I wanna get back into this game but I'm enjoying my PS3 too much currently due to replacing my non-HD crummy TV that was so small I literally could not read much of the text in my games without plastering my face to the screen (ps3 games seem to assume your TV is like 40 inches big!), along with the fact that I'm at Entei (I forget the level, 8-11 I think), and I have to split my party in half. I'm too lazy to teach satori enemy attacks, so I'm using her as a support character and just forgetting about it (she sucks as a support character too! doh, oh well at least that doesn't hurt so much).
However, can I keep doing that forever? Or will I must use her as a legitimate character at some point eventually? Trance said you use everyone for the final boss, but does that mean no support characters? Or can I still cheat the system like that?
I was able to make use of her in ch9 having her throw out her poison spell she has. Not hard at all to make it do ~300-350 dmg at the end of each turn if it connects and she has a decent IND stat. Even better if you buff her IND via Byakuren.
You might want to consider using her enough to get her to lv30, then going to stage 8 and getting her the Petro Breath skill from the Cockatrices there. That skill can be quite the lifesaver going into stage 10 since there are several enemies there that are rather annoying. Petrifying them makes them harmless for the remainder of the fight.
She also has learnable stuff like Leaf Shield and Starlight Barrier, but those require her to be at a fairly high level in order to be able to learn those skills off of whatever enemy has them. Leaf Shield I think is lv40 minimum, Starlight Barrier lv50, but don't quote me on that.
As for the final battle, I believe you are able to have a second party available that you can switch in at anytime you wish, but can only be done once (meaning you can't switch back to your other team for whatever reason once you've done that). Should be able to have support characters in any case.
As for me, I finished up stage 15 earlier this afternoon. The boss was taken down on my first serious attempt after using my first attempt merely to see what it could dish out and how I'd need to prepare.
To be honest, I found it easier than the stage 14 boss. It's breath attacks are telegraphed a turn in advance when it charges up. Easily countered with Reimu's breath repelling barrier spell. The majority of its other attacks it did were largely reduced in damage thanks to Alice's Marionette Pariel spell.
That just left the matter of dealing damage. This boss has a boatload and extras worth of defenses. It took a good minute or two of waiting to buff up my Sakuya and Youmu both with Light Elemental on their weps, Weapon Bless, and Byakuren's skill she gets with 25 points in her unique weapon tree for an extra stat boost before I saw decent damage.
I almost lost it at the end because I thought the boss was gonna have some kind of super attack at low HP, hence why I had Alice use Little Legion at that point instead of more Marionette Pariel spam. She got owned by a tsunami attack which had me breathing easy for a bit...then proceeds to nuke Youmu in one hit. I managed to pull it out in the end though which is all that matters.
Stage 16 I might get a bit of a head start on tonight. I'd like to hit stage 18, the next party split stage, as soon as possible so I can begin grinding up everyone to an acceptable level.
