#my discord status was complaining about part of the grind

[slumberinglabyrinth]

I've already spoiled the punchline to this post, but the extra boss of Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a joke. A sick joke.

I'm writing this primarily from the perspective of Vanilla and not Encore, but I'll bring up Encore's relevant changes (that I know of) when they come up.

I think that part of the fun of the extra boss, M-DEUS, is finding your own solution to beating him, so I'll be putting how to deal with him at the end if you want to avoid it.

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M-DEUS is based off of the second phase of the final boss, Medeus; he's physically identical and mechanically just. Harder.

Much harder.

Before I get into the boss itself, some background info for the uninitiated:

Your main cast is the characters in battle, your subcast is the playable characters not in battle, and your supporting cast are NPCs who get skills that have passive effects. By endgame, your main cast has 3 people, your subcast has 4, and your supporting cast has 3. In Encore, characters in the supporting cast can also learn a session skill.

The main gimmick in TMS is Sessions; if you strike an enemy's weakness and an ally has a session skill that corresponds to the element you used (which contrary to what the term ‘element’ usually invokes, includes sword/lance/axe/bow), they'll follow up with an elemental attack of their own and start a session. Each team member except for any that perform the initial attack that starts the session can then perform a follow up attack of their own, until either everyone who can act has or an enemy nulls/reflects/drains a session attack.

Some things to note

The game optimizes the session order to maximize damage, so it's possible that the session you perform will not be the longest session possible.

Session skills only go up to medium strength (the highest normal command skills are Heavy strength, but there are a few (like. 4) Severe skills that certain characters can learn), limiting their damage output compared to regular command skills

In addition to that, characters not in the main cast deal half damage.

Bane skills (which cover Wyvern/Dragon, Armor, and Cavalry enemy types but *not* Fliers), always start a session against the relevant enemy type and pierce elemental resistance (including Reflect, Null, and Drain) for both the initial attack and it's entire session.

there is a random chance that during a session you will be granted the opportunity to choose between performing one of two random Duo Arts, which will occur after the session ends. Duo Arts are attacks involving two characters (they have to be alive, but don't need to be in your main cast) and have bonus effects ranging from healing to status ailments to SP generation. Duo Art also have the piercing effects that Bane skills have, and will, most importantly, start another session with everyone who hadn't taken part in the Duo Art. Duo Arts can appear up to twice per Command Skill use.

In Encore, the session skill learned by each supporting cast member (Maiko, Tiki, and B****) performs a follow-up attack based off of if the skill before was a weapon skill or a magic skill (it doesn't include almighty element attacks, which is only relevant in one specific instance). This means you can perform up to 9 follow-up attacks during a regular session and, unlike in Vanilla, start a session from a Body/Spirit-element skill.

Enemies can also perform sessions, under the same rules as you

In addition to regular command skills (which cost EP), you have Special Performances, which cost SP and are stronger across the board than any equivalent command skill (either through flat DPS or the effects they grant). Think of them as something like a meter-based super in a fighting game

SP is generated by performing actions (any skill, a session, using an item, etc.) and taking damage; a gauge fills up as these things happen, and once it's full, you gain a point of SP

you can store up to 3 SP at a time

some skills cost 1 SP, but stronger ones cost 2 (none cost 3)

In addition to their other effects, Special Performances will pierce resistances and always start a session if there's a skill that can follow up on it

When you use a damage-dealing command skill of a specific element, that character may instead do an Ad-Lib attack if they've learned one. Ad-Libs:

behave like Duo Arts/Special Performances (starts sessions, pierces elemental resistances)

are stronger

usually also become aoe

sometimes have a bonus effect (often a status)

there's no real downside, but they’re entirely random

While in dungeons, certain enemy spawns can end up as either 1) Rare or 2) Savage

Rare enemies run away after a few turns but give items used to craft weapons that give off-element skills or have atypical weaknesses and resistances for that particular character.

the level of Savage enemies are scaled based off of your own level, and are always meant to be A Challenge. They are the only renewable source of Detritus, an item you trade for incenses (which give +3 to a specific stat) with an NPC in the arena. You get 2-3 Detritus from each Savage enemy encounter in the main game, and incenses cost 9 each (there's no upper limit on the number you can obtain or use beyond being able to hold up to 99 at once and the hard stat cap (which you don't need to get near for ANY content in the game))

By endgame you'll have a field skill that increases the rate both rare enemies and savage enemies appear at. Farming them isn’t really hard once you get to the point where you’d want to.

One of the dlc maps in Vanilla is literally just "every enemy is Savage and every item on the ground is detritus"; you get 9-12 detritus from each encounter instead of just 2-3, and you can grab another 18 from items laying around on the map. This map is included in the base game of Encore

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okey

Like most megaten extra/'ultimate' bosses, you need to be on NG+ to fight M-DEUS. To unlock his fight, you must trade for incenses with Nieg (who is located in the arena and involved in a seperate sidequest) 36 times. This translates to a minimum of 27 Savage Enemy fights and a max of 36 fights if you use the DLC map, and a minimum of 108 and a max of 162 without DLC, minus a couple fights from the handful of chests with Detritus in them scattered throughout the game and a couple other sources like the Arena itself.

When you hit the level cap these fights become relatively consistently in your favor if you're prepared for them even if you don't abuse Elenora's AoE Special Perfomance which has a sizable chance to proc an instakill on any nonboss enemy (remember that), so this step isn't difficult as much as it is tedious (as is reaching the level cap if you don't use DLC lmao).

This is unfortunately also a megaten tradition.

Because M-DEUS is based off of Medeus, his general pattern is relatively simple:

He takes two actions per turn, like all other bosses after the Prologue

This may sound cheap but... it’s better (for the player) for bosses to take two actions than for them to take one really strong action based off of how atlus makes their games

the alternative is like, stuff like disaster cycle or literally anything mem aleph does

"i don’t know what that is” try to keep it that way

Counts as a dragon for skill interactions

Interestingly, the only boss (alongside medeus) with a unique class that has an effective-weakness

Every few turns, or after he's taken a certain amount of damage, he summons two additional enemies (this does not use up an action and occurs at the end of/”between” turns).

if you let any of the adds live for 2-3 turns, they will use an AOE almighty (untyped and unblockable) attack that kills them and deals a bunch of damage to you and will probably kill you if they haven't already

this isn’t a problem with medeus because he’s like. a normal boss

The enemies will probably kill you if you don't kill them first

His attacks include

Single Target Sword that pierces repel/absorb/null (it doesn't auto-start a session)

AOE Almighty ("Dies Irae", he uses this every 3 turns, this might inflict Seal)

Single Target Elec

Single Target untyped physical ("beast"/"monster") attack (might be the attack that inflicts Seal instead)

As his HP drops, he gains access to a few more attacks that get added to the "things he can do" pool

Maragidyne (AOE Fire)

Energy Drain. Deals damage and steals your HP and EP. (he uses this infrequently, but it doesn't seem to be scripted)

Dark Breath. debuffs all stats (also used infrequently, is probably scripted)

But! There's more:

If there are no adds on the field, he repels every element.

remember how he’s the only boss that has a bane weakness? yeah. that’s why

If there are adds on the field, he's weak to whatever they are and repels everything else

Because of how the rest of the fight goes, you're not going to want to try to take advantage of this.

Damage dealt to him is capped at 499 per attack

literally the only instance of a damage cap in the game

on top of the damage cap, his stats (and the stats of the adds) are inflated quite a bit

Before incenses, I was dealing like. 300 damage while in the main cast at level 99 and half that for the subcast (so a full session of 1500 instead the max of 2495)

The adds are noticably more squishy and DON’T have a hardcoded damage cap, but they pack enough firepower to make up for it.

If a party member dies, his attack increases for the rest of the fight

This is outside of the buff/debuff system, so it can't be dispelled and is effectively permanent.

He has 65534 hp, which equates to a 'soft' minimum of 19 turns for most team comps, assuming no Duo Arts

Encore can cut off a turn or two since it can have 3 extra attacks per session

the adds all suck

By default he only summons two Mercenaries, then at 75% HP he can summon two Axe Generals, then at 50% he can summon two (Lance) Wyvern Riders, and then once he's at 25% he starts summoning two Clerics. the percents are approximate.

The Mercenaries

are weak to Lance and I think Electric

kinda a pushover. mid-line bulk, but dangerous if left along

not immune to elenora's instakill

will use concentrate before their self-destruct which boosts it by 2.5x so you're just gonna mcfukin die

are summoned less often as the battle goes on

The Axe Armors

Weak to Sword, Ice, Wind. Maybe more

deals respectable damage

has like max defense and next to no resistance. physical attacks deal single digit damage and magic damage easily enters four digits.

has high hp (maybe 10,000?)

also not immune to elenora's instakill

The Wyvern Riders

Weak to Axe, Bow, Wind. Maybe more

counts as a dragon for bane skills

deals LOTS of damage

has an aoe fire attack that also poisons you

these guys suck

low res and medium def

still not immune to elenora's instakill *or* Itsuki's sword Ad-Lib (which will instakill any non-boss dragons; there's no luck involved in the instakill once it activates, and even though getting the Ad-Lib itself to activate is luck based if you happen to be using a sword attack from him on that turn there’s always a chance that it’ll come out)

The Clerics

weak to sword/lance/axe. maybe more. probably more.

have 3000 hp and barely any defense

guess what! not immune to instakills

cast mediarahan and nothing else worth mentioning

yes

the aoe full heal skill

extra bosses in a couple other games involve diarahan/mediarahan (like Margeret and Demi-Fiend) but they only use it once, use it around 50% hp (and certainly not when the boss is in the red!) and have their next hp thresholds close enough for you to be able to reach them before they cast their full heal, making it a once-off dpt check that punishes you by effectively just making their HP 1.5x higher instead of a recurring dpt check that punishes you by making his hp nearly twice as high (or three times, or four times...)

this is unscripted and will happen as many times as you let it

the hp thresholds don't reset so he keeps summoning clerics and using all the skills he gained during the fight despite now being at full HP

fuck you atlus

can you believe people thought the worst part about this game was idols?

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Okay, so how do you fight this?

You could just grind until you take like no damage but uh. that's going to be mind-numbingly exhausting and kinda defeats the point of actually fighting the boss. So don't do that. You're going to have to grind incenses no matter what, but it's the difference between being at it for a few days or being at it for a full month.

My general game plan was tailored to

be consistent

reduce the amount of time I had to spend preparing (be it grinding for incenses or materials for weapons or whatever else i needed)

beat the boss in as few turns as possible, mainly to give it fewer chances to make choices that kill you and to make sure you don’t turn it into a battle of attrition (which you’ll lose).

This ultimately means 1) start at least one session against m-deus each turn 2) have everyone hit the damage cap against him and 3) have a person with a dragonbane skill in your main cast (sp consumption is too high to rely on special performances every turn)

be able to kill the adds before they can act because if you can’t do that at the very least for the clerics, you lose.

Some specific points that need to be addressed if we assume you're not spending 100 hours grinding incenses:

The immediate concern is making sure nobody dies. Ever. Medeus already will deal a lot of damage, and he can and will pierce tetrakarn/makarakarn (at bare minimum Dies Irae is almighty and its damage can’t be nullified, only dodged), and if he can ramp that up, you're not going to stand a chance.

He has access to an AOE fire attack and so does one of his sets of adds. Itsuki (who cannot be removed from the party in Vanilla) is by default weak to fire with nearly every weapon of his (including his ultimate weapon), and Mamori, who is your party's dedicated tank, is also weak to fire on most of her weapons. getting hit by something you're weak to will cause any adds to session and you'll die, so you want to avoid being weak to fire.

nobody in the fight has dekaja or dekunda or any buffs, so buffs and debuffs remain effective

Dark Breath will set you back, but if you keep your buffs *up* it'll just negate Dark Breath instead of Dark Breath sticking around for three turns, no matter how many turns they had remaining

The adds will cause problems. just in general. they can kill you or at the very least set medeus up to finish you off, since they tend to go earlier in the turn than him.

going before all of them is a priority, as is killing them before they act (especially the clerics)

Medeus has a damage cap. once you consistently hit 499 with all of your party members in a session, there's not much point to trying to boost your damage output

this also means you have a point where you can skip using charge or concentrate (x2.5 damage to phys or magic skills and phys or magic attacks in their sessions sessions) on anybody starts a session off of M-DEUS, since hitting the cap through stats and passive skills alone will allow you to save an action during the fight

Itsuki cannot be removed from the party in Vanilla which is both a blessing and a curse because

outside of his two rare weapons, every weapon of his including his ultimate weapon is weak to fire (bad, because this usually means more damage sustained)

has a heavy dragonbane skill (good)

He doesn’t need Adds or SP to session off of M-DEUS

itsuki's entire niche in endgame is using bane skills

he has two passives that each boost Wyrmicide by 1.5x (1.55x when fully upgraded) because it's a sword element bane skill. they stack.

this means less grinding for str for him, saving time

One thing to note is that Kiria is the only other character who has access to a dragonbane skill, Naga, but the problems with that are

Naga is Spirit element, which has no corresponding sessions in Vanilla. You should not use her as your damage against M-DEUS in Vanilla at all because you just can’t.

In Encore, Tiki's session can start off of Spirit

Itsuki kinda sucks at support, but Kiria doesn’t, so if you were to hypothetically have both on field, he’d be the one attacking M-DEUS

he doesn't get endgame buff or debuff skills, and doesn't get diarahan/mediarahan, and so on

less of problem when you can remove him from your party in Encore

Kiria's bulk and defenses are the worst in the game, which means more grinding for incenses in order to prevent her from dying

all of Kiria's weapons are weak to sword, which means you can't ensure her weakness is never struck because M-DEUS will, from turn 1, use a piercing sword-element skill

Kiria's main niche is using ice skills, so while she gets a 1.5 multiplier to Naga from True Casting (1.5x to all magic), she doesn't get a second bonus which means more grinding for incenses compared to Itsuki

None of the adds are immune to instakills. this includes both Mass Desturction (Elenora's AoE special performance) and Firm Resolve (Itsuki's anti-wyvern sword Ad-lib)

Regarding Elenora:

Even if Mass Destruction's instakill doesn't proc, she'll still start a session because it's a special performance

One of two characters with access to Debilitate, which applies all three debuffs and saves you at least one action compared to other characters with debuffs, if not two actions (the other character is Touma)

Debilitate is on her ultimate weapon, so while it's a pain to max the skill (which just makes its EP cost lower and is arguably not worth the time), you'll be getting 6 out of 7 of them anyway (for reasons I'll explain in a bit)

also has access to Fog Breath, which debuffs Atk and Hit/Evade but not Defense; this means that in a pinch (ie. energy drain took too much EP), you can apply the debuffs that will help you survive because that's more important than ending the fight faster

her ultimate weapon is only weak to Axe (which should die before her) and wind (which nobody in the fight uses); while she's squishy, you don't need to worry about sessions against her and won't need as much def/res incenses, saving time

Elenora naturally deals very respectable damage in and out of sessions because she has incredibly high Skill and reasonably high Str

Skill increases crit rate

You'll already be boosting her Skill to get Mass Destruction's instakill to proc more consistently, this means less Str incenses

In addition, she has passives that

greatly increases crit rate

increases crit damage

greatly increases dodge rate

applies a 1.5x damage boost to bow skills (incuding Mass Destruction)

that gives her a high chance to act first in the round (ie. before any adds that’ll ruin your day)

increases hit rate

gives all her attacks a high chance to make any enemy hit move to the end of the turn order during the current turn (or the next turn if they've already acted)

makes her less likely to be targeted (not as much of a concern because a lot of things in this fight are AoE and you'll mostly be using AoE healing, but still a plus)

has Radiant skills (seperate passives that don't take up a skill slot) that

make crits deal more damage

increases evade against phys attacks

boosts ailment success rates from any party member as long as she's in the main cast (not something that’ll be relied on much, but if it helps it helps)

While Elenora's instakill is reliant on luck, you can get it to proc reasonably consistently and even if it's just on one and not both of the adds, that gives you a session's worth of damage on the other add, some chip damage on M-DEUS, and one less thing that could wipe the floor with you.

She's not absolutely nessacary, but using her cuts out *a lot* of grinding and even without the instakill the access to both a high crit/evade rate and access to debilitate makes her a very strong choice for one of the characters you'll use alongside Itsuki. If you’re not trying to tank everything (which is... dumb), she’s basically the best choice for debuffs and offensive support

Because we'll be using a 2 SP special performance relatively frequently, it's vital that we increase SP generation as much as possible. In addition to stuff you’d have anyway (ie. Radiant Skills):

Everybody's ultimate weapon gives a passive boost to sp generated from their own attacks

this is why everyone except for Itsuki will have theirs equipped

Itsuki will instead have his lategame rare enemy weapon, which removes his fire weakness and isn't a significant drop in atk

you can kinda. cheese the enemy spawning system in certain parts to just give you rare enemy after rare enemy so once you figure out *where* to do it, you can max that rare weapon’s atk pretty quickly so compared to the amount of time you save over trying to max his ultimate weapon you're really just missing the sp generation

it also gives a passive chance to cause seal but since M-DEUS seems to be immune to it that doesn't really help you directly (niche use if he sessions

In a pinch, you can use Clap Tracks, an item that give you 1 SP but cannot be bought (try to carry as many over through NG+ as possible)

I found that I wasn't really needing to use Clap Tracks much, but, y'know. better to be overprepared than underprepared

Mamori and Tiki also have a Duo Art that grants half a point of SP; unless someone’s about to die and you have a healing Duo Art as your other option, you should always pick it

Okay so we have Elenora and Itsuki, but who else can we use to round off the main cast?

What we still potentially need:

Buffs

Healing

Tanking and/or Dodgetanking (including through buffs)

a source of magic damage (Itsuki has Ziodyne/Thoron, but he'll be busy)

One thing unique about TMS relative to other megatens is that there are no normal skills that apply multiple buffs, only three special performances, which will save you at least one action per turn

Debut Smile (Tsubasa, 1 SP) - Provides a medium heal and raises Def and Hit/Evade

Raindrop Memories (Mamori, 1 SP) - Prevents ailments for 3 turns and raises Atk and Def

Wild Charge (Touma, 2 SP) - Gain Charge (phys attacks and phys attacks in their sessions deal 2.5x damage) for the next two turns and raise Atk and Hit/Evade

Both Tsubasa's and Mamori's have defense, which is good, but hit/evade is more important than raising attack with regard to both surviving long enough to kill M-DEUS and saving time while grinding incenses (hit is Skill based and Evade is Speed, so you have to boost two stats instead of one to make up not getting that buff). The ailment thing is nice but uhhh I’ll get to why that’s not important if you go with Tsubasa in a moment

Touma's costs too much and doesn't raise defense and doesn't have a secondary effect that's particularly useful in this fight. :shrug:

Mamori also has a few problems of her own

No EP-based AoE heal

does get diarahan though

she has a 1 SP AoE full heal which then allows her to take another action (which could be using a clap track. or a sukukaja stone for max buffs, but you can't carry enough to make them last through the entire battle for this method, and it’ll kinda negate the benefits of her buff skill being )

her hitrate is bad.

like. really bad

she has a passive that boosts it, but it 1) comes on her when you get her and 2) isn't on any of her weapons and 3) is the earlygame iteration of the passive despite her coming after the halfway point in the game

she also has no other direct benefits from boosting Skill, unlike Elenora

she also doesn't have access to Sukukaja (unlike Tsubasa, who gets the buff skill that covers the one her SP buff doesn’t apply (tarukaja))

she is not fast and has no way to move herself up the turn order

her main role is also a tank, which could be helpful, but there's some problems with that for her with this fight in particular

she's weak to fire, which Medeus uses

she's weak to sword, which Medeus uses from turn 1

she tanks by drawing aggro and taking blows in place of an ally

she can only negate attacks if she takes that attack in place of an ally

redirecting the attack is random

negating the attack is random

if she's weak to the attack a session will still start

you don't redirect the attack on AOE attacks

the aoe attacks are the main danger in the fight. Dies Irae hurts. Maragidyne hurts. Corrupting Flare hurts.

itai desu

Tsubasa

is weak to axe and wind on her ultimate weapon (and bow, but that's not used in the fight)

can learn absorb wind, covering one of her weaknesses completely

allows you to freely use mazandyne and also heal off of it if it's reflected

two add sets are weak to wind

this is very good

has access to magic damage spells to deal with any axe generals that survive Mass Destruction

the only other characters with magic spells are Itsuki and Kiria

does almost everything

not an exaggeration

only person who learns either mediarahan or its ailment-clearing upgrade, Prayer (the only aoe ailment clear in the game outside of Duo Arts)

learns every buff skill (only needs tarukaja if you use Debut Smile, though having rakukaja or sukukaja helps conserve SP when possible)

learns Fog Breath (useful if elenora needs to do something else that turn)

has a massive EP pool and learns Mana Gain which makes it even larger

her skills are expensive but she can go longer than itsuki and elenora without having to restore EP

can learn Sexy Dance which is AoE charm

Charm is usable in this fight as like. a last resort but it will prevent any adds that it procs on to at the very least eat up their next turn if not the one after and is by and large one of the most useful skills when grinding outside of full on instakills because It's Just That Strong

charm can make them attack another enemy or use a healing item on you which is also good, but it. usually doesn't. they just do nothing

Regarding passives

learns null seal

has a passive that grants 1.5x to wind skills

has two hitrate boosting passives, one of which also boosts her evade rate 

has a passive that greatly boosts the amount her skills heal

not relevant for mediarahan/prayer, but it does boost Debut Smile which makes using it over mediarahan so you can refresh your buffs noticably safer

Personally didn't use this one but depending on how many mag/def/res incenses you decide to get it might be needed

has radiant skills that:

boost charm success rate (stacks with elenora's boost to every ailment which really puts the sexy into sexy dance)

let her session off of any charmed enemy with a lance skill

useful if you ever have to resort to sexy dance or, god forbid, Dream Catcher (a Duo Art that does almighty damage -which means it can't extend a session- that offsets *that* by also fully healing your party and inflicting charm on your foes) and she doesn't have to heal the next turn

increase her hitrate

gives her a chance of ignoring turn order calculation and act first during each turn

all and all, pretty good stuff

To give everyone else a fair evaluation:

Yasuhiro's main role is damage mitigation through dodgetanking and he's good at it. In addition

has access to Wallbreaker, which pierces null and repel (not absorb)

this is kinda useless, even outside this fight

you can't session with it unless they're weak to swords, which means it's only useful against enemies under the effect of tetraguard/tetrakarn (which nobody in this fight uses and nearly nobody in the entire game uses)

like yeah he can hit medeus but it's for a max of 499 a turn

can use tarukaja and sukukaja

takes two actions to set this up, and doesn't have rakukaja or *any* debuffs

can use Counter (and Counter EX) to ensure he dodges all single-target physical attacks that attack him until his next action, and then delivers a counter attack. Also draws aggro

only works on physical attacks, not magic attacks

only works on single target attacks, not AoE

most of the skills enemies use in this fight are AoE magic

Sound familiar? yeah tanks kinda suck in this fight

has access to passive skills that

greatly boost crit rate

greatly boost dodge rate

increases his chance of being targeted

pierces null

has access to radiant skills that

boosts evade against magic attacks

make counterattacks always crit

doesn't have elenora's "boost crit damage" skill :(

increase damage from counterattacks and repel effects while he is in the main cast

not really useful but. it’s better than nothing

Overall rating: Not a bad character, but bad for this specific fight. His damage mitigation (through drawing aggro and dodging) focuses on single target attacks, which random encounters have plenty of, but this fight relies too much on AoE and he kinda just. doesn't help there. Elenora has better and more consistent damage output and has debilitate, Tsubasa is the game's best healer, can do AoE magic, and has a slew of buffs and debuffs including damage mitigation through Rakukaja/Debut Smile's defense buff, and Itsuki can start a session off of Medeus.

Touma

has Debilitate!

no buffs though

has a passive that has a high chance of making his target(s) go last

has a passive that greatly boosts crit rate

has a passive that has a chance to make him act first each turn

has a passive that boosts his hitrate

has passives that grant 1.5x damage to each of his main elements (lance and fire)

elenora also has all of those

relatively durable

weak to axe and ice

nobody in this fight uses ice

only person who has luna

helps with the generals if it activates

its random and might not even activate

it can also activate off of sessions

only person who has penetrate, which is an upgrade to pierce (phys attacks ignore resist/null, ellie and yasuhiro also have that) that also ignores drain

penetrate doesn't ignore reflect, which isn't the end of the world since it's not like he could session off of M-Deus anyway

helps him not prematurely end a session against the adds by having his attack be nullified (i think the generals null lance and the wyverns might too)

has a passive that boosts his attack the higher % hp he's at

has a radiant skill that increases his crit rate when performing a followup attack in a session

when he's in the main cast, using an item has a chance to not consume it

useful because the game doesn't let you carry more than 10 of most of the items you'll need to use in this fight

All of that makes him a very good character for this fight, but he doesn't have elenora's instakill :( Unfortunately she does everything he wants to do in this fight *at least* as good as he can, or better :( But! He shines in the subcast for this fight and just in general. his damage output and hitrate and crit rate are all very good, and he needs probably the fewest incenses overall to reach M-DEUS' cap

Kiria

Learns naga

not useful in vanilla

arguably not worth using in encore either

learns both the single target and AoE heavy spells for Fire, Ice, and Wind

also learns the only Severe-tier Ice spell, Fimbulvetr

great utility against the adds

has a passive that gives a 1.5x boost to all magic attacks and one that gives a 1.5x boost to ice spells

these stack

only character with two 1.5 boosts that stack that has them stack on a severe tier spell

knock knock it's fimbulvetr

weak to electricity, which nobody in this fight uses, and swords, which M-Deus uses from turn 1

only healing skills of note that she learns are mediarama (medium HP AoE restore) and amrita (heal all on a single ally, kinda useless in this fight)

doesn't learn mediarahan or prayer

Learns tarunda and sukunda

doesn't learn rakunda, doesn't learn any dual debuffs or debilitate

no buffs either

has other passives that

increases resistance to all ailments

not super useful in this fight

greatly increases EP

has radiant skills that

reduce EP cost of offensive magic

further reduce EP cost of AoE offensive magic

even further reduce EP cost of Ice magic

knock knock it's mabufudyne

increase evade against phys attacks

Kiria is very good at killing things but that's really all she does and M-DEUS needs people to do more. In theory she could replace Itsuki, but her weakness to Swords, which -again- M-DEUS uses for the entire fight, can't be avoided and her HP is so low that you can't even hope that she'll just tank the hit unless you chug 100+ def incenses on top of all the other incenses that you'll be using. You could use her to fill his role, but it's going to be so incredibly inefficent that I think you should do literally anything else.

Okay.

There's one pretty obvious oversight in just deciding 'we'll use these three characters and nobody else in the fight': TMS lets you swap party members in and out (exclusing Itsuki in Vanilla), and it doesn't use up that party member's turn

This has some bonuses...

this means you can swap to people on the fly if you need, say, Kiria to deal with

this means you can adjust to party members who have

you can adjust to basically any situation

...and some drawbacks

swapping party members dispells any active buffs/debuffs/effects (charge, etc.) on that party member and the new one comes in with no buffs on them

in order for the act of swapping itself to be safe, they need higher def/res than what they otherwise would have, which means more grinding incenses

swapping party members means you need those new party members to also get their def/res increased from incenses, which means more grinding

if they stay in the subcast they aren't in danger of dying, so you don't need them to have anything other than their str (or mag, for Kiria) boosted

and the big one:

nobody really does what Elenora and Tsubasa do better than they do, so there isn't really a point in switching to another party member to begin with. during the main game? sure, everyone has their own role to play and you could use whoever you want because you don't have the chance to optimize everything and grind for incenses and the game certainly never asks you to do that outside of M-DEUS, but against M-DEUS you need to bring the best the game lets you make

unless, of course, you grind incenses like no tomorrow

And I don't want to undersell the amount of incenses I felt were necessary because hoo boy i looked at my playtime before and after I started my journey to defeat M-DEUS and it sure Took A Long Time, but using my team the only relevant stats were:

Either Str or Mag on Everyone (based off of the type of the session skill that they use when Itsuki uses Wyrmicide, and only up to the point where they consistently hit M-DEUS' damage cap; subcast needs more because they'll be dealing half damage)

Skill on Elenora (with buffs hitrates become a nonconcern so you're only doing this to get the instakills. more crits are a side bonus)

A Little Speed on Itsuki, Tsubasa, and Elenora (enough so they consistently go first)

Def/Res on Itsuki, Tsubasa, and Elenora (so they don't die)

a Luck incense for Elenora (Luck doesn't work like a typical stat and it's not important for me to explain it outside of the vague idea that it’s like a ‘personal’ stat where people have a different base level (elenora’s is the worst lol) that can be temporarily boosted using an incense or a specific drink from a vending machine, but it'll increase her proc rate)

the general game plan was to have Itsuki use Wyrmicide every turn. Killing Medeus faster gives him and his adds fewer chances to kill someone (or use Mediarahan), which increases your chances of success. I never had Itsuki use anything other than Wyrmicide unless M-DEUS drained all his EP with Energy Drain (he'd use a chakra drop to restore it in that case), but if you need him to kill an add or two it shouldn't significantly extend the length of the fight and will also stop that add from killing you. Generally speaking, you want him to go after Tsubasa and Elenora, but before M-DEUS, so that'll determine how many speed incenses you give him

Tsubasa's main concern was making sure everybody was as close to full health as possible before M-DEUS attacked each turn (and switching to Prayer if he ever procs seal), but having enough def/res across your party to make throwing Debut Smile into the mix safe to keep the buffs up is also key. She's not a bad dps unit either, so because of this you want her to be after Elenora in the turn order so you can adjust to who the instakill fails to proc on.

Elenora's main job outside of add management is casting Debilitate within three turns of the last time she used it, which means you kinda need to anticipate when adds are coming so she can use Mass Destruction to deal with them and use Debilitate on turns you won't need to deal with adds.

This rotation gives you a free action roughly every three turns for Elenora, and whenever you get lucky with dodges or damage rolls for Tsubasa. As for how you use those actions, it depends on the situation, but...

Having a full set of buffs up when Dark Breath comes is important so your damage isn't brought down (and it takes longer to win the fight), so throw in a Tarukaja from Tsubasa or a Tarukaja Stone from Elenora. You can also use these openings to refresh the Def and Hit/Evade buffs prematurely with their skill version or their item version. There's a really low cap to the number of Buff Stones you can bring into a fight, so if its at all possible default to

Making sure you're at 2 SP whenever Elenora has her action and the adds are up is VITAL, especially once the Clerics start being summoned. Use Clap Tracks if you feel like your SP isn't going to be where you need it to be, and try to only use Debut Smile when you don't have any buffs up or when both Defense and Hit/Evade are about to run out (they run out *on* tsubasa's action and not once that turn starts, which is incredibly convenient).

Maintining EP is also somewhat important, but should only be done when close to empty because Energy Drain will empty all of a character's EP and it'd be a waste of an item (though since it deals so little damage, it *could* be a turn where you don't need to heal).

[writteninsunshine]

You Drive Me Crazy - Roche/Reno - NSFW

Title: You Drive Me Crazy Author: Donnie Fandom: Final Fantasy VII Remake Setting: Sector 7 Tunnels Pairing: Roche/Reno Characters: Roche, Reno, Tseng, ShinRa Security Officers Genre: Romance Rating: E Chapters: 1/1 Word Count: 2370 Type of Work: One-Shot, Gift For ButteredBandits Status: Complete Warnings: Gay, Slash, Yaoi, MLM, Teasing, Friends With Benefits, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Public Sex, Sex On Motorcycles, Unprotected Sex, Almost Getting Caught, AU - Canon Divergent Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. Summary: Reno was nothing if not a tease, and Roche couldn’t help but want to take the bait. AN: Hey guys, it’s me again! Just thought I ought to say, if you want vague updates and to talk to me more, I have Twitter and Tumblr, too! Twitter is Sunshinecackle, and Tumblr is Writteninsunshine! I also have a writing Discord that is currently pretty dead. xD I can PM it to people who want it on FFN, for everyone else, it’s here: discord.gg/FyaWw25 This fic is a gift for butteredbandits, based on some of their fanart I know FFN people won’t be able to see it but you can ask for it in DMs if you want! At any rate, I wanted to write this so badly after I saw it, and so I’m gonna do it. Also, I don’t know the first thing about motorcycles so everything that I write about it is stuff that I have googled. If I’m wrong about how things work, educate me, please! I like learning and I love making my writing as believable as possible! Hope you guys enjoyed!

Final Fantasy VII Fic Masterlist You Drive Me Crazy ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Taking the sudden curve with another rev of the engine, Reno expertly sent them flying around it, nearly drifting up the wall to keep them on two wheels. Roche whooped behind him, pushing his hips tighter into the Turk’s ass as he scooted closer, eyes on the road ahead of them. Not only was Reno hitting all of his buttons by going fast, but the redheaded Adonis had gone so far as to wear leather chaps; If only to get away with the shiny leather shorts that he’d put on underneath them.

Roche had mentioned that his suit pants wouldn’t be so good if they did just so happen to crash that night, and that if he really wanted to wear them, the chaps would be better at protecting his ass. Roche hadn’t expected the other to change into leather shorts and a hardly protective leather crop-jacket. At least his t-shirt covered down to his stomach if Roche’s arms didn’t hold it up out of the way to pet his skin with warm leather. The fairly wide strip of skin between the end of the shorts and start of the chaps on Reno’s inner thigh would fuel quite a few nights’ worth of orgasms for Roche if he got a chance to be alone. Sometimes, Roche said things that came back to bite him, and other times, he secured these little gifts for himself that he couldn’t deny would make his week. If Reno was going to lift up and drop back down on him one more time, however, he wasn’t going to be able to hold himself accountable for what he was going to do to him. Self-control wasn’t something that Roche was known for in the first place, and with Reno jerking against him, his bike’s speedometer spiking higher, he wasn’t going to be able to keep his hands to himself for much longer. In fact, it was quickly starting to look like his hands were going to wander, one sliding underneath the jacket cinched firmly to Reno’s ribcage, the other down to grab a handful of skin at his thigh. “Never warned me you were a giant tease, Red.” Roche purred in his ear, a particularly nice grip of those shapely thighs leaving Reno lifting up again like he used to on his bike as a kid. Scooting back as much as he dared, he let himself fall again, bouncing a little bit for good measure as he sat almost directly on Roche’s hips. “Didn’t think I had to,” Reno called over his shoulder, turning a mischievous smile on the other, “Takes all the fun outta findin’ out yourself!” “Got me there.” Roche barked a laugh, wrapping his arms tighter around Reno’s stomach and holding him close, and, most importantly, still. Little movements of his hips, bumps and grinds could be achieved, but for the most part, the sudden death grip on his waist and thighs had Reno fairly well stuck in place. Roche’s arms crisscrossed to grab the opposite thigh, and his clothed prick was trapped up against Reno’s ass and lower back, each rock and jostle rubbing them together earning a soft moan from the SOLDIER. Not that Reno was complaining, only baring down more over the bike to push back into him and hit the accelerator once more. Aiming for the center of the tunnel, Reno shot them off the road via a ramp, having to duck and feel Roche’s entire front pressed tight to his back to avoid getting scraped off on the ceiling. Jostled when they slammed back into the asphalt, Roche gagged on a loud moan as Reno crashed back into him, only to whoop seconds later as he clung that much tighter to his thighs. His hips began to rock as he buried his face in Reno’s back, hair whipping against his face. If he wasn’t careful, rubbing off on the other through his pants was going to be the best he could do, so he finally pushed his cheek up against the back of the redhead’s neck. “Pull over… At the maintenance tunnel.” Roche instructed gruffly, voice thick with arousal as he bit at a particular freckle that he had taken a liking to. “You’re driving me fucking crazy.” “Thought I was drivin’ us to Sector Seven!” Reno quipped with a laugh that tailed off in a moan when one of Roche’s hands grabbed at his own hard cock. “O-okay, okay, fuck-- Don’t gotta tell me twice--” Squealing to a stop fifteen feet into the maintenance tunnel, Reno was already a panting mess as Roche’s hands fluttered over his hips and thighs like birds afraid to land. He would hazard to guess the blond just hadn’t figured out exactly what the plan of action was, yet. Quick to shift the bike into first gear to avoid them moving while they were busy, Reno started to lift his hips once more, only to yelp when his own plan derailed unexpectedly. Pushing Reno forward to lay out against the shiny red metal of his bike, Roche took his hips in both hands and pulled them up until Reno’s ass pushed against his stomach. Grinding up with a frustrated grunt, his hands fluttered over the belt holding the chaps on, and the shorts beneath it. Tugging uselessly at the shorts, he managed to get them down enough to see the curve of Reno’s ass cheeks, but Roche was looking for something a little better than just a choice view. One foot bounced against the side of his bike before he bit the inside of his cheek and hefted up those thin hips once more. “Want it off. Just the shorts.” Roche bit out, nuzzling against the other’s rump for a second with his cheek, before biting at his ass cheek through the leather. “Keep the chaps… Put ‘em back on.” For a second, Roche’s orders were disjointed, confused with his desire to just have Reno mostly naked right now, but he finally found the most commanding voice in his arsenal that didn’t tip off in a whine, “Strip, and put the chaps back on. Now.” “Whatever, yeah,” Reno managed, ‘you want’ dropping out of his words thanks to a particularly loud moan. Hopping off the bike, he chuckled softly when Roche whined at the loss of contact, unbuckling the chaps and wiggling out of them. Leaving them in a pile beside the bike, Reno shucked the shorts next before slipping back into the assless chaps that Roche had, predictably, loved on him as much as he did. In a second’s worth of good thinking, he kicked at the kickstand to give them that much more stability, because there was no way they weren’t doing this on the bike. Before he could so much as hop to make sure the chaps were properly in place, Roche was tugging him back up onto the bike and crushing their lips together. From seemingly nowhere, he’d pulled a small packet of lube, and two wet fingers found Reno’s hole in record time, pressing against it and rubbing until his body was ready to accept them with no fuss. The slick glide of them had Reno’s eyes rolling back as his mouth hung open, leaving ample space for Roche’s tongue to lap inside. Each push and pull of the slick muscle was mirrored by the movements of his fingers, opening Reno up on both ends. Reno was still trying to figure out when Roche’s gloves had disappeared, but he could hardly find it in him to care. When a third finger prodded at him, Reno’s lower jaw quivered, and his eyes rolled, back arching to push that much closer to those perfectly rough digits. Roche crooking his fingers wrenched a loud cry from Reno, who melted into the touch as he saw stars, rocking his hips a couple of times before letting out a soft whine. It was his turn to be impatient, to grow needy and useless, and he finally pulled his mouth back, dripping saliva down his chin. “Need you, man,” He croaked, voice hoarse and shrill all at once, “In me. Yesterday.” “Got you,” Roche replied, seeking out one more wet, open-mouthed kiss, removing his fingers from the other before all but lifting Reno by his bare thighs and manhandling him into a new position. Just like they had been when Reno was driving, Roche pressed into his back and bit a few more kisses into his favorite freckle, slicking up his cock in the meantime. “You ready for a ride, Reno?” “Hell yeah.” The redhead gasped, tossing his head back as he leaned into Roche’s chest, those strong hands guiding his hips as he sunk down in his lap. With the blond fully seated inside him, he gave a delirious little chuckle before rounding his hips, tearing a guttural sob of a moan from Roche’s throat. Both of them were going to be hoarse and very caught before they were done if they weren’t careful. Not that either of them were going to quiet down; If they got caught, then they got caught. That was what made this fun! The grip on Reno’s hips loosened slightly after a moment,  and the redhead took it as a sign to go ahead and start moving. Both of Roche’s hands slipped down to the edge of the leather chaps against his inner thighs, kneading the soft leather and skin in equal measure as Reno began to rock. His hands fisted against the gas tank to keep him moving steadily, and soft moans and pleas in the form of whines and breathless chuckles left him. Roche couldn’t quite see the happy smile on his lips, broken only by his tongue lolling out at every deliciously deep push. Once the initial novelty of feeling Reno’s soft, warm walls around him wore off, however, Roche’s hips bumped up hard enough to nearly knock him over. Speed was his trademark, and Reno had been revving his engine for the last fifteen minutes. Jerking them forward, Roche’s hips snapped hard enough to earn a choked sob of a moan from the redhead, and the blond grinned. Each thrust exaggerated every word Reno couldn’t keep from flowing free from his lips, his eyelids fluttering as he reached for the handlebars, pulling the throttle. The bike roared beneath them, only spurring Roche to bite into the leather on Reno’s shoulder and bare down on him, hips pistoning in and out at a punishing pace. “Ooooh, fuck, partner~” The nickname slipped out before he could stop it, and Reno was already moving on, “Shit, love your speed-- Fucking thick cock,” Every other word was punched from his gut and Reno had to pant and cry out every so often if only because words couldn’t describe how good it felt to get railed like this. “K-keep-- Yessss, fuck, just like that-- Give it t-- To me, Roche, fuck--” A keening moan tailed off Reno’s words and he did his best to arch his back, pushing his ass up just that tiny little bit more to adjust the angle. Mindless as he was, the shift in Roche’s aim only disconnected Reno’s brain further and he barely managed to bite out a warning that he was close. His tight, warm walls spasmed slightly and Reno’s entire front half went limp against the bike, eyelids fluttering and mouth hanging open. He’d have to apologize to the perfectly rumbly machinery beneath him for drooling later. Roche’s grunts and strangled moans behind him ebbed and flowed in their volume, sometimes swallowed up by the slapping of their skin and other times loud enough to echo in the tunnel they had taken up. There was no doubt in his mind that Reno’s hips were going to be bruised by the time he was done, and something about that had him shifting his position more, pinning Reno’s chest down to the gas tank with his chest as his hips picked up the pace. “Me, too, me, too, me, too,” Roche bit out against the other’s shoulder, seeking out that freckle once more to suck and bite at as his grip tightened, body going stiff. It only took a couple more thrusts like this for Reno to give a hiccupped, stilted shriek as his eyes slammed shut and his brain turned off. Right behind him, Roche bit down until his jaw locked for a second, panting heavily through his nose as he emptied out inside of the other man, thighs twitching and little, stunted thrusts helping to milk him out in the other. It took several seconds of hard panting and mindless staring before Reno was finally able to articulate anything more than garbled sounds, but he was interrupted before he’d even managed to begin. “I think it’s over here!” “Shit--” Roche chuckled breathlessly, forcing himself to sit up and tugging Reno back against his chest. The motion made them both moan, and Roche licked at the welts his teeth had left behind on the juncture of Reno’s neck and shoulder. “We gotta go, babycakes, you think you can drive?” Already, Roche was kicking the kickstand with his heel and shifting forward a bit more. “Kinda stuck in neutral right now, man,” Reno replied, “You do it, get us out of here. The last thing I need is Tseng breathing down my neck tomorrow.” “Gotcha.” Roche laughed, shifting the gear and revving the bike, “Not that you’d complain about hi--” “Shut up and drive, man!” Reno giggled, leaning back into Roche’s chest and wiggling his hips, “Get me home and we’ll keep the party going.” “On it.” With that, the couple sped down the maintenance tunnel until they hit the next turn-off, leaving behind Reno’s shorts for the security operatives to find. It wasn’t like they were called for everything, but with the city on red alert like it was? Apparently, everything was too suspicious. Either that or they were still looking for Roche’s other dance partner. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ AN: Alright, there we go! I’m really glad to get this one done, I’ve been on a pretty wild Renoche kick for a few days. Expect more of these two for sure, because they’re too much fun to write together. ; u; I’ll see you guys in the next one!