Crystalwatcher's Magical Girl Quest!
- Thread starter Crystalwatcher
- Start date
- Original
LostDeviljho
Flame Dragon Princess
- Location
- The glorious Pacific Northwest
- Pronouns
- Any
That was supposed to be an em dash, but I guess Crys forgot.
Shadows
Sacred Priestess of the Benevolent Dice Gods
- Location
- USS Civilian, DDG-214
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Plan Final Battle
-[X] Send Aquila and James back to the barricades carrying Grey Champion. Check and see if Insight wants to go with them.
-[X] Try to strategize while you look for White Soul. Just because your battles have been easy so far, that doesn't mean this one will be.
[X] [EXP] Plan Upgrade
-[X] Upgrade to level 25 INDESTRUCTIBLE CORE (1,800)
-[X] Upgrade to level 25 Flight (1,100)
-[X] Upgrade Purifier Beam to level 17 (310)
-[X] Upgrade Celestial Severance to level 17 (310)
Here's to hoping we can knock out WS rather than kill her. Not a particularly big fan of killing other MGs when we can help it.
-[X] Send Aquila and James back to the barricades carrying Grey Champion. Check and see if Insight wants to go with them.
-[X] Try to strategize while you look for White Soul. Just because your battles have been easy so far, that doesn't mean this one will be.
[X] [EXP] Plan Upgrade
-[X] Upgrade to level 25 INDESTRUCTIBLE CORE (1,800)
-[X] Upgrade to level 25 Flight (1,100)
-[X] Upgrade Purifier Beam to level 17 (310)
-[X] Upgrade Celestial Severance to level 17 (310)
Here's to hoping we can knock out WS rather than kill her. Not a particularly big fan of killing other MGs when we can help it.
White Soul isn't simply evil or crazy. She is a monster.
In case you don't remember this is how she murdered her closest friends:
Besides them it's also mentioned that White Soul killed a lot of people before Red Rose stopped her:
Crystalwatcher
(Verified GM)
- Location
- Limbo
There was a dash. But it was red in the typo edits so I assumed Lost wanted me to remove it for some reason.
That sounds tricky. Most radios I've seen (not many) have buttons too small to be easily manipulated with a foot. And is it a radio, or just a music player?
You know, when I wrote this plan I imagined it starting much faster. I considered it a feature that it could be given on the go, as "Everyone, cover! Core Purge! Solid, heal her! Insight, stun! *PB blast*".
Seeing as the plan is "get to cover"…
…why are there eight of them? She has Omni-Magic, it should be five. A function of the brand craft?
Is that her Song Affinity boosting her because she's blasting to the beat?
It was one of the more obvious possibilities. I wonder exactly what its effects were? It stopped the Blood Spear, but not Aquila, so I guess there's a minimum speed for it to stop a moving object? Not sure whether that would have been taken care of by the backup plan; the PB blast was supposed to both hit her and destroy the platform, so it might have gotten rid of the thing generating the barrier.
Bad news: there's someone around who can do brand craft. Good news: we now know that there's someone around who can do brand craft. I wonder who?
With that magical cacophony, and the song still playing? Good ears.
Now that's interesting. Does that happen to everyone? Goddess Gold can hold her transformation for 99 hours, which would be quite a bit of sleep deprivation. Also, well done Aquila! Our vote should include some acknowledgement of her awesomeness. Did we know she had hand-to-hand skills? I can't remember.
That's what happens when you enter a fight where you know your enemy's tricks, have your own powerful bag of tricks, and have
I see you gave us and Sega two more turns of regen, but what about the last turn of Core Purge? Will the next update start with Core Purge docking us 1260HP (and possibly Segarite Core regenerating even though we're out of combat)?
The plan had its name for a reason.
Others have already made several points, but I'll also note that we could only touch Solar Radiance because Celestial Severance is Unstoppable, and I'm not sure we could have killed the Hyper Evolved Snake without Red Rose (even spamming CS doesn't do enough damage to kill its third resurrection unless we get really lucky with Echo).
Sure it does. With the state of our knowledge, I'd be much more confident planning a fight against Goddess Gold than pretty much anyone else in the top ten except Red Rose and maybe the Maidens.
INDESTRUCTIBLE CORE does not get any special bonuses every five levels.
We only have 4191 EXP, and we're expecting to spend time training with, among other things, Spell Synchronization. I'd like to keep some EXP around to upgrade new Spells, plus enough for Core Emissaries if we decide we want them, plus some buffer for stuff like emergency Flight upgrades (Flight is expensive). Upgrading ICORE is not unreasonable, we don't have enough EXP to be wasteful with it and there are arguments against it.
On this, I'll probably follow Uber's lead; he tends to make good decisions and has done relevant calcs.
Only the ones which directly interact with Red Rose. And not Overwhelming Presence or Scream For Me. So it really only shuts down Walk With Me and maybe The 'Kind' Monster (or maybe just the part about extra Body Damage modifiers).
The scaling in CMGQ is really weird, especially when you get to the Divine Being level.
Two levels more than doubles our damage.
A basic attack would fall below the no-sell threshold. Also, we can use attacks that don't involve our weapon or spells—getting hit by a Nepgear-sized object moving at 190mph is pretty painful.
Having our spells do some unexpected, unpredictable thing in the middle of a fight is still bad. There are some situations where it would still be useful, but doing it in a destructible environment against a dangerous opponent is highly suboptimal.
I'd prefer to make our decision about who to send back after our talking to Red Rose. And Aquila, because she apparently has skills. Also, I'd explicitly mention asking whether we're trying to kill White Soul or recover her. This also makes little allowance for other rezzed girls, not that there's much we can do on that front. I will also note that we could bring some of the others back (Rei is probably best left outside, since it doesn't decrease her effectiveness much), or have Sam refresh our buffs (this is particularly useful on Nepgear, since it raises her effective no-sell threshold). Oh, and Sega should probably cast Limit Break before it's possible for White Soul to ambush us.
I think I've said nearly everything I need to on the subject of upgrades. The one thing I haven't mentioned is that while our collateral damage is lessened when using the Panzer Blade, it isn't gone (see MONSTER DRIVE), and just swinging the thing around could easily bring the building down. Also, we expect to fight her indoors, where a 50m blade of light will almost certainly collapse the building. And she'll just dodge it anyway (which isn't to say it's useless, since it can force her to use Not Truly There, but it's less useful than it could be).
White Soul analysis post coming in a bit.
"ng" is a digraph, i.e. a single sound, so that should break off at so. And the convention is for interrupted speech or thoughts to break with an em-dash.
Either "pulverizing"->"pulverizes", or join the two with a comma.
You added the Smited MM instead of subtracting it.
Bold ICORE. All-caps optional. Also, as we've previously seen, Intercept damage is affected by Resilience, so there should be another step before ICORE.
All of the !☆Riot☆!s except the one against Nepgear have their damage 100 higher than it should be. Uber's already pointed out the lack of Echo of Peace.
Already pointed out, these shouldn't be crossed out.
Already pointed out, and Uber's pointed out that The Insurmountable Gap should trigger.
Tense.
Cut-off speech is an em-dash.
Tense again.
Either replace the period with a comma, or "popping"->"popped".
Alternatively, "alerts"->"warns".
The previous update ended with 2,517 EXP, but that was +1 and OVERWHELM DRIVE ended with 2,515, so it should have been 2,516.
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LostDeviljho
Flame Dragon Princess
- Location
- The glorious Pacific Northwest
- Pronouns
- Any
ReaperofInterest
Herald of Disaster
We'll probably be running into White Soul soon enough that we won't really have the opportunity to refresh our buffs. Besides, as other people have mentioned, White Soul snapped and became a monster even before she died the first time. I really doubt dying and being resurrected has done her any favors. We're killing her.
Just because the collateral damage is Stoll there, that doesn't mean our weapon is completely unusable. We'll just have to be careful for the rest of the mission, and train a lot once we return to the base.
LostDeviljho
Flame Dragon Princess
- Location
- The glorious Pacific Northwest
- Pronouns
- Any
Why are you so much better at my job than me?
Remember we're in the end game right now and get to choose our own missions.At this point, we need to tell our superiors to either give us a lot of training time to get everything under control, or to only give us missions where Collateral Damage isn't going to be a problem.
I know which option I prefer.
My guess is that we'll be returning to base after this mission, basically everyone is scared and tired, and probably spend tomorrow (Day 25) resting and training. Day 26 will almost certainly involve us taking The Road to Elysium (Operation: Charon) and fortunately that involves slaughtering our way through an entire army, measuring in the billions, and blowing up some Hell Gates.
We could take [] The Pale Light of The Moon (Operation: Artemis) tomorrow but I'm not sure Team GEAR will be up to the task. Especially with Operation: Charon on the very next day.
LostDeviljho
Flame Dragon Princess
- Location
- The glorious Pacific Northwest
- Pronouns
- Any
*looks at notes for Parallel*
Well that's a stark reminder that I need to get my ass in gear if I want this out on time.
Finally finished with the White Soul post.
You'll notice I left out Follow The Waves and Not Truly There. Those get their own section. But before that, a review of our own abilities, in the ways they haven't come up yet:
Now, Follow The Waves and Not Truly There.
I will also note that, while I've been working on the assumption that Nepgear joins the fight, having Red Rose deal with it by herself is a perfectly valid strategy.
We can also bring people back from the Barricade.
First, if Sam refreshes our buffs, we'll get an average of 1000 (Defender/Offender) + 500.5 (Shell) + 500.5 (Demon King) + 275.5 (Promised Victory) + 500 (Divine Existence) = 2776.5 to both offense and defense, of which 2128 is guaranteed, plus Demonslayer and the Faith and Divinity Affinities. (Though I'm somewhat confused about Offender/Defender—the Ability list says it adds the spell's existence bonus to defense, but shouldn't that be 500? Or am I forgetting something about how EBs interact with Spells? If it is 500, subtract both buff numbers become 1625). This is enough to completely negate her basic attack, even without Echo of Peace. This is also enough to let James, Aquila, and Nepgear one-shot her with a basic attack (Nep almost does anyway), though James and Aquila would need to get lucky on either their Modifier rolls or the buffs—unless Demonslayer activates (what are its activation conditions, anyway? It activated against Solar Radiance and the snake, but not the Spawns of Chaos or Skeletal Assault Knights), in which case they'd be unlucky not to. Not that it matters, since they can't use their weapons anyway.
Sans buffs, Insight dies to her basic attack, even with The 'Kind' Monster [Edit: Dangit I forgot Echo of Peace again. With it, Insight takes 230–329 damage]. The others remain untouched. Basic attacks no longer one-shot except from Sega (and Ana with upgrades), but James, Aquila and Red Rose still (theoretically) do good damage.
Sans buffs, Insight dies to her basic attack, even with The 'Kind' Monster [Edit: Dangit I forgot Echo of Peace again. With it, Insight takes 230–329 damage]. The others remain untouched. Basic attacks no longer one-shot except from Sega (and Ana with upgrades), but James, Aquila and Red Rose still (theoretically) do good damage.
Next up, Soul Rend, and how everybody interacts with it:
Red Rose: Between Echo of Peace and To Stand Amongst Gods, she takes scratch damage (35–46) with a Slaughter and Negative Space. Buffs can up her defenses enough that it falls below TSAG's threshold, so we'd want to be careful.
Insight: Unless she's lucky with buffs and her rolls, she either dies immediately, or after one or two turns of Slaughter.
James: With some luck on the buffs, he takes no damage, but eats the Negative Space (and a zero damage per turn Slaughter). If we're less lucky, there's a window (11.6% probability) between negating all the damage and 'Merely' Human kicking in. With no or low buffs, 'Merely' Human is guaranteed to take effect, letting him dodge.
Aquila: With no buffs, she takes 2055–3854 Damage, killing her in 1–2 turns with Slaughter. With buffs, this goes down to somewhere between 0–1726 and 0–429.
Sega: Between Echo of Peace, Adamantium Frame, and her HP as boosted by Anarite Generators, she negates the damage but takes the Negative Space and starts dying to Anarite Generators.
Nepgear: Unbuffed & unupgraded, she takes 1928-2775 damage unless her no-sell threshold is high enough (22423HP for a guarantee, since the NST should be affected by Overwhelming Presence—unreachable because of Revel In Darkness, which caps our maintainable HP at 12600 (immunity starts at ICORE Level 24 or 25, depending whether the NST is 50% or 49.5%)), ICORE negates the Slaughter, and she eats the Negative Space. Proceeds to take 3150 damage from Segarite Core every turn, and reset from -8400HP to 1HP every few turns. Buffs can reduce but not eliminate the damage, which was already pretty irrelevant.
The White River:
crystalwatcher has said that "[The White River's fluidity and shapeshifting] lets her bullshit some abilities it technically doesn't actually have, but at reduced effectiveness." Don't know which ones, but at a guess: some form of Armor Pierce or Critical Strike (it's a liquid, it can get through cracks in armor), Knockback (telekinetic control means she can keep pushing after she's hit you), Limitless/Indestructible (can't break a liquid, though you might trap or evaporate it), Intangibility (w.r.t. Interception), something Intercept-related (it can form a physical barrier), Splinter (can split it up), Poison (if some of it gets inside of you…), Omnipresent. Technically Levitate, Return and Homing too, because telekinesis. Of course, most of these would be weakened enough not to be problematic, though the armor piercing and the battlefield control could be irritating.
Walk With Me:
Everybody except Insight has excellent damage reduction, and Echo of Peace reduces it still further, so the only people who need to worry are Sega and Nepgear due to sheer power (if EoP is inapplicable, it's potentially a danger for everyone but Red Rose (Men Kill Heroes), though not too dangerous to James).
Revel In Darkness:
Affects Nepgear and Sega. Countered by Segarite Core/Anarite Generators, but imposes a cap on maintainable Health of Max Health x3. They're both currently above this cap. With Negative Space, it just kills them faster. If this is affected by Echo of Peace, then it's pretty slow going, andtheSega's HP cap is much higher (Max Health x8.57, which is above theirher current values).
The 'Kind' Monster:
Mostly already covered during damage considerations, but there are a few more things. First, Nepgear and Sega are both immune to body damage modifiers, and Men Kill Heroes may negate that part for Red Rose if she somehow gets down that low. Second, what happens if someone is at negative HP when the fight's over? They may just die. This is especially a concern for someone hit by Soul Rend, since they can't be healed before the end of the battle (though Sega is the only one here with a healing spell and it's too low level to be used).
Scream For Me
Nobody can use their weapons (unless Sega spends the XP, or we do). Not even Red Rose, since "operates as an Overwhelming Presence effect" should mean Men Kill Heroes can't shut it down (I still want to know how she used Sudden Death without her spear, or if she could somehow use it anyway). Only Red Rose can cast spells, unless Ana or Sega upgrade theirs. Core Purge, being neither a Spell nor leveled, is unaffected. Grenades don't have levels either, as far as we know, so both Shirley's and the flashbangs should be usable.
Overwhelming Presence:
Solid Core is the only one with a Super Ability (apart from Progenitor Golem summoning). INDESTRUCTIBLE CORE's 99% damage reduction will become 50%, the no-sell threshold may be lowered, and Supremacy Zone's damage bonuses are lowered. Also, it's great for ambushes since most everyone will freeze up as soon as they see her.
Red Rose: Between Echo of Peace and To Stand Amongst Gods, she takes scratch damage (35–46) with a Slaughter and Negative Space. Buffs can up her defenses enough that it falls below TSAG's threshold, so we'd want to be careful.
Insight: Unless she's lucky with buffs and her rolls, she either dies immediately, or after one or two turns of Slaughter.
James: With some luck on the buffs, he takes no damage, but eats the Negative Space (and a zero damage per turn Slaughter). If we're less lucky, there's a window (11.6% probability) between negating all the damage and 'Merely' Human kicking in. With no or low buffs, 'Merely' Human is guaranteed to take effect, letting him dodge.
Aquila: With no buffs, she takes 2055–3854 Damage, killing her in 1–2 turns with Slaughter. With buffs, this goes down to somewhere between 0–1726 and 0–429.
Sega: Between Echo of Peace, Adamantium Frame, and her HP as boosted by Anarite Generators, she negates the damage but takes the Negative Space and starts dying to Anarite Generators.
Nepgear: Unbuffed & unupgraded, she takes 1928-2775 damage unless her no-sell threshold is high enough (22423HP for a guarantee, since the NST should be affected by Overwhelming Presence—unreachable because of Revel In Darkness, which caps our maintainable HP at 12600 (immunity starts at ICORE Level 24 or 25, depending whether the NST is 50% or 49.5%)), ICORE negates the Slaughter, and she eats the Negative Space. Proceeds to take 3150 damage from Segarite Core every turn, and reset from -8400HP to 1HP every few turns. Buffs can reduce but not eliminate the damage, which was already pretty irrelevant.
The White River:
crystalwatcher has said that "[The White River's fluidity and shapeshifting] lets her bullshit some abilities it technically doesn't actually have, but at reduced effectiveness." Don't know which ones, but at a guess: some form of Armor Pierce or Critical Strike (it's a liquid, it can get through cracks in armor), Knockback (telekinetic control means she can keep pushing after she's hit you), Limitless/Indestructible (can't break a liquid, though you might trap or evaporate it), Intangibility (w.r.t. Interception), something Intercept-related (it can form a physical barrier), Splinter (can split it up), Poison (if some of it gets inside of you…), Omnipresent. Technically Levitate, Return and Homing too, because telekinesis. Of course, most of these would be weakened enough not to be problematic, though the armor piercing and the battlefield control could be irritating.
Walk With Me:
Everybody except Insight has excellent damage reduction, and Echo of Peace reduces it still further, so the only people who need to worry are Sega and Nepgear due to sheer power (if EoP is inapplicable, it's potentially a danger for everyone but Red Rose (Men Kill Heroes), though not too dangerous to James).
Revel In Darkness:
Affects Nepgear and Sega. Countered by Segarite Core/Anarite Generators, but imposes a cap on maintainable Health of Max Health x3. They're both currently above this cap. With Negative Space, it just kills them faster. If this is affected by Echo of Peace, then it's pretty slow going, and
The 'Kind' Monster:
Mostly already covered during damage considerations, but there are a few more things. First, Nepgear and Sega are both immune to body damage modifiers, and Men Kill Heroes may negate that part for Red Rose if she somehow gets down that low. Second, what happens if someone is at negative HP when the fight's over? They may just die. This is especially a concern for someone hit by Soul Rend, since they can't be healed before the end of the battle (though Sega is the only one here with a healing spell and it's too low level to be used).
Scream For Me
Nobody can use their weapons (unless Sega spends the XP, or we do). Not even Red Rose, since "operates as an Overwhelming Presence effect" should mean Men Kill Heroes can't shut it down (I still want to know how she used Sudden Death without her spear, or if she could somehow use it anyway). Only Red Rose can cast spells, unless Ana or Sega upgrade theirs. Core Purge, being neither a Spell nor leveled, is unaffected. Grenades don't have levels either, as far as we know, so both Shirley's and the flashbangs should be usable.
Overwhelming Presence:
Solid Core is the only one with a Super Ability (apart from Progenitor Golem summoning). INDESTRUCTIBLE CORE's 99% damage reduction will become 50%, the no-sell threshold may be lowered, and Supremacy Zone's damage bonuses are lowered. Also, it's great for ambushes since most everyone will freeze up as soon as they see her.
You'll notice I left out Follow The Waves and Not Truly There. Those get their own section. But before that, a review of our own abilities, in the ways they haven't come up yet:
Solid Core:
Weapon disabled, Spells disabled, if we upgrade a Spell and try to use it without upgrading our weapon we know something will happen, but we don't know what. Everything has decent range and plenty of collateral damage. If we actually hit with anything but the PB, Walk With Me will kill us as well as White Soul (and then ICORE saves us). Flight's good, plenty fast enough to run rings around her. And even with the Purifier Beam disabled, being hit by a Nepgear-sized object moving at 190mph is bad for your health. Skilled could be helpful in a pinch, but would take some luck for it to be applicable. Core Purge is still great, at least for area denial, unless she gets hit with Soul Rend in which case it's much less useful. The Resilience debuff is pretty irrelevant, and is more than made up for by the increased Existence Bonus in any case. Gehaburn is still to be avoided. This also means that we should avoid getting hit by Soul Rend, since repeatedly using our save-from-death may generate Gehaburn copies. Echo of Peace remains both awesome and forgettable—I had to go revise the whole section on our defenses and Soul Rend. Supremacy Zone should retain the damage immunity and the scary auto-intercept, so it's a mixed bag. Segarite Core is great (though Revel In Darkness reduces its effectiveness), unless/until she gets hit by Soul Rend, at which point things get painful.
James:
The nature of The White River may allow White Soul to bypass 'Merely' Human with it (by surrounding and enveloping him), which is irrelevant unless he loses most of his defenses.
Aquila:
While Outrange Shot sounds like it could allow her to bypass some of White Soul's abilities by staying out of range, Scream For Me operating as an Overwhelming Presence effect should prevent her from attacking anyway. She should also have some abilities we don't know about, beyond what we just saw; we only have her Level 3 character sheet.
Insight:
Quantified Combat should still be usable, so she can keep herself somewhat safe. She also has some abilities we don't know about (we only have her Level 3 sheet).
Solid Drive:
Weapon and Spells disabled, but she could upgrade them, gaining access to her sword, Sword Beam and/or Limit Break. She ought to cast the latter several times before we even see White Soul—in fact, unless she's ambushed, she should never go into combat without at least one casting of it, and preferably a max stack. The only reason she doesn't have it already is that we only recently found out that it buffs Resilience (possibly buffs both Damage and Resilience). If she upgraded to be able to attack, Walk With Me would kill her unless she had a few Limit Breaks up (and either Limit Break doesn't buff damage or Echo of Peace affects Walk With Me). Shield Charge will be sealed during the fight, but it may be possible to use it immediately afterward to save someone who ended up at negative HP. Maybe. She flies fast, but no Boosted Flight, so she won't be going that fast indoors. She also has five APT and Master Skill, which could be useful. She also has a mystery ability.
Red Rose:
Sudden Death and Avatar of Victory are ridiculously good, though they do have limitations. Either one would force White Soul to dodge, and Sudden Death will kill her if she doesn't do it preemptively. Inhuman Skill may see some use. She also has abilities we don't know about (her sheet is Level 4).
Weapon disabled, Spells disabled, if we upgrade a Spell and try to use it without upgrading our weapon we know something will happen, but we don't know what. Everything has decent range and plenty of collateral damage. If we actually hit with anything but the PB, Walk With Me will kill us as well as White Soul (and then ICORE saves us). Flight's good, plenty fast enough to run rings around her. And even with the Purifier Beam disabled, being hit by a Nepgear-sized object moving at 190mph is bad for your health. Skilled could be helpful in a pinch, but would take some luck for it to be applicable. Core Purge is still great, at least for area denial, unless she gets hit with Soul Rend in which case it's much less useful. The Resilience debuff is pretty irrelevant, and is more than made up for by the increased Existence Bonus in any case. Gehaburn is still to be avoided. This also means that we should avoid getting hit by Soul Rend, since repeatedly using our save-from-death may generate Gehaburn copies. Echo of Peace remains both awesome and forgettable—I had to go revise the whole section on our defenses and Soul Rend. Supremacy Zone should retain the damage immunity and the scary auto-intercept, so it's a mixed bag. Segarite Core is great (though Revel In Darkness reduces its effectiveness), unless/until she gets hit by Soul Rend, at which point things get painful.
James:
The nature of The White River may allow White Soul to bypass 'Merely' Human with it (by surrounding and enveloping him), which is irrelevant unless he loses most of his defenses.
Aquila:
While Outrange Shot sounds like it could allow her to bypass some of White Soul's abilities by staying out of range, Scream For Me operating as an Overwhelming Presence effect should prevent her from attacking anyway. She should also have some abilities we don't know about, beyond what we just saw; we only have her Level 3 character sheet.
Insight:
Quantified Combat should still be usable, so she can keep herself somewhat safe. She also has some abilities we don't know about (we only have her Level 3 sheet).
Solid Drive:
Weapon and Spells disabled, but she could upgrade them, gaining access to her sword, Sword Beam and/or Limit Break. She ought to cast the latter several times before we even see White Soul—in fact, unless she's ambushed, she should never go into combat without at least one casting of it, and preferably a max stack. The only reason she doesn't have it already is that we only recently found out that it buffs Resilience (possibly buffs both Damage and Resilience). If she upgraded to be able to attack, Walk With Me would kill her unless she had a few Limit Breaks up (and either Limit Break doesn't buff damage or Echo of Peace affects Walk With Me). Shield Charge will be sealed during the fight, but it may be possible to use it immediately afterward to save someone who ended up at negative HP. Maybe. She flies fast, but no Boosted Flight, so she won't be going that fast indoors. She also has five APT and Master Skill, which could be useful. She also has a mystery ability.
Red Rose:
Sudden Death and Avatar of Victory are ridiculously good, though they do have limitations. Either one would force White Soul to dodge, and Sudden Death will kill her if she doesn't do it preemptively. Inhuman Skill may see some use. She also has abilities we don't know about (her sheet is Level 4).
Now, Follow The Waves and Not Truly There.
These have implications beyond just making her hard to kill. First, FTW can be used as a very short range teleport, if she's willing to get rid of the other body. Second, it can, I think, be used as a momentum-canceler, in addition to canceling status effects, Body Damage Modifiers, and everything else. Her bodies sharing a mind also has psychological implications: a good enough distraction or surprise should divert the attention of both bodies, and if you can mess with her head in one location it affects the other. Not that this is likely to be useful.
The list of things which may bypass Not Truly There: Sudden Death, Conceptual Language, Core Purge, targeting the Seal. Avatar of Victory looked too slow in OVERWHELM DRIVE, and even upgraded to usability, none of our other spells seem likely to work (maybe we could surprise her with a Celestial Severance appearing inside her, but I doubt it's too fast to dodge). Core Purge has a long enough activation to be interrupted so it's useless unless it's a surprise and happens to hit at conceptual speeds (which I somewhat doubt). Targeting the Seal is risky because (a) she may count it as an attack on her and auto-dodge anyway, and (b) destroying one Seal may have no effect on the other body, so it's either ineffective or frees her from mind control, which just ends in more murder (also (c) she might not have a Seal—I don't think we ever got strict confirmation that both bodies have Seals).
In terms of things likely to be effective (not that we can't try the worse options), that just leaves Sudden Death and the Conceptual Language. Sudden Death, she knows about, and will be wary of—if she hasn't figured out a defense, she'll probably just get away from Red Rose any time it looks like she might start casting. The Conceptual Language may not work (might be dodgeable, and she may not be vulnerable, possibly due to having an unaffected body), requires close proximity for best results (i.e. if we try it, expect to get hit with Soul Rend), and can hurt our allies.
The other solution is to kill both bodies. This is much easier, if both are present.
The list of things which may bypass Not Truly There: Sudden Death, Conceptual Language, Core Purge, targeting the Seal. Avatar of Victory looked too slow in OVERWHELM DRIVE, and even upgraded to usability, none of our other spells seem likely to work (maybe we could surprise her with a Celestial Severance appearing inside her, but I doubt it's too fast to dodge). Core Purge has a long enough activation to be interrupted so it's useless unless it's a surprise and happens to hit at conceptual speeds (which I somewhat doubt). Targeting the Seal is risky because (a) she may count it as an attack on her and auto-dodge anyway, and (b) destroying one Seal may have no effect on the other body, so it's either ineffective or frees her from mind control, which just ends in more murder (also (c) she might not have a Seal—I don't think we ever got strict confirmation that both bodies have Seals).
In terms of things likely to be effective (not that we can't try the worse options), that just leaves Sudden Death and the Conceptual Language. Sudden Death, she knows about, and will be wary of—if she hasn't figured out a defense, she'll probably just get away from Red Rose any time it looks like she might start casting. The Conceptual Language may not work (might be dodgeable, and she may not be vulnerable, possibly due to having an unaffected body), requires close proximity for best results (i.e. if we try it, expect to get hit with Soul Rend), and can hurt our allies.
The other solution is to kill both bodies. This is much easier, if both are present.
Tactically, her having both bodies present is a completely different scenario than just one, and needs separate planning. If both bodies are or become present, we have several options, starting with simultaneous or near-simultaneous AoEs. With the range of Core Purge, the second one can have a nontrivial delay, or we may be lucky enough to catch both at once without forcing it. We could also take advantage of the once-per-turn spell limit: if one body casts Soul Rend (or Follow The Waves), it cannot cast Follow The Waves (again) the same turn, so we don't need AoE for that one. My favorite option, if she's figured out how to prevent Red Rose from killing her, is to just fly away, leave Red Rose behind to stall her, and call in Goddess Gold. Because Rei can trivially catch both bodies with Oblivion Awaits, and Red Rose can tank it. (This is my favorite because I think it's funny, not for tactical reasons—though it may be best on those grounds too.)
If only one body is present, our options are either to use something which bypasses Not Truly There, to find the other body, to get her to bring the other body to us, or to let her live. The first is covered above. The second is infeasible unless the other body is nearby, in which case we can search the church, flush her out by blasting the necropolis (with an upgraded PB) (who cares if it falls down, there's nothing we care about in there anyway), or call Goddess Gold to glass the whole thing. The third is easy enough if she wants to fight: just hit her hard enough that she needs to use her auto-dodge, and she'll have to bring the other body in to continue the fight (unless she can send it in from range by using some form of teleportation)—if she creates it on the spot, she's there, and if she walks out from somewhere else then it's nearby. If she's not that reckless, we can try to provoke her—consult Red Rose on how to make her angry. Alternatively, we could try to convince her to let us break the Seal(s). It won't work, but we can try! The fourth option is failure. It would end with a powerful psycho running around, possibly in service to the UD, probably trying to re-kill the rest of the Old Guard and a bunch of other people too. Also, she might leak the civilian identities of the rest of the Old Guard, making them easier to assassinate—assuming they aren't known already.
If fighting her when only one body is present, our primary goal should be to allow Red Rose to use Sudden Death in order to guarantee the kill, while not doing enough damage tokill herforce her to dodge ourselves. This would primarily consist of limiting White Soul's mobility through physical obstacles: our own body, any movable furniture, rubble from deliberately collapsing parts of the building. If Sudden Death proves infeasible, we look for an opportunity to use the Conceptual Language while near White Soul and far from any allies (this plan should be discussed beforehand, so that we don't signal our intentions to WS and our allies know to clear out). Since she has more Health than a random angel, we should probably try to damage her a bit first. If this plan proves infeasible or ineffective (Conceptual Language either dodgeable or not damaging), we move to forcing her to bring her second body in, i.e. killing her with normal damage. Preferably, we will not use Core Purge during this time, in hopes that the second body will show up in a location where we can hit both at once (this is void if she turns out to have been monitoring our previous fights).
We expect to fight her in the church hall. The entrance is a choke point and an excellent ambush spot. My preferred solution would be to enter through a window, but failing that we might be able to toss some grenades in through the door to clear the area before entering. Also useful is the presence of fast fliers, who can either break through the door very suddenly, go through the top of the door and then stay high, or both. With Boosted Flight, Solid Core could hit the doors hard enough to knock them off their hinges and reverse direction before she's crossed the threshold.
The interior of the church is likely to include at least one spacious room, possibly with furniture, likely with support pillars. It should also have some smaller rooms and probably hallways. In the open, Ana and Sega's mobility would be useful, but it's harder to keep her out of cover (assuming furniture is effective) long enough for Sudden Death. If we switch to the Conceptual Language plan, this would be a good place for it, as we can catch up to her and be sure that our allies are far away. The cover could also help White Soul with ambushes. Tighter spaces are better for White Soul for fighting in, since she can control the battlefield better and Red Rose can't dodge as well. They also provide corners to hide behind. Conversely, they're good for trapping her if we can get her into a hallway and send someone around to the other end.
If Sudden Death can go through walls, there's a possibility of using it without White Soul knowing that it's about to be used (and therefore dodging). Unfortunately, she'd be firing blind, so we'd need to be very careful to ensure that she hits White Soul and doesn't hit anyone else. Some way to signal Red Rose (and which wouldn't be obvious to White Soul), and a method of getting White Soul into position that doesn't put us in the way. Our ability to do this depends on the floor plan.
Flashbangs would also be a good way of setting her up for Sudden Death.
We now know that there's someone around who can use brand craft; if White Soul has some with her, it complicates things.
If only one body is present, our options are either to use something which bypasses Not Truly There, to find the other body, to get her to bring the other body to us, or to let her live. The first is covered above. The second is infeasible unless the other body is nearby, in which case we can search the church, flush her out by blasting the necropolis (with an upgraded PB) (who cares if it falls down, there's nothing we care about in there anyway), or call Goddess Gold to glass the whole thing. The third is easy enough if she wants to fight: just hit her hard enough that she needs to use her auto-dodge, and she'll have to bring the other body in to continue the fight (unless she can send it in from range by using some form of teleportation)—if she creates it on the spot, she's there, and if she walks out from somewhere else then it's nearby. If she's not that reckless, we can try to provoke her—consult Red Rose on how to make her angry. Alternatively, we could try to convince her to let us break the Seal(s). It won't work, but we can try! The fourth option is failure. It would end with a powerful psycho running around, possibly in service to the UD, probably trying to re-kill the rest of the Old Guard and a bunch of other people too. Also, she might leak the civilian identities of the rest of the Old Guard, making them easier to assassinate—assuming they aren't known already.
If fighting her when only one body is present, our primary goal should be to allow Red Rose to use Sudden Death in order to guarantee the kill, while not doing enough damage to
We expect to fight her in the church hall. The entrance is a choke point and an excellent ambush spot. My preferred solution would be to enter through a window, but failing that we might be able to toss some grenades in through the door to clear the area before entering. Also useful is the presence of fast fliers, who can either break through the door very suddenly, go through the top of the door and then stay high, or both. With Boosted Flight, Solid Core could hit the doors hard enough to knock them off their hinges and reverse direction before she's crossed the threshold.
The interior of the church is likely to include at least one spacious room, possibly with furniture, likely with support pillars. It should also have some smaller rooms and probably hallways. In the open, Ana and Sega's mobility would be useful, but it's harder to keep her out of cover (assuming furniture is effective) long enough for Sudden Death. If we switch to the Conceptual Language plan, this would be a good place for it, as we can catch up to her and be sure that our allies are far away. The cover could also help White Soul with ambushes. Tighter spaces are better for White Soul for fighting in, since she can control the battlefield better and Red Rose can't dodge as well. They also provide corners to hide behind. Conversely, they're good for trapping her if we can get her into a hallway and send someone around to the other end.
If Sudden Death can go through walls, there's a possibility of using it without White Soul knowing that it's about to be used (and therefore dodging). Unfortunately, she'd be firing blind, so we'd need to be very careful to ensure that she hits White Soul and doesn't hit anyone else. Some way to signal Red Rose (and which wouldn't be obvious to White Soul), and a method of getting White Soul into position that doesn't put us in the way. Our ability to do this depends on the floor plan.
Flashbangs would also be a good way of setting her up for Sudden Death.
We now know that there's someone around who can use brand craft; if White Soul has some with her, it complicates things.
I will also note that, while I've been working on the assumption that Nepgear joins the fight, having Red Rose deal with it by herself is a perfectly valid strategy.
We can also bring people back from the Barricade.
Goddess Gold:
Immune to basic attack, Soul Rend hits for 625-888 damage (<2% of her max HP), or less depending on Perfect Body. She's immune to Slaughter, and possibly Negative Space. Overwhelming Presence shuts down both White Soul's OP and Scream For Me, so she can use her weapon. One-shots her with a basic attack. The danger is Walk With Me: Rei wouldn't be able to survive a hit from Oblivion Awaits unless it's below ~6.3% power, or 2.2% without Echo of Peace (though she should still have a 60% chance to negate it). Chains of the Earth is very useful.
Brilliant Key:
She has a somewhat delicate balance when it comes to defense: if her defense is buffed by >474, she may fail to auto-block Soul Rend, but if it's <324, a basic attack can do damage—and that's not considering situational modifiers. She might be able to achieve this by selectively dropping buffs. Given Shine, which escapes Scream For Me by being non-leveled, it's probably more important to block Soul Rend. Her weapon is also usable, and may (if buffed, which she would be since she's currently with Sam), but is not guaranteed to, one-shot White Soul. Unfortunately, unless Echo of Peace works, Walk With Me would kill her. Auto Rhythm is, of course, extremely useful, though one should recall that White Soul's Existence Bonus reduces it to a 75% chance of auto-dodge, and it shouldn't work on Revel in Darkness or Walk With Me. She gets hit by Revel in Darkness. She also has a Super Ability, so whatever it does is hit by White Soul's Overwhelming Presence. We only have her Level 3 sheet, so she has other stuff which may be relevant. With the information we have, she's best as a healer and as someone who can deliver a killing blow if both bodies show up and get cornered.
Gabriel:
Her defenses (plus Echo of Peace) resist everything but Revel in Darkness and Negative Space (Armor of Light only negates spell damage, not status effects). With Multi-Slash unavailable, she couldn't hit hard enough for Walk With Me to matter, even if she could use her weapons. Presence of Light is useful until someone gets hit by Soul Rend. Her flight's pretty good. Not very useful except to get in her way, and is too tired to leave when she would need to.
Michael:
Defenses the same as James minus 'Merely' Human, and immune to magical damage so may resist damage done by Negative Space. Can't do anything. A warm body.
Samael:
Same defenses as James minus 'Merely' Human. All of his spells are disabled. Can't do anything.
Lucky:
Takes ≤2126 damage (compared to 750 HP) from Soul Rend assuming buffs, with a very high (>99%) chance of taking no damage. Can cast War Book: METEOR (non-leveled), but there's no point and it takes forever. Not useful for the fight.
Immune to basic attack, Soul Rend hits for 625-888 damage (<2% of her max HP), or less depending on Perfect Body. She's immune to Slaughter, and possibly Negative Space. Overwhelming Presence shuts down both White Soul's OP and Scream For Me, so she can use her weapon. One-shots her with a basic attack. The danger is Walk With Me: Rei wouldn't be able to survive a hit from Oblivion Awaits unless it's below ~6.3% power, or 2.2% without Echo of Peace (though she should still have a 60% chance to negate it). Chains of the Earth is very useful.
Brilliant Key:
She has a somewhat delicate balance when it comes to defense: if her defense is buffed by >474, she may fail to auto-block Soul Rend, but if it's <324, a basic attack can do damage—and that's not considering situational modifiers. She might be able to achieve this by selectively dropping buffs. Given Shine, which escapes Scream For Me by being non-leveled, it's probably more important to block Soul Rend. Her weapon is also usable, and may (if buffed, which she would be since she's currently with Sam), but is not guaranteed to, one-shot White Soul. Unfortunately, unless Echo of Peace works, Walk With Me would kill her. Auto Rhythm is, of course, extremely useful, though one should recall that White Soul's Existence Bonus reduces it to a 75% chance of auto-dodge, and it shouldn't work on Revel in Darkness or Walk With Me. She gets hit by Revel in Darkness. She also has a Super Ability, so whatever it does is hit by White Soul's Overwhelming Presence. We only have her Level 3 sheet, so she has other stuff which may be relevant. With the information we have, she's best as a healer and as someone who can deliver a killing blow if both bodies show up and get cornered.
Gabriel:
Her defenses (plus Echo of Peace) resist everything but Revel in Darkness and Negative Space (Armor of Light only negates spell damage, not status effects). With Multi-Slash unavailable, she couldn't hit hard enough for Walk With Me to matter, even if she could use her weapons. Presence of Light is useful until someone gets hit by Soul Rend. Her flight's pretty good. Not very useful except to get in her way, and is too tired to leave when she would need to.
Michael:
Defenses the same as James minus 'Merely' Human, and immune to magical damage so may resist damage done by Negative Space. Can't do anything. A warm body.
Samael:
Same defenses as James minus 'Merely' Human. All of his spells are disabled. Can't do anything.
Lucky:
Takes ≤2126 damage (compared to 750 HP) from Soul Rend assuming buffs, with a very high (>99%) chance of taking no damage. Can cast War Book: METEOR (non-leveled), but there's no point and it takes forever. Not useful for the fight.
1. Does our save-from-death create Gehaburn copies?
2. Can we choose not to use Supremacy Zone's auto-intercept? I'd guess yes, but better to ask.
3. Core Purge doesn't go through walls, but does it go around smaller obstacles, like support pillars?
4. Can Sudden Death go through walls?
5. What's ICORE's no-sell threshold when affected by WS's Overwhelming Presence?
6. Are Walk With Me and Revel In Darkness affected by Echo of Peace? Guessing yes and no respectively.
7. What happens if someone is at negative HP when the fight's over and The 'Kind' Monster ceases to apply?
2. Can we choose not to use Supremacy Zone's auto-intercept? I'd guess yes, but better to ask.
3. Core Purge doesn't go through walls, but does it go around smaller obstacles, like support pillars?
4. Can Sudden Death go through walls?
5. What's ICORE's no-sell threshold when affected by WS's Overwhelming Presence?
6. Are Walk With Me and Revel In Darkness affected by Echo of Peace? Guessing yes and no respectively.
7. What happens if someone is at negative HP when the fight's over and The 'Kind' Monster ceases to apply?
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LostDeviljho
Flame Dragon Princess
- Location
- The glorious Pacific Northwest
- Pronouns
- Any
Those are only created upon actual death.
What happens to someone who should be dead when the thing keeping them alive stops?
They stay alive because, 'People only die if they are killed' Q.E.D if they survived being killed, they they won't die even if the thing keeping them alive stopped working, clearly because they didn't die when killed they won't die.
More seriously sounds like one of those 'heal em out of the dead zone quick before the effect ends' situations.
- Location
- UTC -6
Going by what we've seen in quest Magical Girls have a good chance of lingering long enough to croak out something (Candy Heart, Truth) or just lie there too injured to act (Sixth Heaven). Things that aren't Magical Girls will probably have a "Fatal Injury" Body Modifier a bit before they reach negative Health, depending on how they got injured (Demon Summoners, Backstabbed demon mooks).
My hunch would be that Brilliant Key might be able to save someone with Shine if she's right there. Solid Core would have to use her Save-From-Death (or suffer Core Breach) instantly. And Red Rose/Solid Drive/Insight might live long enough to be carried to Brilliant Key if they don't have too many mortal wounds -- which is dicey with The Kind Monster in play.
I'm not sure how good the internet hivemind is for this quest. When I was looking at the fight I kept getting the feeling that the best option was to try and make sure either Solid Core or Red Rose ended up in the potential bear trap (I was expecting something big to jump down from the roof with a x[big number] damage bonus). Even after reading the fight I'm still not clear on how Grey Champion was planning to defeat Red Rose...
LostDeviljho
Flame Dragon Princess
- Location
- The glorious Pacific Northwest
- Pronouns
- Any
That's not how saves from death work. It's not "if you die, immediately un-die to 1 HP", it's "If you would die, don't, and survive with 1 HP instead" just like it's written.
She's always been a commando?
You may want to take that one. Not super-critical, but it's part of a mission chain.
Also, Difficulty: Low. Unlikely to be much stress.
What makes you certain that she was trying to defeat Red Rose?
I would like to direct your attention to purification beam which I believe is range less.
But does it dissipate? Is it accurate? Does Nepgear even have the ability to target anything further than her immediate locale?
There's more to effective range than just how far you can send something.
- Location
- UTC -6
???
So if Solid Core is at negative Health IC would not keep her from dying if White Soul left? Since it wouldn't stop her Health from being negative.
LostDeviljho
Flame Dragon Princess
- Location
- The glorious Pacific Northwest
- Pronouns
- Any
To get her to Negative HP in the first place you'd have to burn through her save.