but now I'm laughing at myself for spending so much time and energy putting together teams with a balanced build, which should have ideally produced Strikers who could deal, withstand and avoid damage. Sounds too good to be true? It sure is. The balanced build, while decent for early parts of the game, begins to fall short of specialized builds as with many balanced things, its weakness lies in the fact that it lacks an edge that makes it truly stand out. With this team, the idea was to ditch agility completely in favour of defence. Quite a bold decision considering that the Keyblade master Justina's skill 光滅刃 (Attack + 20%, Evasion + 24%, Shield + 50) actually meant that I could have gone for a dodge ball team instead, as the vanguard's skill affects the whole team against bosses. However, I was quite adamant on creating a team who is so tough that even the bosses struggle to scratch them, since the Shield ability can virtually reduce all damage to just 1. A normal Justina was picked specifically for her Shield ability, because her rare skill シャインズハルト (Attack + 35%, Hit + 20%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 150) is purely offence-oriented, and I wasn't too keen on making her a pure damage dealer. Shield is just too good a ability to pass on. It's such a shame that I missed out on the best meat shields so far - Mugino with her rare skill メルトダウナー (Attack + 45%, Defence + 10%, Shield + 70) and Misaka with her normal skill 砂鉄ブレード (Attack + 35%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 100, Shield + 80).
The lovely Touka was well-suited for a build that centred on defence thanks to her skill 封刃・神鳴 (Attack + 35%, Defence + 24%), and she's doing pretty nicely as a damage dealing tank so far. Hopefully this was the last time that I had to make changes to her. Although Justina's younger sister Ingrid - the girl who administers destruction, despair and demises - could have benefited from a balanced build due to her skill 終焉を詠う詩 (Attack + 25%, Defence + 20%, Evasion + 18%), I wasn't about to change my mind on the theme of the team, and so another powerful paper tank was born. Now that I think about it, a rare Ingrid would have been quite amazing with a build that concentrated on attack and agility, since her damage would go through the roof with 闇より深い絶望 (Attack + 40%, Amour-Piercing Damage + 200). I just love my paper tanks too much.
Despite not appearing all that threatening, swimsuit Sasha is easily one of my strongest Strikers, and the only one with a ten-star rarity. All those extra stat points she gets to expend meant that a balanced build was highly viable for her. Like all ten-star Strikers, Sasha came with both her normal and rare skills, though I later removed the normal skill エルダースマッシュ (Attack + 50, Attack + 25%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 180), which is not as impressive as it seems, and kept the more useful アム・リル (Attack + 35%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 150, Hit + 50). Apart from how redundant it was to have two offensive skills, I simply did not wish to waste points on getting over 400 luck, which was required in order to ensure 100% activation rate for two skills. Sasha's lack of a defensive skill can be a little worrying at times, and I might just bite the bullet one day and let her learn ゴッズフィンガー (Defence + 25%, Evasion + 25%). Why is luck such a troublesome stat?
Strikers with skills like Cami's ミストラルグロウ (Attack + 30%, Evasion + 36%) are generally not held in high regard due to the fact that the dodge rate is capped at 85%. Everyone knows that the random number goddess is one sadistic lady, and when something with a success rate of 60% fails eight times in a row, staking lives on anything less than 100% is just absurd. Yet into absurdity I go, because I wouldn't want it any other way. The ideal build for characters like Cami, as far I'm concerned, is one that hits hard and dies fast. There can never be enough attack with a build like this, but it's meaningless to have all that raw power if the hits didn't actually connect. And though Cami's profile describes her as a master archer with perfect aim, her dexterity is not really that good. Thankfully, the agility buff that Cami gets from her skill gave me enough points to dump into her dexterity. She certainly won't miss her mark now. Alternatively, I can definitely see a more agility-oriented build for Cami, with the right equipment to supplement her dexterity. It does feel like a bit of waste to throw so many points into agility with the whole dodge rate cap thing though.
Having said that, the third team in its current and unintended formation has two Strikers with a considerable amount of agility. It ended up this way because I wasn't able to find a suitable heavy-type Striker to fill up the second slot, though the team has so far exceeded my expectations with their performance. Fronting the team is the petite Nagi, who won the popularity contest this summer, and I dare say she'd win the contest for the Striker with the fewest deaths too if such a thing existed. Nagi's toughness shouldn't come as a surprise thanks to the stat buffs she receives from her skill みずでっぽー (Attack + 25%, Armour-Piercing Damage + 200, Defence + 20%, Evasion + 18%), which along with other bonuses like guild skills, push Nagi's defence and agility to some pretty respectable numbers. On top of that, Nagi boasts a nice amount of luck which renders most enemies unable to use skills against her, further improving her defences. The occasional HP recovery she gets from her leader skill is always helpful as well. The downside of this kind of build is that the Striker will inevitably lack any kind of decent firepower, but it's not like anyone would complain about it when Nagi can almost come back from every battle unscathed.
Much like the pair of weapons of mass destruction that she flaunts, swimsuit Mize can easily wipe out a good number of monsters with her powerful kicks. A skill like 豪斗改蹴 (Attack +45%, Hit + 20%) is quite scary no matter how you slice it. Never underestimate the amount of pain high heels can cause. As with my other Strikers who rely solely on their evasion to stay alive, Mize has a decent number of points invested in her HP so that she won't drop dead after just one hit. It may seem contradictory but it is in fact crucial to ensure that fragile Strikers like Mize don't get put out of action too fast.
Explosive maniac Rin was raised following the same concept as Cami and Mize, though she packs a little more raw defence and evasion to compensate for her lower HP. Not much to say about her I suppose, since she is very similar to Cami and Mize. Her skill Fire in the hole (Attack + 30%, Hit + 10%, Evasion + 30%) would have been much better though if the hit boost was given to attack instead. After all, unlike other stats that have caps and limitations due to the game mechanics, there is no limit on how much damage one can deal. And much unlike rear forces in real life, the job of the third Strikers is not to provide combat support, but to carry the team by obliterating everything that stands in their way.
It's all serious business and I sure feel like I've put in so much effort for so little result when there are still more than dozens of Strikers waiting to be trained. No doubt it's going to be hours of planning, hours of grinding and hours of wondering why things aren't working out as expected all over again. Will this emotional roller coaster ride ever end?
It's all serious business and I sure feel like I've put in so much effort for so little result when there are still more than dozens of Strikers waiting to be trained. No doubt it's going to be hours of planning, hours of grinding and hours of wondering why things aren't working out as expected all over again. Will this emotional roller coaster ride ever end?
I think not.
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