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The Mystic Pizza Crashes = Mystic Knight Episode 05

Say hello to one of the few enemy formations I have any wish of fighting. A lot of the Floating Ruins are full of enemies who have the gall to walk around without any elemental weaknesses. A lot of them are buckets of health who I have no wish to deal with. These guys get taken down in 3 hits, before they can instigate white wind.

There is a formation with a pair of them, but careful timing will allow Mihnwu to murder one without getting interrupted by healing.

Along the way are some good upgrades. Mihnwu weighs (literally) the benefits of going for more defense over speed. At the moment it's a fair tradeoff.

This group is not worth it. A healer in the background and 2 guys who take at least 3, if not 4 hits to take down. The Fan will undo much, if not all of my work.

This formation is worth considering. The stones are weak to thunder, a thundara slash will one shot them. The lamia takes 2 hits. I usually take her out first since her second attack is a confusion spell.

Boss attempt 1, AKA a complete and total mess.

One of the other treasures of the ruins is the ancient sword, an upgrade to damage, but at the loss of evasion. It also has the chance to proc curse. Though I thought !Mystic Sword overwrote that upon casting, I was wrong. Dead wrong.

You can see the situation is untenable. At the very least, I need more HP, but I'm fully aware it's more a factor of attack multipliers.

These guys are not too bad, as long as you're careful. If you kill one, the other will counter with Bio. Mihnwu can kill one in 2 hits. So spread the love and they won't take out 1/3 of your life. Fun fact, they are both in the front row, so don't be shy.

Attempt 2; infinitely better, but still validating my theory about damage output.

NO! You and your brother Ghidra can go away.

Something that hit me around the Liquid Flame fight. Why couldn't Exdeath possess this jerk and destroy the crystal? If it's because it's a "guardian" then just possess a Ghidra or some other random monster behind him and destroy the crystal.

Anyway, since this was a valiant showing, I'll lay down the order of battle: Step 1, Fira Sword on the Main Gauche, and a Flame Ring.

Step 2, patience. The first phase of the fight has 1600 HP and high defense and evasion. Attacks from the Main Gauche do between 72 and 108 points.

Anyway, each phase has a 1/4 Max HP attack and a special attack that inflicts a status ailment. In this case Sap.

Mihnwu can handle healing fairly well at this phase.

The second form appears without any grandeur or extra wings or anything. The first thing you'll notice is either dealing more damage to it (150 on average, compared to 85ish earlier), or him laying into you with new attacks. Sap is replaced with this, which procs poison.

Despite the color, the Quarter Damage skill this time is Frost, which is negated by the flame ring.

The second phase is only dangerous if you ignore poison and the ~100 points of damage he does when he breaks through all your evasion. The third phase is a breather. Optional, switch out the main gauche for the ancient sword if you feel confident and want to end this.

The flavor text of the day is Tail, which procs blind. You can waffle around in this phase if you don't feel like using an eyedrop and immediately being blinded again.

Damage is good, 6 attacks should do it.

This phase will heal you for 1/4 your health, so it's safe to linger and top it off.

So it goes fast, with the loss of his fire elemental attack, switch back to the Main Gauche and Fira sword to heal.

Damage keeps going up, but not enough to drop from 6 to 5 successful hits.

Just a different flavor, I can't imagine Tin-flavored ice cream or gellato being a big seller.

And here is the kick in the balls. On one hand it's better to have it on a lower defense form since you can blaze through him faster, but nasty on the other since it can and will go south.

This is the paralyzing special. My third attempt was stopped there with a stun locking combo of claws and lightnings. Unlike Karl Boss, this guy is fast enough to keep you pinned if he wants. This is still the second attempt, so no worries.

The final form appears from the purple-shifted death animation and some fluff dialogue. He sports 2500 HP, nasty attacks, and is fast.

Tusk confuses, it would be a blessing if Mihnwu was fast enough to at least attack himself for a quick heal (and didn't dispel fire sword because he's immune). But he can just confuse you again. It's not quite as evil as a stunlock, but it is still dangerous because...

Instant critical.

This is a nasty surprise. (Note, I'm being a baby and playing on "Wait" command).

While I could enter the command in time, he sneaks in a sucker punch.

Now this was with the Gold Armor, so the immediate solution was letting Mihnwu become Ninjwu and get an extra point of agility. Sadly the next attempt was stunlocked on the second to last form. I decided to level up one more time to get the extra multiplier and make it certain.

Oh yeah, and he can paralyze too, the asshat.

I don't care if I'm only 4 or 5 steps from a plot trigger and certain of my ability to escape, I'm healing.

Final Level - 31
Total Deaths - 3

Wheeee...

Now for the 3 meteor bosses. I was fairly sure I'd die, since only one self destruct would do it, and I was right. It took 2 times to let that sink in. So switch it up.

Titan just seemed determine to not let me screen shot his death throes. Fira Sword could outpace anything he did.

His hi-potion was a welcome drop.

Final Level - 31
Total Deaths - 0

So with the undercards out of the way; the main event after a little grinding.

First off, loading up sleep.

Now, obviously you can't tell from a still image, but at this point the ATB bar hangs. The purobolos take two dummy actions before letting loose. This stall is their first 'attack.'

Step 2, get 2 of these jerks asleep, preferably one of the front 4 to allow the back to do half physical attack damage.

Step 3, pray that only one of the conscious four self destructs, and at least 2 whiff their attack.

Victory is now assured. Of these 3 that are still awake, 2 will be asleep before they can act. The third can do what it damn well pleases after Mihnwu is elixired back up to full.

Not pictured; a cursor hovering over that bastard as he self destructed. The targeting on this hexagonal formation is a little tricky, you tap left most of the time, except when you need to tap up. That fickleness robbed me of... nothing honestly. Heck, I guess I could have put all 3 to sleep in hindsight in lieu of healing up. But I didn't want to be too flashy and botch it and go on a string of bad luck.

Final Level - 36
Total Deaths -3

Next time, a Brave New World