Episode 2
E2 maps, unlike e1 maps, have set spawns. They also tend to be more difficult stages. I recommend playing through e1 first as a new player, but if you want to try e2 go ahead.
Forces take note: you level up more often and deal more damage in e2 then in e1 for the most part. Take advantage of this by using attack techs more freely. Don't waste TP, but you have much more to work with than in e1.
2c1
Not too much special in this stage except knowing how to deal with Hildebears (see above). Run past all hallway enemies since you don't need to kill them, and watch for smashers. There are two set scape dolls in this stage. Look at stage maps for puzzles and an overview of area 4 where you have to split up.
Ideally, HP materials should go to HUcasts in this stage for the Barba fight, but if your FO isn't completely confident in his/her dodging ability it may be better to give them to the FO.
Barba Ray:
Only attack his head, preferably with AB% daggers. All other damage is essentially wasted because his body armor has much more HP than his head armor. Hunters should attack with guns when he's far and, obviously, HHH combos with sabers/daggers when he's close. FOs should focus on keeping Shifta up and then can toss Foie at his head.
Don't bother trying to kill the Pig Rays. Just dodge them. The spikes from under the raft are telegraphed by a little circle of sparkly-things where they'll pop up. To dodge his laser, go to the center of the raft as close to Barba as possible and stand there--it'll miss you.
When he lands on the raft, if the shockwave does not deal enough damage to knock you down (mainly HUcasts) then stand where his head will land. Otherwise go to the rear of the raft to dodge the shockwave and run in once he lands.
A pretty easy fight on the whole.
2c2
Sabers and handguns will drop in Spaceship Alpha, so if you can try to get a gun for all your HUs and sabers for your non-HUs. In Beta, brands and autoguns will drop, so save your grinders for brands with nice %s.
Unlike in e1, Dubchics are accompanied by dubswitches, and Pan Arms have low DFP so it's fastest to kill them before they split. Confuse traps are good to keep Pans from splitting.
Use damage traps on wolves, mainly, or sometimes to knock down groups of 'chics. Freeze traps are good against various enemies, but particularly Delsabers, Garanz, and Sorcerers. Confuse traps work against 'chics and wolves or larger groups of Delsabers best.
Try to avoid hits as much as possible, since Gol Dragon is not a very friendly boss fight and you'll want your mates for it. Also save Resist/Units for equipping for that fight, should you find any.
Gol Dragon:
For the first part, he follows this pattern: breath -> warp -> fly up and land -> breath -> fly up and shoot fire/ice/lightning balls -> land -> repeat. Run in and melee him during the breath attacks. Shoot his legs with a handgun when he's about to land and when he's in the air. When he's shooting his elemental balls, split up and just run around. You can't guarantee being able to dodge them, but splitting up should reduce the total damage your team takes.
FOs can Zonde or Gizonde. The latter hits multiple times even though it only shows one damage number. Zonde deals more damage per TP used though (maybe not for FOnewm, but it does for FOnewearl), so if TP is an issue you might want to stick to Zonde at least for the first phase.
Once he roars, he switches to his second phase and things get much more hectic. He'll dive into the ground and create a phantom Gol to accompany him. This fake dragon has too much HP to be worth attacking, so you'll want to focus on the real one.
Immediately after the double dragons appear, stay in the center of the arena, and wait for them to warp. From there out, try to keep both dragons as close to the center as possible. This means you'll take hits from lots of attacks, but not their breath attack--and that is the most important attack to dodge anyway.
The first dragon to fly up in the air after they warp is the real one.
This half is more a battle of attrition (as with Falz) than anything else. Trying to dodge one dragon either tends to put you in danger from the other or to put you where you can't hurt them, so focus on dealing as much damage as you can rather than avoiding hits.
2c3
This is an extremely short stage if you follow the usual route. Exploring can be interesting, but doesn't offer enough benefits to offset the time spent and the mates used (though I think it is fun).
You very much want to have at least one Force for this stage. More FOs means a potentially faster clear time, but probably a more difficult boss fight to avoid failing, so I'd recommend having exactly one FO for teams trying merely to pass. The FO also has by far the most difficult job in this stage.
You can ignore every single enemy except for the minibosses and Gal Gryphon except those blocking your path. Don't waste time or mates killing things you can run past, especially in the first area.
In the second area, the FO should run out, dodge the first projectile from the Mericarol, then alternate attacking with Barta and dodging until the Meri dies. The other players should just get the boxes behind the starting location and wait for the FO to kill the Meri.
(Should you happen to get the extremely rare occurrence of a non-Mericarol Meri in its place, you can still follow this pattern for the green Meri. Foie deals more damage than Barta there. The blue Meri is best handled by freezing it and having all the HUs beat on it. This will only very rarely be an issue however. I've seen it happen exactly once, myself. Alternatively you could just fail the stage, quit, and restart).
In the third area (Mountain), you want to have the HUs get as many Busters as there are HUcasts by killing Gees--preferably on the top half of the mountain--as the FO kills the Gi Gue with Zonde. FOs, be careful here: the Gi Gue's counterattack bomb will one-hit-kill you, and their confuse balls deal 40 damage which is more than half of a FOney's HP. The best way to predict what the Gi Gue will do is to simply fight it more often to get a feel for how it acts. I can't really help out more than just telling you to be careful.
If it's been quite some time and you still do not have a Buster for every HUcast, you may wish to just move on anyway. Brands will do significantly less damage to Gal, but with Shifta/Zalure will still be okay for HUcasts.
Be sure to grab the set General/HP, Resta 3, and 4 slot frames in Mountain before leaving!
You'll then warp to Seaside. If the FO knows how to glitch Gibbles (see video here if you want, credit to Charlie for the vid) then let him/her do so. Otherwise, have the HUs run in and freeze the Gibbles while the FO uses Zalure/Shifta and then Barta.
I recommend checking the boxes in the nearby rooms, both for the set General/HP and for more chances at other decent items (Busters?). If you didn't get enough Busters in Mountain, you can look for a couple here as well, or you can just use Brands.
In CCA itself, the boss warp is ahead of where you appear. Behind are some rooms with warps, the latter two of which lead to rooms with a Gibbles and a Gi Gue, each containing a set Autogun, a General/Power, and an armor you probably can't equip. If you have HUcaseals or HUmars in the team, grab one or both of these Autoguns (and the Gen/Power since it's right there), then head to the boss.
Gal Gryphon:
This fight will likely take up about half of the total time you spend in 2c3. Make sure you give the General/HPs to whichever character is the most squishy, to try to prevent Gal Gryphon's charge attack from one-shotting you. I recommend giving the General/Power units to someone using a gun most of the time.
A note in advance to the Force: You should watch your TP in this fight. Being able to cast Resta/Shifta/Zalure (and possibly Jellen) is better than dealing a little bit of extra damage with Barta. It is likely that you won't be able to whore Barta the whole fight without running out of TP, so switch out of attack mode if your TP is getting low.
HUs (or RAs) with a gun should focus on shooting Gal's head, or his wings if necessary. HUcasts will be using a Buster and attacking Gal's legs most of the time.
When Gal is flying around, the simplest thing to do is to just follow him. When he's about to begin his swoop, the FO should hit him with Barta a couple times (infinite vertical range) and then Zalure him as he begins to swoop. (You can Jellen in place of one cast of Barta, if you wish).
When he finishes the swoop, he'll either go all the way across the arena, in which case you just follow him and get ready to attack when he lands (FO cast Shifta!) or he'll go halfway across and land, in which case just sit tight and get ready to dodge if he does any attack other than lightning. In either case, read below to see how to deal with his attacks.
He has three main attacks from the ground. The most dangerous is his stomp/shockwave, which is a one-hit-kill unless you're a HU at the edge of its damage radius, which is about as far as Gal's wingspan. The way to dodge this is to learn how much time you have to attack, then run away so that if he chooses to use this attack you'll be safe.
His second attack is his charge. If the whole party stays clustered together, this attack is reasonably predictable since he'll just try to run at where all of you are standing. The usual way to dodge this is to run into the circle of his path, unless you're too far away, in which case you run away from that circle. Experience will tell you which way to go. If you're split up, this attack is much less predictable and harder to dodge. He'll use this attack a little bit faster than his shockwave attack.
The third, and simplest to deal with, attack is him shooting lightning straight forward. This is a great opportunity to attack Gal. Don't stand directly in front of him and the lightning won't hurt you. HUcasts can, if they know how, attack Gal's head during this attack . When he's done shooting lightning, he'll then use either the shockwave or the charge, so be ready to dodge them immediately.
This boss fight is hard until you get used to how it works. I find it a lot of fun though, both as a FO and as a HU.
2c4
If there's one stage in e2 c-mode where learning the spawns helps, this is it. It's quite doable without knowing the spawns beforehand, but it'll be a fair bit slower.
Note that the players start split up. 1p (the red gem) has the most difficult route and spends the most time soloing (and should, preferably, be a HUcast). To shorten this a bit you can use the Sinow drop trick (video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nym2mzkAQc ) to join up with the 2-4p route sooner. You can do the same in the first room by getting hit by the squids, but neither the first nor second rooms are that difficult for a droid HU, so the Sinow drop is usually preferred.
The 2p route is the best for the FO. A HUcaseal is generally the best for the 4p route.
There are some other tricks to know about the stage, and, unfortunately, the best way to learn these is to just play the stage.
FOs, note that Sinow criticals will kill you outright, at least until near the end of the stage. Delbiter charges deal 180 damage and will likely OHKO you as well. Recobombs deal 90 damage, so make sure to always stay above 90 HP in a room with Recons. Keep your party healed and Shifta'd, and then chip in damage and Zalure as you see fit. TP is NOT a problem in 2c4 unless you really waste it.
Deldepths should be attacked with HHN combos with a hitless Buster (I often keep a hitless Buster around even if I have a nice Buster with hit) unless frozen. When frozen, use NNH combos if you don't have hit, or whatever you can hit with if you do. Sinows should always be frozen if you have traps to do so. Freeze Delbiters as well when you have to either fight them or run past them. Confuse squids, ignore Morfos. Damage traps are good against everything in Seabed except Sinow Zeles, so use them liberally along with your other traps.
If you find mechguns, give them to a HUcast. Other HUcasts should grab Slicers if they find any and keep one for the boss. HUcaseals can use Assaults, and one HUcaseal should mag feed for as much DEX as possible by the end of the stage in hopes of being able to use a Railgun. Obviously every HU should upgrade to Pallasches once you find them.
You can ignore most Recoboxes too, so do that.
Past that advice, it's mostly just knowing the stage, which I can't help you with here too much. One thing that does help--in the last area before Olga, there are hallways divided by laser fences. One side of each hall has an invisible warp, which takes you to a room with enemies. Pulling up the menu (f12 or home by default) will let you walk past these invisible warps safely.
There are some set HP materials in the stage. Your goal is approximately 180 HP or more for each character, to survive both Delbiter charges and Olga's sword wave.
Olga Flow:
Ah, my favorite part of challenge mode. Olga 1 isn't that much fun, but you have to deal with him to get to the fun part.
Guns rule here, obviously, since he's only rarely close enough to the stage to be melee'd. FOs--when he comes close, Zal him! It's the only time Zal has enough range, and you want as much damage output as possible here. HUs should use their best Pallasch when he's close, for more damage.
Olga has one main attack to avoid, which is his sword wave. His sword is on his (and your) right, so stay to the left side when you're attacking him, or far enough to the right that it won't hit you. This probably won't one-hit-kill anyone unless you have multiple low-HP characters in the team, but it's still a lot of damage.
The other attack that's dangerous is when he goes above or below the stage and shoots his sword wave at you. You can't dodge this 100% of the time, but getting to the edge of the stage is the safest place to be. In addition, near the edge it deals far less damage than in the middle--it probably won't one-hit-kill anyone at the edge.
His other attacks aren't vital to dodge, since they don't deal that much damage, but it's not good to just take hits from them if you don't have to. After enough damage, he'll fall to the bottom and you'll follow.
Olga 2:
Now the real fun begins. This is the part of the fight that sends players unfamiliar with Olga to failure often. I'd recommend going into Normal RT with a high-leveled character to get to know Olga's pattern if you can, since he's an extremely predictable boss, but very dangerous if you mess up.
Do not bother with his mags unless you're using a gun and don't have a good shot at Olga himself.
Damaging him is just a simple matter of hacking away or shooting away whenever you're not dodging his attacks. Shooting is generally the best choice for new players, since it's safer. FOs, keep him Zalured and as many HUs Shifta'd as possible, and also Resta when you can--but stay alive first and foremost! Don't worry about trying to damage Olga, but you can toss in a couple techs if you have time.
His pattern is: Walk -> Sword Wave -> Divine Punishment -> Walk -> Sword Wave -> Divine Punishment -> Walk -> Sword Wave -> Jump to center -> repeat
The sword wave usually won't one-hit-kill anyone unless you're a FOnewearl unlucky with HP materials at close range (the damage seems somewhat random too, I'm not really sure). You can dodge it by hiding behind rocks, or by running behind where Olga launches it--it only covers about 180 degrees. Alternatively, if you're really far away it'll fade before reaching you, but that's not ideal. Fortunately, you can hide behind rocks for all but the very first time he uses it--which if you're attacking from range, you should do.
Dodging DP is just a matter of not being close enough to either Olga or his mags to get hit. If you know how, you can also make Olga step on you as he launches DP, which will knock you down and keep you invincible for long enough to survive (video:
FOs--if you have a HU using the right-foot-trick, run in after every time Olga uses DP to Resta. Right-footing does use a fair number of mates since you are, after all, purposely taking hits. Try to save as many as possible by keeping the HU healed when you can. (Alternatively, if you're ballsy, you can right-foot along with the HU and be right there to Resta. If you're good enough where that's worth doing though, you probably don't need this guide!)
Rocks will drop after every sword wave and every DP/jump. They hurt if they land on you. I don't think they ever drop at the very edge of the arena, and I'm almost positive they don't drop right next to another rock. Most of the time they'll miss you, but it's still best to not get hit, of course. They often one-shot FOs, and because of when they drop they can kill HUs who are right-footing as well.
When you see the Olga dying cutscene, take a few deep breaths and relax. It's smooth sailing from here.
2c5
E2 c-mode closes with a fairly easy stage. It has the potential for lots of "cheap" (and lots of not-so-cheap) deaths, but you have 13 dolls available to you for a stage that's less than a half hour long. Just don't die more than once every three minutes as a team and you'll be okay.
Like 2c4, knowing the spawns here helps greatly, but because of the sheer number of times you can die it's not as vital IMO.
Note that most enemies give upward of 1000 EXP. This means you will level up a lot. This means you should use freeze traps on literally everything short of Recoboxes, and toss in damage traps against anything they're good against too. FOs, you should be attacking every moment when you're not healing or refreshing Shifta--not only do you have effectively infinite TP, you ALSO outdamage HUs here most of the time.
The enemies, listed from generally most dangerous to generally least dangerous: Ill Gills, Delbiters, Del Lilies, Meri-variants (all three are similar), Gibbles, Gigues, Recons. Generally best to kill them in that order (Gills only appear alone or with Recons, Delbiters never appear with other enemies). Gibbles are dangerous to FOs if the FO is careless and wanders too close, but otherwise they shouldn't kill anyone. The main thing to watch out for from Meris are their Megid cloud attacks--listen for them to start beeping, which signals the attack is coming.
Past that, it's really just knowing the enemies' tech weaknesses if you're a FO, or knowing their spawns so you can freeze them as a HU. Not really any tricks to how to attack stuff here.
Epsilon:
The final "boss" in e2 cmode is probably the easiest as well. Note that, unlike on Ultimate, Epsilon's shields will NOT open far enough for you to safely stand inside them, so NEVER run in and attack a purple or blue Epsilon unless you have a death wish. Meleeing a yellow Epsilon may not do much good either.
The simplest way to kill him is to have every HU with a good machine% pallasch (preferably HUcasts) and your FOs go to Epsilon's floor, while everyone else stays behind. Run around dodging his attacks until he opens up while he's red. Make sure the HUs are Shifta'd, have them run in and attack. A FO should run in and Zal Epsilon, then all the FOs should Barta Epsi from outside his shields (aim AT the shield, time your Barta so it will hit the core). Resta as necessary, don't be afraid to use mates as a HU. If Epsi dies, you're done, otherwise just dodge till he's red again.
Note that FOs can Barta through his shields when Epsilon is any color if they're careful not to get too close and die.
When he dies, go grab your prize. Congrats on finishing e2 cmode!
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