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Update 65: Preparing for Tower of Victory's Sea Quests





Let's start off this update with a battle with a new enemy.


Petaloid
Level: 47
HP: 596
STR: 39
VIT: 36
AGI: 37
LUC: 39
TEC: 42
Attack Type: Slash
Exp: 2522
Item Drops:
-Drop 1: Hazard Bulb - 40% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Exorcism Gloves (Gloves.) 2 needed for Estoc (Rapier.) 3 needed for Jadagna (Club.) 10 needed for Sleep Seal (Accessory.)

--It extends its ivy, then lies in wait to snare its prey.
-Drop 2: N/A
-Gold: Dangerous Bud - Kill with Instant Death. 80% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Jintachi (Katana.)
--Bud of a flower that was mowed before it blossomed.
Description: It is a dangerous plant monster, but harmless monsters are scarce within the Labyrinth.
Damage Resistances: Slash: 100% Strike: 100% Pierce: 100% Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Volt: 100%
Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 50% Confusion: 100% Plague: 100% Poison: 100% Blind: 100% Curse: 100% Paralysis: 100%
Bind Resistances: Head: 150% Arm: 150% Leg: 150%
Other Resistances: Death: 100% Petrification: 100% Stun: 100%

Skills:

Sleeper: Uses the Head. Attempts to put the entire party to Sleep, with a 40% chance of succeeding. Has an action speed of -8.
Petals: Uses the Arms. A random target Slash attack that hits the party 2 to 4 times and deals 90% damage per hit. Has an accuracy of 80. Has an action speed of -8.

Petaloids are an enemy that has been in every EO game so far. They're one of the most hated enemies in the entire series due to how much of a pain in the butt they are to deal with. They put your party to sleep, and then proceed to slaughter them with a hard hitting multi-target physical attack.

Well that's how they are in the other games. In this game? Petaloids are pathetic. First of all, they come way too late in the game to really be a threat. By this point, you should have plenty of ways to deal with them. Secondly, they don't really hit that hard compared to the other games. Petals is a really weak attack, which isn't helped by their low STR stat. Heck, Treerats are stronger than them! Treerats! Not to mention that they're so slow, that you can easily stop them from acting. Oh, and binds utterly shut them down. They only show up at day, so if you want to avoid them, travel through the Stratum at night. But the White Foxes are easily more dangerous than these things.





Mm. Faye... don't leave us...

Go down you blood red roses, go down...~

Bow before your queen...





Ngh. Well, that was certainly a wake up call.

Keep in mind that this is with the damage bonus from Sleep. Petaloids are really weak in EO3.



How the mighty have fallen. Though they do go back to being dangerous in the next game.





What looks like a broom waving softly in the wind is a plant known as pampas grass. After gazing at the pliant pampas grass for a while, you decide to return to your explorations.

Whoops! There was supposed to be a quest that involves this, but I didn't get far enough in exploring the ocean to unlock it. I'll have to fix that soon.



Here we go again.



Oh great, it's worse in the daytime!

TURN OFF THE LIGHTS!

Ugh. I don't think I'll ever get used to this.









Ooh. This increases the minimum and maximum Limit a character can gain by 6. Unfortunately, it can only be equipped by Gladiators, Monks, and people with a Gladiator subclass, so this really limits its usefulness.



This mapless room is more twisty than the previous ones, so keeping track of your direction is important.





And now we have a quick shortcut back to the 2nd half of this floor.







There's a campsite in this area, which I decide to make use of.





So Scott, what exactly did you do before you joined our guild?

Mm, I had a brief stint as a pirate. I was even in a crew and everything! Sailing around, singing sea shanties. But that didn't last for long.

Oh, and what exactly made you decide to turn away from such a life?

First off, I'm not really too good with stuff that needs a lot of teamwork. And the pirate life just wasn't for me. Pillaging and plundering wasn't really something I wanted to get into.

...So, you just decided to just hang around at the port until someone else needed a person who could steer a ship?

Actually, I was told that some guild just got their hands on a ship, and figured they could use my help. So that's how I ended up here.





Megaqueen gets a level up.



Now they'll respect my authority!

Nobility Proof is similar to Susan's Class Skill. Every time a buff wears off on Susan, she recovers some TP. At level 1, Susan recovers 3 TP for every buff that wears off. Combined with her Class Skill, she can effectively have infinite TP if you play your cards right. But TP really isn't an issue in this game. I'm only getting this to unlock a better skill.



Oh and in this Stratum, Pasarans like to show up in mapless areas. I'll tell you right now, that it's not worth going after them, at all. There's a much easier way to hunt them down later.



C5 Take Point:
Mint 60% Gather Rate.
Life Honey: 40% Gather Rate.
Aloe: Rare.
Common Gather Periods: 1 to 11.
Rare Gather Periods: 1 to 5.



Scott gets a level up after a while.



I'm gonna max out Berserker Vow again.



Here's the last mapless room on the floor.



Oh and there's a Mortal Hunter in this one. You'll have to be even more aware of your surroundings. Thankfully the FOE radar still functions in these rooms.



You can avoid this Mortal Hunter by taking this route.



But I'll be exploring this room a bit.



...What the hell, there's nothing in here!

You can use this empty room to reset the Mortal Hunter's position. Oh and for the record, the game still keeps track of the tiles you've stepped on in mapless rooms for the purposes of keeping track of FOEs.



Anyways, let's go take this one out.







I'm gonna put up an Indomitable in case Cassandra can't handle its attacks.



And I'm gonna use Bodyguard to protect Asteria.





So my charged elemental Limit can go off.



I won't fall so easily.





My defenses failed!? But how!?

Oh by the way, Instant Death completely ignores any Endure effects on your party members. Yeah, not even Indomitable will help all that much against these things.



You really shouldn't have done that.







Because I'm gonna charge you for assault and battery!







And I'm gonna... uhh... You know, I really can't think of a stabbing pun right now.



Fortunately, I was able to kill it quickly, but not fast enough for the conditional drop. Oh, and Cassandra got a level up.







Leveling up Provoke to 5 unlocked these skills, which will add even more to Cassandra's survivability.



Provoke now places up to a aggro value of 9 on Cassandra when used. I won't be leveling this up anymore. Honestly, the skill is kind of overkill at this point.







Meh.





And that was the last of the mapless rooms. They'll get more tricky to navigate later on.





More shortcuts to earlier points in the Stratum.



And we're completely done with this floor. From now on, floors won't hide any more secrets that we can't access until later.



But before we explore the new floor, let's see what the townspeople have to say.





Oh, thank you. What's the occasion?

There were tons of them growing in our backyard, so I went around the city giving them to people. It’s kind of like my job. Every year, there are so many flowers, it’s turned into a tradition. They get put up all over the city! You can see our flowers everywhere in Armoroad!





Umm...

Don’t look so expectant. It’s only this flower... The boy at the inn left it here a moment ago. Pretty, isn’t it? But it wouldn’t be half so lovely if not for this vase I acquired the other day. It came in a set of two, I’ll have you know. I can give you a good deal on the other if you buy now.

...Never change, Edie. Wait, that might not have been the best thing to say.







The Zanmatou was unlocked from the Mortal Hunter's normal drop. It's a nice weapon to give to your Shogun, if you have one.







Provides a 10% resistance to Strike attacks. Not that useful for Cassandra, since her current armor provides resistance to all physical damage types, but could be handy on other people.







Provides a 20% resistance to Curse. It does provide a nice amount of defense on top of the Curse resistance. Shame that armor really isn't that effective in this game.



Attempts to Curse all enemies with a 40% success rate. Well at least now I won't have to respec Faye for Curse conditionals again.



Attempts to Confuse all enemies with a 40% success rate. Handy if you don't have access to Confusion, but I prefer dropping an elephant on my enemies.



Now what are you going on about?

Oh, hey! I did not even notice you! Sit down here! See this flower? The boy from the inn brought it here a while ago. I can’t stop looking at it! Go ahead and gaze at it all you want. I won’t even charge you for the privilege.



Looks like you’ve been to the royal forest. There’s a lot of tricky monsters in there. Take the Forest Hare. They’re fine on their own, but watch out if they’re with a Stun Eryngii. They’ll use the power of the moon to double the effects of the Stun Eryngii’s volt attacks. If you had your head bound by a Claw Monkey to boot, it’d be an utter disaster... Hahahaha!

Not if I have anything to say about that.



Huh? Aura hasn’t been by? That’s weird... I thought she’d be back by now... When we passed through this red gate in Porcelain Forest, I was warped somewhere away from her. Hmm... Okay, once I catch my breath, I’m gonna go look for her!



Let's check out the quests.

Out of salt, huh?

You are taking that request? That one comes from one of the members of Pale Horse. They have run out of salt, and they are wanting someone to find a salt source in the Labyrinth. They say that Pale Horse members can live for a month on a handful of salt! ...Idiots!

Hm?

Oh...! You were not listening to me just now, okay? You heard nothing! Promise me! Go on, explorers! Shake it and find that salt!



What could this be about?

This client was saucy enough to specifically request Tidehunt! Here’s the message. “Enter the white forest and descend one floor. I will explain the details there.” ...What is a white forest? You are not having a secret date behind my back, are you?

...What.

...Oh, wait. A secret date would be done in secret! What was I thinking!? I am sure you will be fine, then! Have fun on your little “secret date!”

Y'know, you all may want to get out of here before Charlotte hears about this “secret date”- ohhhhh, too late.

WHAT'S THIS ABOUT A SECRET-MMPH MMPH MMMMPH!

RUN!





What have you got over there?

Oh, the flowers? The kid at the inn gave them to me just now. They’re not so bad to have ar--

Snrk.

Heyyy... Now what is it? You think it’s funny that a man like me can appreciate some flowers? Is that it?

O-Oh, no! Carry on! Pfft.





The boy at the inn shared some of his flowers with me, so I went to give them to her. Thinking back on it, flowers never brought me much peace when I was a boy. ...Haha, my wife must be laughing herself silly to see how maudlin I’ve become.





Ah, me... I keep getting lost in reminiscences lately. Perhaps I’m growing old after all.







We just came from there.

Oh, really? So... how is she? Is my sister doing well for herself?

Worried about how she's doing?

N-No, that’s not what I meant! I was just worried about that skinflint having money problems! I mean, as stingy as she is, she’s still my only sister. You know how she can be, right? Money does strange things to her. I worry sometimes.

So do we.

Oh, and don’t tell her, alright? That girl’s got a sharp tongue and I don’t need it pointed at me.



Not really.

Oh, so you haven’t been back... I see... Well, doesn’t matter in that case.

Is something wrong?

...It’s nothing in particular. Didn’t mean to alarm you.





...I suppose there’s no harm in telling you now that they’ve gone to the Porcelain Forest. They march to save our homeland of Armoroad from the evil of the Deep Ones!

Now with all that out of the way, let's start the next set of Sea Quests. The boss is... unusual, to say the least.





I showed off this boss briefly when pulling off the King Penguin exploit. This time, we'll be fighting him for real.



We only got the Aegis Shield Limit here. We still haven't gotten the equipment reward from this Sea Quest.





Kirikaze
Class: Ninja
Stats:
Equipment:
Skillset:
Supplies:

Kirikaze is back again, and she's a decent party member. Her main strategy is to set up a clone and then use Tagen Battou on King Penguin. Though sometimes she'll settle for Kagenui instead to deal damage. Don't expect it to inflict Leg Bind, because King Penguin is immune to all ailments and binds.

Anyways, as for the difficulty of this Sea Quest. Well... Remember back in the 2nd Stratum when I told you about the concept of HP sponge enemies? Enemies that have huge weaknesses to all damage types but have a massive HP pool so they can pull off stuff like Curse shenanigans? King Penguin is essentially a boss fight designed around that concept. At times he'll start enduring hits, and then unleashes a powerful attack depending upon how much damage he took. Oh, and he does try to inflict Curse on your party on top of that. Fortunately, all of the AI NPCs cheat and avoid attacking King Penguin during that time. You could just let Kirikaze (and all the Sea Quest NPCs) do all the work, but where's the fun in that? As such, the difficulty of all the Sea Quests here are pretty low if you're careful enough.







Aura
Class: Zodiac
Stats:
Equipment:
Skillset:
Supplies:
Oh hey, Nerona found Aura after all. (These Sea Quests are meant to be done near the end of the 5th Stratum.) Anyway, Aura's main strategy is to use Etheric Charge and to zap King Penguin with Volt Star. She's also really good at clearing out the Penguins King Penguin summons with Binary Thunder. I have no idea why she has Volt Prophecy, when it's completely useless in this fight, but she doesn't use it, so whatever. And since King Penguin takes 200% damage from all damage types (except Almighty), she can easily deal tons of damage to him.



Nerona
Class: Gladiator
Stats:
Equipment:
Skillset:
Supplies:
Nerona on the other hand, is a much less useful ally. Her main tactic for this fight is to use Charge then Nine Smashes. Which is a high damage skill with terrible accuracy. How terrible? Well in this case, Nerona only has a 26% chance of landing each hit. And in case you thought you could disable King Penguin's accuracy with an ailment, he's immune to all of that. Yeah, don't expect her to do much. The only way to increase her accuracy is through the use of the Pop Flares skill, which increases the accuracy to 76%. She does have Crushing Blow, but she only uses that on the Penguins King Penguin summons.







Zaby
Class: Buccaneer
Stats:
Equipment:
Skillset:
Supplies:
Zaby will mainly make use of her Chasers and her regular attacks in this fight. Ideally you want to make use of Pierce attacks since her allies mainly use Pierce attacks.



Ivil
Class: Arbalist
Stats:
Equipment:
Skillset:
Supplies:



Gavler
Class: Arbalist
Stats:
Equipment:
Skillset:
Supplies:
Ivil and Gavler have the exact same skillsets. The only difference between them are their stats. Anyway, they're mainly there to provide fuel for Zaby's Chasers. While they do know Front Mortar, they start off in the back row, swapping them to the front row may be something you want to do. They deal a decent amount of damage on their own.

You may notice that all of these Sea Quests have no support NPCs. That's because the nature of this boss fight favors offensive party members much more than support and defensive oriented party members. Most of them won't have much to do in these fights. Now let's see how our guild is doing. Though most of them haven't changed all that much.



Cassandra is probably completely useless for these fights, aside from maybe tossing out items. She's a defensive party member in a fight where attacks aren't thrown around a lot. The Penguins King Penguin summons do attack the party, but they'll rarely do that, instead opting to heal King Penguin instead. And King Penguin's main attack deals Almighty damage, which she can do nothing about. The best she can really do is Bodyguard party members in case they screw up and cause King Penguin to explode. As such, she's definitely the worst party member to bring along. Even worse than Alice, as she can contribute somewhat.



Scott can dish out a huge amount of damage with Pincushion, and Eagle Eye can be used to amplify the team's physical damage output even more. While Pincushion is a bit unreliable in the damage department, even rolling only one hit will have Scott deal a lot of damage. Though if he rolls 3 hits, that will probably take off a massive chunk of King Penguin's HP.



Akatsuki really can't do much in these fights. He's not really a damage dealer, and King Penguin is immune to all ailments. So his role is limited to spamming Dark Ether and throwing out items if necessary. Not that Dark Ether spam is a bad thing, as that can help if the fight lasts a long time.



Asteria is a really strong offensive party member to bring along. Since King Penguin takes 200% damage from everything, Singularity will help her attacks dish out even more damage. This includes Meteor, which is stronger than her elemental stars.



Faye is an okay support to bring along. She can heal up any party members that take damage from the fight, and dispel any Curses on them. Or just prevent them entirely with Prevent Order. She can also revive people that dies to King Penguin's explosive attacks. Assuming she even lives through them.



On the other hand, MEGAQUEEN is probably the best support to bring along to these fights. With Attack Order and Eagle Eye, she can boost the party's physical damage output to ludicrous levels. She can also stop King Penguin from inflicting Curse on the party with Prevent Order.



Sidney is the best character to bring along to these fights. He deals the most damage out all the party members with Front Mortar. And he has an AOE to clear out the Penguins that get summoned to the fight. The fact that he's a glass cannon barely matters in these fights at all, due to how it works.



Rose is also a nice damage dealer to bring along. She's one of the weaker damage dealers, but Blade Rave still packs a punch. Unfortunately, her durable nature doesn't really matter in these fights.



Fang is not a good party member to bring along. King Penguin is completely immune to all ailments and binds, and his animals don't deal that much damage. On the other hand, he can lock down the Penguins and use Primal Drums to amplify the party's physical damage output, but that's about all he can really contribute.



Well, Alice can pick off the Penguins with her Kubikiri passive. That's about it. Hey, I said Cassandra was worse than her. I didn't say that she was a good choice in general.



Charlotte is another damage dealer, but a very unreliable one. 5-Ring Sword could deal a lot of damage, or it could just not do much. Though I suppose dice rolls can be thrilling in a sense.

Vote for up to 3 party members that you want to see participate in these fights. Votes must be in bold.