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Featuring this description from the tl;dr series
*BACKGROUND INFO*
This is a continuation of my LL challenge of Digital Devil Saga. Here I take on the Demi-fiend at the lowest possible level, without any of that cheap Red Star BS. Now here’s a bunch of questions I'm pre-empting:
"Why level 20?"
Lvl 20 is the minimum level at which this is realistically possible, because characters unlock 8 skill slots at this level. Regardless, only Serph could be significantly lower by this point (he starts at lvl 1 and never gets autolevelled.) Cielo is the exception, he starts out at level 30.
"It doesn't count if you stat max!"
Not a question, hypothetical commenter. But yes, normally I'd agree. However in this case it's clearly essential to making it at all possible (believe me, I spent a lot of time testing) and level still has a big impact in all fields. Here's what I ended up allowing:
-Vital Noises - Vitality affects the damage taken from physical attacks and HP. Without Vit boosting everyone would take way too much damage from Demi's attacks (about 50% more)
-Magic Noises - Magic affects the damage dealt and received from spells, as well as MP. Without it, it's pretty much impossible to survive once Pixie comes out (Argilla and Cielo would take well over 200 damage per Megidolaon) the battle would last much longer (meaning many more Gaea Rages) and I'd run out of Somas/Great Chakras about half way through (they can't be farmed in DDS)
-HP Noises - This is the one I resisted the most, but max Vit alone just doesn't give enough HP to survive the Arahabaki/Pixie phase of the battle. It also means sacrificing valuable skill slots to Life Surge/Gain. I attempted this about 40 times with just Magic and Vital Noises and never even got more than ~20% of the way through the fight.
"How much harder is this compared to a standard L99 fight?"
Level affects just about everything in DDS, including your damage output (both phys & mag), physical defence, accuracy and evasion. With these levels and stats...
-The team take more damage from physical skills (about 30% extra compared to L99)
-Cielo's spells deal less damage (about 1/3 less compared to L99), which means it drags on forever and I have to live through at least 4 Gaea Rages
-You pretty much need Debilitate for spells to connect consistently
-Null Sleep aside, none of my team ever avoid any attacks, even with Debilitate in play
-Everyone runs out of MP twice as often
-Ragnarok is unusable because its damage output is so low without Strength farming, and the HP cost and constant missing would make it too risky anyway.
-Since I'm not allowed to use Heat, that's one less emergency Close Call.
-Presumably ailments work more often, although this is a bonus when it comes to survivng Gaea Rage (in theory...)
*THE TEAM*
-Cielo is an obvious choice for his ailment weakness & lack of elemental weaknesses. His higher base level gives him a slight edge as the damage dealer. Most importantly his spells always connect after Debilitate, which isn’t the case for the level 20 characters.
-Celestial Ray over Fire of Sinai as my AoE spell of choice. They do similar damage on average, but it's a lot easier to keep track of Celestial Ray's damage. And there's a LOT to keep track of here.
-Argilla is 2nd choice because none of the demons use force magic. She is also my only Recarmdra caster.
-The choice between Serph & Gale is fairly irrelevant, both have elemental weaknesses that need covering with a passive. I split Serph's level up points between agility and luck - the agility doesn’t help him dodge anything, but I found he would wake up from Dormina instantly with too much luck and stay asleep for 30 rounds straight with no luck, so I just split the difference. And in the end he never once got put to sleep anyway...
-Debilitate is the debuff of choice, because it lowers both defence and evasion. There's no point bothering with any other buffs, you almost never get a chance to use them.
-Both Argilla and Serph have Salvation and Debilitate, so unless they both get muted I can always use Salvation, Debilitate and have Cielo attack.
-Heat absorbed all the EXP from the story and noise grinding, so using him is forbidden (yes, even as Close Call fodder)
*CONCLUSION*
Overall this was one of the most stressful gaming experiences I've ever had. However it has given me a new appreciation for how this battle is designed/balanced. Without the restrictions in place here, it's definitely possible to win pretty consistently just by using Close Call strats. So next time you see someone complain that they can't beat him even at Lvl 99, link em this video ;)