Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 14F

[dadadok]

I have Kanako but Suwako isn't appearing at 12f depths, help me? I have a feeling my game's bugged as wiki says only requirement for suwako to appear in 12f is having Kanako recruited, and I watched a youtuber get that event no problem.


EDIT: The wiki is wrong, there's an event you need to get at the upper part of the floor before the one that lets you recruit the moriya god you missed appear. On the plus side..... my characters are avg level 65 now so gg

[Ghaleon]

What? Sanae's def isn't remotely close to remi's in that 'proof' screenshot. Not that I'd even try to compare the two since I was arguing sane's is bad and I think remi's is good.. I'd compare sanae's to mino's in conjunction with hp or something. Point is, Mino and remi can survive the odd double strike (actually remi can survide the odd steel slasher, needle parade, etc, while mino is more like survives a double slash... needle parade and steel slasher is unlikely at balanced levels)... sanae kinda croaks to anything physical at all IMO though.

Also, I don't get the whole "lot1 is full of bad to average characters.. while lot2 is full of good to very good charaters!"... I've seen this more than once... I want to argue what my issue is with this argument but honestly, I think it'd be like trying to argue how cows are less like games than flies are like peanuts.

[Ryin]

Also, I don't get the whole "lot1 is full of bad to average characters.. while lot2 is full of good to very good charaters!"... I've seen this more than once... I want to argue what my issue is with this argument but honestly, I think it'd be like trying to argue how cows are less like games than flies are like peanuts.

I don't think LoT1 is filled to bad to average and LoT2 with good to very good. I think LoT1 is filled from good to very good characters and 2 with very good to broken characters. The ability to reallocate skillpoints to overspecialize to boss battles, main equips and gems to change base stats and sub equips having a bigger effect on your stats in general combined with the subclass system gives you far too many options.

[jaxter0987]

Also, I don't get the whole "lot1 is full of bad to average characters.. while lot2 is full of good to very good charaters!"... I've seen this more than once... I want to argue what my issue is with this argument but honestly, I think it'd be like trying to argue how cows are less like games than flies are like peanuts.

Just going to point out that I never intended it as "proof" because if I did, I'd show the equipment used as well. I'll also drop the Sanae thing, as nothing is getting accomplished. I kept saying that she can be an off tank in my experience, everyone else keeps saying otherwise. No point in continuing the discussion.

I can't really comment on LoT1 characters since I've only played through the game once (in fact, I'm still on my first one) but as for LoT2, I feel that the only two outliers are Nitori and Flandre. Tone down Maintenance and give people who possess it better base stats and slightly better scaling to compensate. I really don't know how to tackle Flandre... she shouldn't be able to do that kind of damage without as much investment as Nitori.

[Monothemeerp]

I can't really comment on LoT1 characters since I've only played through the game once (in fact, I'm still on my first one) but as for LoT2, I feel that the only two outliers are Nitori and Flandre. Tone down Maintenance and give people who possess it better base stats and slightly better scaling to compensate. I really don't know how to tackle Flandre... she shouldn't be able to do that kind of damage without as much investment as Nitori.

I remember beating the LoT2 Enhanced Final Boss in just 5 turns because of Flandre and Nitori. Was fun.

[shadyangel]

To be fair, you can make everyone a gambler.Most of the time you'll be switching out characters anyway, so it's just a huge damage boost to everyone. Or maybe It's just my playstyle.
It's true, LoT2 has some skills and spell cards which are dumb, you can't name a character  from LoT1 that is capable of such things.
e.g. : Flan, Nitori, Byakuren,Hina, even Shikieiki ,  Aya of course , and Parsee to some extent. Intense vertigo + Yuyuko is another thing. Pretty sure there's more.

What I don't like is that some characters are sooo not worth bothering with, because a MUCH better option is available.
e.g: Utsuho, Remilia, Sakuya,Mokou, and I find Meiling to be pretty bad, but thats probably just me.
Unless you absolutely want to, there's no reason to play with these people.

That's what i would like to see in the expansion pack, spell cards can stay, but skills need to be changed i think.

[jester147]

It's true, LoT2 has some skills and spell cards which are dumb, you can't name a character  from LoT1 that is capable of such things.
e.g. : Flan, Nitori, Byakuren,Hina, even Shikieiki ,  Aya of course , and Parsee to some extent. Intense vertigo + Yuyuko is another thing. Pretty sure there's more.

Define "dumb". If you mean "dumb" as "broken" then yes, most of them has broken spellcards, as well as skills. Another example is Satori+Komachi and spam Narrow Confines of Avici, or some other great MAG spellcards that the physicals have.

Yakumo Clan still rules now that there's synergy, which means even stronger Yakumo Ran+. Even then Yukari still can't nuke without Ran and Chen.

[Ryin]

Define "dumb". If you mean "dumb" as "broken" then yes, most of them has broken spellcards, as well as skills. Another example is Satori+Komachi and spam Narrow Confines of Avici, or some other great MAG spellcards that the physicals have.

I believe that's exactly what he means, yeah.
In Labyrinth of Touhou 1 you have some characters who clearly stand apart from the rest and some who are redundant/worse in the presence of others. But if you take an alternative route on building your party, those characters will have their chance to shine and, even if your party isn't as strong as it would be with the best characters, you will still be somewhere in a similar power level.
In Labyrinth of Touhou 2 you have an enormous freedom and every single character has at least one pretty good build. But the best characters are -so much stronger- than the rest that you're gimping yourself a lot for not taking them.

[Serela]

What I don't like is that some characters are sooo not worth bothering with, because a MUCH better option is available.
e.g: Utsuho, Remilia, Sakuya,Mokou, and I find Meiling to be pretty bad, but thats probably just me.
Unless you absolutely want to, there's no reason to play with these people.

The SDM has to be used all together for a big stat boost from their family skill, or they aren't particularly great outside of really niche roles. Exception being Flan, of course.

Mokou is pretty sweet though IMO. Resurrection and Regeneration are both nice, she innately has an atk+mag debuff, and she has a really high mp regen for using a support subclass's skills with (which will make up a lot of her turns; I went with Pharmacologist). I used her all run as a tank and was very satisfied with her performance after proper equipment was placed on her to take advantage of her unusual methods. Blazing isn't half bad either because that's a big boost to damage and lets her contribute despite filling a tanking role.

Or you could make her a bulky damage dealer because resurrection, which would be nice in a gambling build since she'd -still- live and has high mp regen to deal with double costs, but she'd mostly just be limited to FIR so it'd be awkward sometimes. Tanking is more her speed.

...I can't really talk against Utsuho though, maybe after Koishi is introduced so their family skill is better? >_>

[Ghaleon]

I know you said you'll drop the Sanae thing but I could have sworn you mentioned using her as an offtank in LoT1, not 2.. so err. yeah. I have no clue how she performs in 2 in that regard and retract my statement if we were discussing 2 for it.

[jaxter0987]

I know you said you'll drop the Sanae thing but I could have sworn you mentioned using her as an offtank in LoT1, not 2.. so err. yeah. I have no clue how she performs in 2 in that regard and retract my statement if we were discussing 2 for it.

No I was definitely talking about LoT1, when I mentioned using Sanae as an offtank. Maybe my definition of an offtank is broader than most people, I don't know.

The second part of my earlier post was responding to your comment about "lot1 is full of bad to average characters.. while lot2 is full of good to very good charaters!"
I can't comment on LoT1 characters because I haven't played the others enough, but I'm on my third playthrough of LoT2 (not including post game) and I've felt the only outliers to be Flandre and Nitori.

I was sure that that kind of thing would work well on the post game. But now I'm curious about how your Sanae fared in the main game. Do you remember how early those DEF investments start giving return?

I just realized I never responded to this. I don't remember when Sanae was able to take some of the bigger hits that bosses dished out. It's been so long since I played the main game of LoT1.

[Kirin no Sora]

Guys, a question. The Bugs section states that Meiling's "Gatekeeper that likes to Nap" skill does work, but doesn't provide a Speed boost. Is that true?

[Shadowlupus]

No I was definitely talking about LoT1, when I mentioned using Sanae as an offtank. Maybe my definition of an offtank is broader than most people, I don't know.

I am kinda see what you are trying to say, if I understand correctly about your definition of "off-tank". You are saying that Sanae can be built to be a tank in both DEF (and MND) similar to Remilia but to a lesser extent if you deliberately give Sanae better gear, give her more Library point and focus on her DEF only.

I think Sakuya is good in both ways. Full offense Sakuya needs powerful buffs for her Killing Doll to actually do some good damage (might be a bit weaker than Spear the Gungnir) and she can also buffs her Speed to the max to spam it. Building her this way sacrifice a bit of her bulk.

While Speed buffer Sakuya needs to be switched in quite often to actually makes a huge difference with 80% speed buff on the entire party. Honestly, who doesn't want to get more turns than enemies? And building her that way lets her safely sit at 2nd slot most of the time in my playthrough.


Moving on to the LoT2 balancing. Well, there are quite a number of reasons for it to be less balanced.

Skill, Subclass and improved damage formula all make LoT2 easier but I think some of you might not also consider the following that make LoT2 easier than LoT1 or make LoT1 more fair than 2:

1. You can see enemies' HP bar. That negates your feeling of tense of a hard boss and just go bullrushing it with Gambler Nitori, Eiki, Flan...you name it.

2. Most Main-game bosses in LoT1 don't have either absolutely high DEF or absolutely high MND which limits your ways of attacking. When I attack Reisen with either Physical or Magical, I don't feel any differences even though Boss!Reisen is supposed to have high Mind. From LoT2 wiki's bestiary, most bosses are lopsided in defenses and I think the only boss with extremely high Defense and Mind are Tenshi and the final boss. (Well, in the main game at least. The postgame needs to be fixed, really.)

3. End game bosses in LoT1 have multiple phases so that they can't be defeated until their last form. (Rinnosuke, Maribel) while the sword in LoT2 can be killed even at its first phase.

Also, I think the only broken characters in LoT2 are Nitori and Flandre which was also true in LoT1 and they are absolutely broken if you purposefully give them WAY more Library point than they should have.

Speaking of which, someday I might try a team of the "worst" characters in LoT2. I want to see if they are really bad/overshadowed by others. The following are my thought (in terms of usefulness.) and not gonna cheesing some bosses with Iron Mountain Charge from Monk subclass.

Marisa
Youmu (Attacker)
Cirno (No synergy)
Nitori (NO Maintenance skill, period.)
Mystia (No synergy)
Utsuho (No synergy)
Eirin (No Healer subclass, might also no People of Moon skill)
Sanae (No synergy)
Remilia (No synergy)

That's it for the worst and the rest are just for the sake of having some buffer and debuffer. (every team needs them, you know.)

Keine, Aya and Reisen (No People of the Moon skill)

What do you guys think?

[Ryin]

While Speed buffer Sakuya needs to be switched in quite often to actually makes a huge difference with 80% speed buff on the entire party. Honestly, who doesn't want to get more turns than enemies? And building her that way lets her safely sit at 2nd slot most of the time in my playthrough.

She does that very well with a full attack build and doesn't just flop when speed starts giving you diminishing returns. Buffing everyone's speed is also detrimental to a lot of turn manipulation strategies so it's not something I really want most of the time. The best uses for AoE speed buffing are, in my opinion, for the damage race portion of a fight (like not letting Flandre Laevatein, Yukari's last phase and things like this). There is nothing a defensive Sakuya can do that an offensive Sakuya can't with a tiny bit of extra investment in her cheap library levels. But defensive Sakuya is absolutely incapable of dealing damage.

1. You can see enemies' HP bar. That negates your feeling of tense of a hard boss and just go bullrushing it with Gambler Nitori, Eiki, Flan...you name it.

2. Most Main-game bosses in LoT1 don't have either absolutely high DEF or absolutely high MND which limits your ways of attacking. When I attack Reisen with either Physical or Magical, I don't feel any differences even though Boss!Reisen is supposed to have high Mind. From LoT2 wiki's bestiary, most bosses are lopsided in defenses and I think the only boss with extremely high Defense and Mind are Tenshi and the final boss. (Well, in the main game at least. The postgame needs to be fixed, really.)

3. End game bosses in LoT1 have multiple phases so that they can't be defeated until their last form. (Rinnosuke, Maribel) while the sword in LoT2 can be killed even at its first phase.

Seeing the HP bars doesn't really make the game much easier. We know HP values, keep them in mind for some battles and, even if we don't, there are pattern changes to warn us in the first game. So while it does remove some of the tension, the fact bosses generally have lower HP and higher defenses in LoT2 is what is mostly responsible for the short bullrush battles, rather than knowledge of enemy HP.
The worst part of HP bars is the 3rd thing you pointed out. The visible HP bars ruin the possibility of doing HP tricks like they did in the first game to prevent you from ignoring a boss' dangerous phase. You can't simply give LoT2's last boss 10 million extra HP and keep him regenerated until he reaches the last phase. That, combined with the game's general design makes it so you can just destroy him far too quickly.


And your team seems interesting. It's hard to think about a precise set of rules to use with a party like that with all the options LoT2 offers.

[Shadowlupus]

There is nothing a defensive Sakuya can do that an offensive Sakuya can't with a tiny bit of extra investment in her cheap library levels. But defensive Sakuya is absolutely incapable of dealing damage.

Hmm... if by that logic, supporters/healer/buffers like Reimu, Ran or Iku etc.  should also be built offensively since they can't do any damage if built to be pure defensive. Especially Reimu, whose defenses are sub-par/average just like Sakuya to begin with. and can't get much of a defensive built. (still get killed by Steel Slasher in one hit)

Again, it's a matter of personal preference/party composition whether Speed buff really mess up your turns so I'll drop this debate here and now. 

[Raikaria]

In Labyrinth of Touhou 1 you have some characters who clearly stand apart from the rest and some who are redundant/worse in the presence of others. But if you take an alternative route on building your party, those characters will have their chance to shine and, even if your party isn't as strong as it would be with the best characters, you will still be somewhere in a similar power level.

Ironically the biggest offenders of this tend to be from the Plus Disc. [Utusho is basically useless her damage formula are far too low and her damage types are heavily resisted; Kanako is pretty awful as well.]

And while some characters are considered stronger than others it's not to the degree it makes others useless.  Nitori has a powerful; reliable nuke but others can outshine her with elemental edges. Meiling is generally a pretty good tank but so's Tenshi, Remi, ect.

I remember doing LoT draft runs [We'd ban out I think 4 characters; each of the 3 players choosing 1 and agreeing on a 4th ban; usually Nitori, Iku or Meiling]. Then we'd go ABCCBA drafting of characters until the pool was empty and run on NG+. I can say from being forced to use some characters I would not normally use that a lot of them are nowhere near as bad as given credit for. [Utusho and Kanako are still awful however, especially since their skill costs are so high they are literally unusable earlygame]. For example I remember having Tenshi as my main tank and Sanae as my main healer, who was easily able to heal Tenshi up due to Tenshi's low HP; while she could also buff Tenshi's massive defenses. Most people overlook Sanae. [I was A draft]

 There's also 'Team Underappreciated' which you can look up on Youtube, and I believe it was this which made people realize 'oh god Nitori is actually strong'.

[Ryin]

Hmm... if by that logic, supporters/healer/buffers like Reimu, Ran or Iku etc.  should also be built offensively since they can't do any damage if built to be pure defensive. Especially Reimu, whose defenses are sub-par/average just like Sakuya to begin with. and can't get much of a defensive built. (still get killed by Steel Slasher in one hit)

Nah, Sakuya is a very special case. She has 15/8/7 defenses and incredibly cheap library levels. She can get into the second slot without level up defense investments and be fairly safe, her buff has a very bad delay so a support Sakuya actually has to go in and out and thus not do a very good job as a defensive unit, and, unlike other kinds of buffs, SPD buff gets worse and worse somewhere in the plus disk.

Reimu has meh composite formulas with a meh element, defense buffs never cease to be useful, and when she's not busy with increasing DEF she'll be busy healing. Iku is a single target offensive buffer, so she wants to have staying power so Stickleback anybody who gets in and if she somehow gets a free turn from that she can debuff enemy defenses. Ran has very weak buffs that need to be cast over and over again to be useful (and then they are fantastic) so again she needs staying power and all of her turns will be spent buffing (Ran does have the potential for an offensive build, though).

The character that's most similar to Sakuya is Eirin. She can go even into the first slot sometimes with only library levels and some appropriate equipment and no level up bonuses in DEF (not against extremely strong physical nukers, of course) and her only support spell is not one you want to use all the time. She does the bulk part well with an offensive build but fails in the attack part with a defensive one.

Defensive Sakuya is a good build from somewhere around the middle of of the game until early plus disk if you want to use her as a speed buffer. The reason I defend offensive so much is that: speed buffer Sakuya buffs and runs away, making her bulk not as important as other buffers', SPD gives you diminishing returns and becomes really bad when you reach the 700s (+100% speed makes you only about 30% faster. The turns she spends buffing end up becoming wasted turns for the most part) and then you'll probably want to use her offensively but she'll be useless in that regard.

If you do intend on dropping Sakuya somewhere in the plus disk content then by all means build her defensively and you won't regret it.

And yes, disruptive speed buffs come completely from playstyle. I was just replying to this part of what you said: "Honestly, who doesn't want to get more turns than enemies?". There are some good reasons to not want that. But other than those that's correct.

There's also 'Team Underappreciated' which you can look up on Youtube, and I believe it was this which made people realize 'oh god Nitori is actually strong'.

I wish I understood the reasoning for team Unappreciated. Some characters I can understand being there (like Wriggle, Keine, Minoriko...) but others are so obviously strong (how can someone seriously think Meiling is bad? or Nitori after her damage formula changed from meh to insane? Renko, Reisen, Orin, Iku. all of these were pretty obviously valuable to me when I played for the first time blind)

[Shadowlupus]

I wish I understood the reasoning for team Unappreciated. Some characters I can understand being there (like Wriggle, Keine, Minoriko...) but others are so obviously strong (how can someone seriously think Meiling is bad? or Nitori after her damage formula changed from meh to insane? Renko, Reisen, Orin, Iku. all of these were pretty obviously valuable to me when I played for the first time blind)

From Parallaxal's (the LoT1 player who built and used those Unappreciated Team in the first place) reasoning:

Meiling: I also have no idea. He said that she was underappreciated in other ways. Maybe because her role is just take hit and heal and nothing else?

Nitori: The Unappreciated team was made before the Special Disk came out. Nitori's gun's formula was far weaker than that which doesn't help with her only average stat.

Renko: Because most bosses at the Plus Disk onward are highly resist toward Debuff and Paralysis, which limits her usefulness.

Reisen: Poor spell formula and low stat growth in everywhere else.

Orin: Most players misunderstand how Composite formula works in that game. they think that high DEF or MND will neuter most damage. As a result, they think she is good at sweeping only and not as good in boss fights. However, if you can buff both ATK and MAG, the damage considerably ramps up, most notably on Orin, who already has good ATK and MAG.

Iku: She was a hidden gem that most people ignore because her spell's description is wrong (it says that she buffs by 50% instead of 72%, not helped by the fact that it also paralyze) so people thought it was not worth it since at that time they wouldn't have many Paralysis-resistant gear. By the time player got more buffers like Sanae, Ran etc., most people had already forgotten about Iku's existence.


EDIT: I just easily beat 9F Tenshi with (some) LoT2 "unappreciated" characters. (I used my old file to reach and test the battle immediately) I also didn't use any defense-ignoring skill/spell) so the argument that "Tenshi is unbeatable/frustrating without nuke/defense-ignoring" doesn't hold water now.

[Ryin]

Renko: Because most bosses at the Plus Disk onward are highly resist toward Debuff and Paralysis, which limits her usefulness.

This comment made me realize I knew this was true from experience but I never actually checked it the numbers. Checking the database, most bosses in the plus disk have about 33% vulnerability to stat debuff, which isn't really too terrible, but yeah, low enough to make it not your main strategy. They also have a 4% paralysis vulnerability which is pretty bad. But then I realized just how strong that paralysis is if it lands. Say you're fighting Winner and manage to land a Renko paralysis. At ~2200 speed, a 43~81 power paralysis is enough to get 3~5.7 turns from 0 ATB. That's kinda strong and maybe worth it, considering you have an 18% chance of at least landing the SPD debuff.

[Monothemeerp]

Holy shit 18F monsters are crazy. I didn't think the bunnies could get even worse, and Shub-Nigguraths are always crushing me. Any tips?

[jaxter0987]

Holy shit 18F monsters are crazy. I didn't think the bunnies could get even worse, and Shub-Nigguraths are always crushing me. Any tips?

Other than the staple, "grind the previous floor until the current floor isn't hell" I can't give any tips. I really need to replay through the main game with my current knowledge that evasion is ass, spending points on the lesser offensive stat is dumb, and spending library levels on characters you won't use is dumb.

18F is a big turning point in LoT1 imo so thematically, it kind of makes sense that everything just cranked up a notch.

[Ryin]

Holy shit 18F monsters are crazy. I didn't think the bunnies could get even worse, and Shub-Nigguraths are always crushing me. Any tips?

Get someone fast enough to run away from every Shrub. Tough it out. If you decide to grind you'll probably regret it when the enemies and bosses in 19F are extreme pushovers and 20F is so much better to grind at.
Since you have both Reimu and Yukari I think it's physically impossible for you to have to grind to be able to beat 18F boss so there is no reason to waste time grinding now. Especially since more time spent grinding on 20F means more chance of not suffering too much trying to get those rare drops.

[jester147]

Holy shit 18F monsters are crazy. I didn't think the bunnies could get even worse, and Shub-Nigguraths are always crushing me. Any tips?

Use Flandre. Her Laveatein is guaranteed to wipe out the entire floor with some exception or you underleveled Flandre. But you can only use Laveatein around twice at that point.

[Ghaleon]

I thought nitori was in team unappreciated after the buff... regardless nobody was convinced she was good via that set of videos, it was most certainly the buff. I personally thought she wasn't as god-awful as people made her sound even before the buff because even though her atk is meh and the formula was only 5*atk.. IIRC it was 5* before defense reduction, so it still was really good at piercing... I find her nature aoe nuke to be pretty good too, and that never got buffed, so it's as good now as it was then. AOE physical nukes are pretty rare, as is decent nature nukes, soo.. err, yeah. I have more doubts about mokou than old nitori personally, and sakuya.

One character I thought would be pretty decent for me that really wasn't was kanako, I was thinking she'd be like a magical remi.. remi's got good stats all around, and though her attack formula isn't really great, it's non elemental, and her ability to keep herself buffed easily with it's normal delay and her fast speed makes it pretty darn good dPS, and given her durability, you don't need to switch her out for nuking, you can just keep her there as she pummels enemies down for a long time... Kanako...didn't function like that at all... Being elemental, her nukes would be heavily resisted many times endgame...and prior to endgame, they were so expensive she couldn't use em often... she doesn't make enough sp to use them often either, and her fast nuke isn't remotely like mystia's which isn't really strong compared to other nukes, but more than makes up for it with its speed... hers was...really weak, speed be damned, still weak...so it was really just suiga for bosses unless they were horribly weak to spirit or something.... AND she wasn't nearly as durable as remi due to the lack of self buffing.

As for Meiling in team unappreciated.. are we sure she was considered unappreciated? Personally Iw ould have added her to the team myself as a 'control'... I mean she's really a staple IMO...there isn't any other tank in the game that is as universally good as she is... The other ones can be good some, or even alot of the time, but they all kinda have a weakness that will absolutely annihilate them during some bosses. Meiling can stand up to all and stand well with the sole exception of Eiki, which isn't really an issue since she's designed to be a boss you don't tank pretty much. I mean I know you can with hp-komachi but you can also par-lock that bloodstained seal boss to death before it transforms, not really what was intended =P.

But Anyways, I'd have Meiling in there as a control because she's very stable for every situation, and it would be better and more accurate to 'judge' the team with that footing that is equal for all teams that is China's tanking. The purpose was to judge each character individually, not the overall team makeup I think.

[Monothemeerp]

Pretty sure Meiling was in Team Unappreciated because the creator of it stated that "he was confident that he could beat the game [with Meiling] no matter who the other 11 characters are".

[Ryin]

Pretty sure Meiling was in Team Unappreciated because the creator of it stated that "he was confident that he could beat the game [with Meiling] no matter who the other 11 characters are".

He kind of shafted on Keine's and Wriggle's utility and Renko's Charge importance with that decision. Hard to know if it affected Minoriko positively or negatively, but it definitely hurt Rumia's relevance as a healer, too.

[Serela]

I think that's somewhat of an overreaction; you still need second slot tanks that can take a real hit, and you still need those buffs and heals Meiling or not.

Also tbh Rumia can't heal worth a damn until postgame and at that point you desperately need the alltarget; he didn't have Reimu.

[Ryin]

The thing is: those two can go in the first slot. Wriggle strugles a little bit against the strongest physical nukes early on but she's capable of handling them with a buff. Keine's DEF is only about 13% weaker than Meiling's but she comes with a DEF buff and has higher MND. Her HP is a bit lower but that only actually makes a big difference against defense ignoring stuff.
And also, with that team composition, Keine wastes a buff on herself and one on Meiling if Meiling is always there, making it incredibly bad when compared to Iku's. Similar thing for Charge, not worth it if you're wasting one buff on yourself and one on Meiling. Those two benefit more from a bruiser tank in the first slot of being in the first slot themselves in Keine's case.
And Rumia's heals are actually decent at around Eientei. That's pretty early! But when you have Meiling to patch people up and Minoriko for the higher heals, AoE is pretty bad more often than not.

Edit: that's indeed a bit of an overreaction. I'm just a bit sad that those videos, which were somewhat supposed to showcase how good those characters actually were, ended up underselling Wriggle, Keine and Charge so bad. Mokou, too. But that's because she's kinda redundant when half of your team has access to fire damage, making her rapidly regenerating SP moot.

[Shadowlupus]

Hello there, I just beat 9F Tenshi again with a full team of LoT2 "unappreciated" characters without the use of defense-ignoring skill.

The annoying things about 9F Tenshi is her attacks. She can randomly cast normal attack to make her turn comes faster, Grass Knot for -50% Speed Debuff, World Creation Press for surprisingly powerful attack and Shadowstep for killing squishy characters. So, I have to stop her from doing that by keeping her cast Sword of Hisou on Youmu every turn. (Meikyo Shisui + Regeneration combo). That way, you don't to worry about her other attacks, aside from making sure Youmu's has 100% buff or more.

When the battle started, I used Reisen to debuff Tenshi's stats until her 100% buff is gone while I buffed Marisa, Utsuho and Eirin with Keine's Enchanter skill "Art of Battlemage". Youmu just kept using her normal attack to gain buffs quickly and Aya kept buffing my party's Speed. When the time is right, I switched Mystia in, who immediately got a turn due to Instant Attack. Then, I silenced Tenshi with Midnight Chorus Master. Tenshi can be easily inflicted with Silence, by the way.

Here is the important part. The key of this battle is to inflict Silence on Tenshi, which reduces her MND considerably. Otherwise, the damage from most magical attackers will be disappointingly low. For example, Marisa with 2458 Magic with 50% buff deals only 2k per hit with Magic Missile. When I attack Tenshi again with Silenced inflicted on her, Marisa with the same buffs deal 4k even though Tenshi resist it. That's a good hit! Utsuho and Eirin can also do around 3k (with around 2200 Magic and 50% buff.) Then the rest of the battle is pretty much Marisa, Eirin and Utsuho chipping way 3k-4k of Tenshi's HP every turn until she dies.

In short, you have to inflict Silence on Tenshi to be able to punch through her defenses. You could argue that "What if I didn't have any attackers who can inflict Silence!?" but on Floor 4, there is an item "Sword of Singing Delusion" which gives all attacks to inflict Silence. I gave it to Youmu, who can Silence Tenshi with her normal attack in around 2-3 hit and the Silence is strong enough for a few turns. Who knows that a random item on that floor can actually be useful! And yes, this battle is not kind to Physical attackers.


Now, the summary for each character's contribution in 9F Tenshi fight.

Marisa: The MVP of this fight. She deals the highest amount of the damage per hit, around 4k with Magic Missile with thanks to; Magic Missile, which has great damage formula, Magic Training and Sheer Force skill which boosts her Mystic damage further.

Utsuho: To be honest, her damage is very random for some reason. Uncontainable Nuclear Reaction can deal around 2k-3k while Giga flare deal almost 4k (might be with the help from Marisa's skill) but Hell's Tokamak deal a consistent damage of 3k. That's great coming from a character who is considered meh by most players.

Eirin: Despite having average formula, Mercury Sea can deal a consistent 3k damage. It also debuff Tenshi's ATK, which is nice.

Sanae: Also 3k damage with Moses' Miracles even though Sanae was only at around 2000 Magic.

Nitori: Not much to say about her but unbuffed Super Scope 3D can deal around 2k even with Tenshi's max buff.

Mystia: She can always silence Tenshi immediately from the reserve slot. Also, unbuffed Midnight Chorus Master can deal around 2k with -50% Debuff on Tenshi.

Remilia: Unbuffed Spear the Gungnir deals 2k-3k with -50% Debuff on Tenshi.

Youmu: Definitely the second MVP. Thanks to her, I can safely ignore Tenshi's other attacks and concentrate on my strategy.

Cirno: Useless-tier. Tenshi has 100 SPD-debuff resistance so Cirno can hardly land any Speed-debuff at all (only once in 5 fights) but Reisen can easily land it with Discarder due to having 100% chance.


So, my point is that 9F Tenshi is beatable without any nuke/defense-ignoring skill. You just need to debuff and silence her. That's all. The battle also takes around only 5 minutes, by the way.  I have updated the wiki about this new strategy.

Next, I will see if this strategy also works Tenshi 12F and the final boss on 20F (both of which can be inflicted with Silence.)

[vetokend]

Holy shit 18F monsters are crazy. I didn't think the bunnies could get even worse, and Shub-Nigguraths are always crushing me. Any tips?

I had a similar experience, and due to my party, I actually found 19F to be far easier.  I spent much time grinding on 19F.