My advice would be to get used to saving 200 CP S-Crafts for just the right moment in such fights. You'll know when.
My advice would be to get used to saving 200 CP S-Crafts for just the right moment in such fights. You'll know when.
My advice would be to get used to saving 200 CP S-Crafts for just the right moment in such fights. You'll know when.
I won't lie, all these bosses near the end of Act 2 Part 4 of CS2 that can super charge themselves and heal like 1/5 of their life are annoying as fuck and I'm not having fun lol
To be fair, standard battles end up fairly manageable before long even on a fresh Hard playthrough, but boss battles can be a pain thanks to very much needing to use the new Break system and failing to shut them down when they use that Enhanced state crap typically meaning a party wipe (they break faster when they do, hence the advice on saving 200 CP S-Crafts, but how quickly bosses tend to recover from break status is no less annoying when they go right back into Enhanced state). Mecha combat is also something of a slog when going with a higher difficulty before getting to make and set EX Orbs. While the game at least manages to be more of a challenge than starting CS2 on Hard was for me, the uneven balance can be fairly annoying at times. Fair warning, AP bonuses for doing well in certain battles come back too.You really aren't getting me excited about CS3 at all right now...
God damn my keyboard is a mess and keep posting before I've ever written anything... ughTo be fair, standard battles still end up fairly manageable before long even on a fresh Hard playthrough, but boss battles can be a pain thanks to very much needing to use the new Break system and failing to shut them down when they used that Enhanced state crap typically meaning a party wipe. Mecha combat is also something of a slog when going with a higher difficulty before getting to make and set EX Orbs. While the game at least manages to be more of a challenge than starting CS2 on Hard was for me, the uneven balance can still be fairly annoying.
Ultimately, it's still more good than bad, and I would still rank this above the first two CS games overall.
O_O!!!! mind giving us westeners a translation?
Man some of these bosses are just getting on my nerves in CS2 now. Chain stuns and the like with no warning, and if I want to reload and change my gear I gotta tap through the ten minute cut-scene right before the fight....
I never felt any of the boss fights in CS1 were cheap, some were hard and took me a few tries but I always felt like I had a solid chance.
Some of these late game boss fights in CS2 just feel like cheap bullshit. Chain stuns, full heals, super charges with heals, bosses one shotting half my team. Just a bunch of cheap stuff man. It's a real bummer and it's dragging my enthusiasm for the franchise down significantly at the moment.
You can hold down the cancel button to skip through cutscenes faster in Kiseki games.
CS2 is balanced around you breaking the game wide open, bosses are not balanced around playing "fairly", so to speak. Open Wound in the post above laid it out quite nicely.
That's the thing I'm not interested in cheap mechanics that break the game. It's not fun for me to just tap X while my team perma delays a boss etc.
That's not the way a game should be enjoyed imo.
Also the entire first game didn't require me to use cheap mechanics. The fights were fun and challenging. So there is no excuse.
The thing is you can't play fairly. CS2 (and CS1 to a lesser extent, mostly because you're restricted on party members for most of the game and the progression is slower) is broken by default, and most "game breaking" builds are simply logical ways to build those characters up, which is why there are so many broken builds for so many characters. You don't need to change Laura's Master Quartz from her default nor she requires the Domination quartz to do monstruous damage, same with Millium and Sara. As long as you build the characters to their strengths (nothing crazy, just don't put arts related quartz onto physically oriented characters or viceversa for the most part, and avoid the more situatonal or downright useless quartz), most of them should be more than powerful enough to deal with everything. The mechanics are overwhelmingly stacked on the player's favor. Sure, you won't be one shotting everything, but you should be crazy powerful still.That's the thing I'm not interested in cheap mechanics that break the game. It's not fun for me to just tap X while my team perma delays a boss etc.
That's not the way a game should be enjoyed imo.
Also the entire first game didn't require me to use cheap mechanics. The fights were fun and challenging. So there is no excuse.
You don't necessarily have to switch MQs for Laura... but personally, I would recommend giving her Tauros and never looking back, along with slotting Domination and giving her a large strength buff before using a 200 CP S-Craft. Rebellion always got the best results for me with Sara.
While I found Vermillion useful in CS1, I didn't really bother with it outside of maxing it for the sake of doing so in the final dungeon. I made more use of Murakumo and Orochi by comparison, alternating between the two for Rean. Sara's base speed and power (along with her crafts) combined with the auto buffs for both from Rebellion along its two free turns of Stealth led to steamrolling battles more often than not. I stuck Wing on Jusis.Yeah I used Tauros for Laura until I got Vermillion. Also never thought about using Rebellion on Sara as I used it on Jusis. It was pretty hard to drop him once I gave him this MQ.
Well, that way Laura cleans house by herself if you slot the S Craft on a critical turn, so yeah, pretty damn effective lol. I don't remember if the master quartz that improved the critical damage (Murakumo, was it?) has higher damage output, but Tauros is the best choice for me as it works well even when you're not going for the S Craft tactic.You don't necessarily have to switch MQs for Laura... but personally, I would recommend giving her Tauros and never looking back, along with slotting Domination and giving her a max strength buff before a 200 CP S-Craft. Rebellion always got the best results for me with Sara.
Murakumo ups both the chances of and damage done by criticals, yeah. Tauros is better for consistency, though.Well, that way Laura cleans house by herself if you slot the S Craft on a critical turn, so yeah, pretty damn effective lol. I don't remember if the master quartz that improved the critical damage (Murakumo, was it?) has higher damage output, but Tauros is the best choice for me as it works well even when you're not going for the S Craft tactic.
Still, I imagine Arcade55 would consider that cheesing the game, which is why I want to know about their build so we can help in a more useful matter.
That's kinda going to be a recurrent problem as CS2 breaks at the slightest opportunity.Murakumo ups both the chances of and damage done by criticals, yeah.
That's fair. It would be something I'd need to give more thought to, as the Sara recommendation I made definitely falls under cheesing too.
I commend Geofront for what they've done for Zero, but still waiting patiently for an official localization (for Ao, as well).
There comes a point where you have to accept you either play the fan translation or never play the game at all lol
For me, it's pretty easy to wait for Geofront to finish both Zero and Azure at this point. If there's still no sign of anything official by that point, hooray, it's time for a Trails binge, but realistically the ps4 version of the crossbell games feels like it was made for the west in some respects. Some of the additions feel very "Hey, have you played Trails of Cold Steel?" from what I've seen.
Is it outside of the realm of possibility that they could purchase the Geofront translation? I don't know how these things work. But it seems like they could buy their work and just finish it up in house no?
But you don't need to rely on S Crafts at all. That's kinda the beauty of ToCSII broken difficulty, you can use almost any strategy or gameplay style and it will almost certainly be either OP or more than powerful enough.Mostly every time I come upon a boss that's being ridiculous I end up doing the exact thing you are describing. I stack so much damage that I can essentially kill the boss with 4 S-Crafts (And maybe Lost Art or Valimar)
I'm not saying I don't understand how to do those things, it's pretty effortless to cheese the bosses with broken builds.
I'm saying I wish it wasn't how the game was designed. I've played dozens and dozens of JRPGs and I very rarely feel like I need to cheese combat in them to enjoy myself. I want the fun battle where I have to utilize all my skills and plan strategically (and maybe get a little lucky) to beat the hard bosses. And up until this point in Cold Steel I had mostly been able to do that and I loved it.
I just don't find it enjoyable is all to hit S-Craft 4 times and hope the boss dies before it can chain faint my entire team.
I could maybe take some joy out of cheesing those fights if making the perfect build was a challenge, but as so many of you have mentioned it takes almost no work to make Rean, Fie and Laura OP as fuck.
But you don't need to rely on S Crafts at all. That's kinda the beauty of ToCSII broken difficulty, you can use almost any strategy or gameplay style and it will almost certainly be either OP or more than powerful enough.
Which is why I wanted to see your builds. You shouldn't have to rely on cheese that you don't find enjoyable to defeat certain bosses, you should have more than enough tools to deal with whatever the enemy throws at you. There are a lot of ways to play that are still powerful and not rely on S Crafts. I myself only use S Crafts to finish battles in style most of the time.
As an example:
This is a video I've made defeating one of the most powerful enemies of the Finale chapter (there are no story spoilers nor cutscenes, only the fight of a powerful character that you know already) without using neither S Crafts nor Lost Arts on nightmare. I removed the ice crown accessory from Rean as it's NG+ exclusive and replace it with a true gladiator belt. This is far from playing perfectly as I went with builds that have no defensive means whatsoever (and I even put Rean in front of the Boss' S Craft by mistake when I had him already positioned to avoid it), but it should show that it's not necessary to rely on S Crafts to deal with bosses, so you can use other methods that are more fun for you.
Well then, thank god for the cover ability because I had no defensive means whatsoever on my PS4 playthrough, and I didn't adjust my quartz.Actually, I believe that particular S-craft hits everything on the field, no matter where they are. Surviving it on higher difficulties either requires the Artemis Tears Lost Art, a certain MQ/quartz combination, Proxy puppets/Angel MQ or having people with the Cover-ability out there and praying to the RNG that it kicks in.
Just finished Chapter 6 of CS1...
Jesus Christ that took a minute.
I meant that final battle, good lord, white knuckle city.Each Chapter in CS1 takes longer than the one before it haha. The ending has a way of going a lot longer than you are probably expecting it too. I thought I was almost done only to find out I had about 4 hours to go lol.
With Trails games I need to stop assuming that reaching the epilogue means I'm close to the end. AO's epilogue is huge.
Yeah I'm in the "Finale" chapter of CS2 and I learned my lesson from the first game. I assume I still have a long time to go haha.
Yeah I'm in the "Finale" chapter of CS2 and I learned my lesson from the first game. I assume I still have a long time to go haha.