Thread: [Event 06] Advent Battle vs Medusa

My party has a super easy time with this event.

And then RNGesus was like "O rly?" and I had 4 of my 5 character petrified :P Still managed to win the battle, but it was close. This one is seriously far more at the mercy of RNGesus than previous events.

Did they increase gold chest drop rate? i have yet to get less than 4 from ult difficulty, while last advent event i was gettin 3, with occasional 2...

Originally Posted by felix

Did they increase gold chest drop rate? i have yet to get less than 4 from ult difficulty, while last advent event i was gettin 3, with occasional 2...

Yes4567890

Originally Posted by Inb4whales

why in the hell would you want Medusa who can potentially one hit snake bite kill during Rage OD up to three targets to keep her in her rage mode

Because if she's hitting you with her Overdrive, she's not Petrifying you. During non-Rage, she can Petrify 2x every 3 turns (66%). During Rage, she can only Petrify 1x every every 2 turns (50%). That gives you more breathing room on your cooldowns and also stretches out your affliction protections. Bursting immediately also allows you to start saving Burst meter for your 2nd Burst immediately, which should end the fight when it's ready. Not to mention you can't do a Full Burst if any members are petrified, so you need to use it while you can.

So...

Out of like 40 runs so far in the ultimate, I failed 1 because of the multi stun thing. Once the boss get hold on my beholog, I can only hope that she did sth else and not multi stun beholog again.

If you have behemoth than I guess this event is like cake.

I failed once the other day because I wasn't paying attention and thought I used Amon's affliction protection but instead used her burst charge skill. Lol... Yea...

Originally Posted by Inb4whales

->SlickFenix
This post will take quite a chunk of your time so grab a coffee and some snacks first.

First of all, I found myself questioning why you don't have a single Legendary Heroic Soul (>.>).
But that's besides the point. Personally to me, because I don't know your playstyle, what you're struggling with and the fact that we don't have the same stats, it's hard for anyone reading your posts to judge the situation that you're in. If you can somehow record a video of yourself playing it, that'd be great, but that would be too much of a hassle for you to record and upload so let's just get to the point.

What I personally can do is provide info on how I would play the Expert mode with what you have though.


Before we begin let us talk about the strategy on how to beat Medusa effectively first because I believe this will help you with your future fights as well.
Based on my experience so far, there are two types of bosses.

The first type is where you want the boss to be in it's normal mode for as long as possible while you want to get it out of it's rage mode as fast as possible (Eg: Jormun and Typhon) simply because their Overdrive during rage is simply waaaay stronger and destructive than it's normal overdrive.

The second type is when the boss's Rage Overdrive is actually more tolerable and preferable usually because they deal single target damage (or at the very least it doesn't hit your entire team with it) and thus as odd as this may sound, you'd prefer that they stay in their rage mode compared to their normal mode. Some bosses that falls into this category would be Garuda (deals really strong but only single target damage during rage OD), Pheonix (buffs herself with lifesteal instead of huge defense during rage) and of course Medusa as well.

Now you might be asking why in the hell would you want Medusa who can potentially one hit snake bite kill during Rage OD up to three targets to keep her in her rage mode. Two reasons:
1. No matter how many debuff cleansers/nullifiers you have, you will end up being in a HUGE trouble if you're made to cleanse both the petrify and the poison from her OD. The main thing you want to cleanse is petrify, but the game will ALWAYS cleanse whichever debuff is placed first meaning any petrify placed after the poison can screw you up royally if you're not careful. The rage OD however does not have any debuff giving you much more breathing room to cleanse debuffs.
2. The rage OD can only hit up to 3 targets. Now here's the thing about this OD. It deals double damage (maybe even more) to petrified targets and can potentially one shot almost any petrified character with one bite. Meaning it's your top priority to make sure your team is petrify free at this point. However, if you're petrify free, good news, it barely deals enough damage to chunk 1/3 of your himes with each bite.


So here is my question to you, if you have a full burst gauge by the time you reach Medusa, can you burst her immediately into rage mode?
Does your heroic soul have a light weapon equipped (this is a must)? Even if you don't have any SR or greater light weapon, you should definitely at least have the Light Glaive obtained from Jormun event, meaning you can put it on either Beowulf (or if possible farm Gilgamesh and put it on her).

If you answered yes, to the two questions, brilliant we should be able to move on. Playing defensively on Medusa with heals and defense buffs is not a reliable option because you're just begging to be petrified.
Let's start with the team formation strategy first because as a certain someone once said:


Character Setup N1


IF you have a decently leveled up light staff


Eidolon setup-


When the battle begins, FOCUS on the snake Medulsina because it will try to petrify your team once every 2 turns.
If you have sneak attack, debuff all 3 mobs at the start, and throw all your attack abilities onto Medulsiana. If your Phoenix support is a friend's Eidolon and is available for use at the beginning, save it for Turn 2 because it could help negate some debuff from Stheno while dealing damage to Medulsiana before it uses the petrify.
If you're going with the Beowulf setup, all 5 of them should be able to throw one ability each onto Medulsiana. (Don't forget sneak attack debuff!)
This should take down Medulsiana before any petrify can be used.
Starting from now, there are two options. It is the question of "Can you take down Stheno before she uses her 3 orb OD?".
(A) If you can consistently kill both Medulsiana and Stheno before Turn 4, I highly recommend putting up Amon's Devil's kiss (debuff shield) before you even attack in Turn 1.
(B) If not, put the shield up only AFTER Stheno has used her poison because you want to make sure that you have a shield ready as well as another shield that is already off cooldown by the time you reach Medusa. Remember you don't want to take any chances with her petrify.
In situation B where your damage is lower than A, you'd also want to prolong the fight once Stheno is taken down by simply using normal attacks without using any buffing or abilities. This provides you with plenty of time to build up your burst gauge and fully prepare all your cooldowns by the time your reach Medusa.


Now that you have reached Medusa, you hopefully have a full burst gauge and Amon's shield on your entire team. Heals should be used whenever necessary.
TURN 1-Use sneak attack debuff, Dike's armour debuff, Typhon for damage buff and use full burst. Hopefully this puts her straight into rage mode.
TURN 2-Use Jormun, Beowulf's Grendel killer, all the other Kamihime's damage abilities and IF Medusa used petrify Turn 1, reapply Devil's kiss shield from Amon in case of a 2nd round of debuff. Remember you do NOT want any of your petrified himes to be bitten with Rage OD. If you're using Beo setup with Bryn in the rear, you can also use Valkyrie assault.
TURN 3-Use Sephiroth (DEF buff for Rage OD), attack normally.
TURN 4-Use friend's Phoenix (Your next line of debuff defense to greatly reduce chance of being petrified) and attack.
TURN 5-Hopefully by around this turn, Medusa is stunned. Attack normally <-(Depending on how high your damage is you can use Dragon buster on next turn or the turn after that because using it early will deal alot of damage to Medusa making her quickly get out of Stun faster.)
TURN 6 and later- Throw as many attack abilities as you can. It is tempting to wait for a full burst but unless you have it ready during Stun, don't attempt to wait for a full burst because petrify can royally screw up that full burst combination. Use it whenever there is 2 or more characters that can burst or if said character with full burst is about to die (in which case might as well use it before the reserve comes in to replace).
Use Indra's affliction cleanser as well if your team is being petrified stun lock and one of your himes died at this point because Indra will definitely not be in petrified status when she first come onto the set.

The Cassiopeia setup is a safer setup that provides you with much more breathing room if you can burst Medusa in rage mode immediately. This works even better if you equip Maiden's prayer onto her so that her and Indra can take turns cleansing any petrify that Amon's shield can no longer protect. But since there is always the possibility that BOTH characters can get petrified, it is often not as reliable as Amon's shield.

Here is my step by step:

First off I don't have a Legendary Soul yet, because I didn't know any better until recently. I was just getting everything from the bottom up and recently learned the reality and difficulty of doing it that way. Now I'm saving for a legendary. About 170 away from Andromeda.

My team is Cassiopeia as Soul Equiped with Sneak Attack as extra ability. Next is Dike, Urania, Mephistopheles, and Brynhildr. Amon and Nike are the Subs. (I go with this setup because it has worked in the past and I usually get by the first group fairly quickly) When I have tried to switch out Amon with someone else I actually did worse....

My main weapon is the Light Staff that you get Urania from. Currently it's *** at Lvl 49/60 it's HP/ATK are 96/800.
My Eidolon are Pegasus as my main, and Got Phoenix from one of my Friends, the rest are Jormungandr, Typhon, Medusa, Sephiroth, and a *** Rare that's high lvl. My total team Atk is 21,951

I would like to say that this one ended up being one of my worst ones yet.

Round 1 - Cast Sneak Atk, Ruthless Beauty, Hely Requiem, Shine Snipe +, Celestial Light +, Soul Reaper +, Walpurgis Night, Grane Flare +, and Valkyrie Assault all at Medusiana. Then Atk Medusiana - Sliver of life left (Normally Dead already)
Round 2 - Atk and Kill Medusiana auto switch to Stheno
Round 3 - Atk Stheno
Round 4 - Use Healing Wave +, Atk Stheno, sliver of life left (normally dead before OD atk), get poisoned in OD atk (only 3 chars)
Round 5 - Atk and Kill Stheno auto switch to Euryale
Round 6 - Fiery Embrace for heal, Atk Euryale
Round 7 - Atk Euryale
Round 8 - Atk Euryale
Round 9 - Healing Wave, Kill Euryale

MEDUSA - Burst Counter all at 100

Round 1 - Use Phoenix to get Affliction Resist, Cast Sneak Atk, Holy Requiem, Shine Snipe +, Celestial Light +, Soul Reaper +, Walpurgis Night (Miss), Gran Flare +, Valkyrie Assault. Burst Atk - Medusa gets to rage, and has about half life remaing. She Instantly uses Stone and Stones 4/5 girls (including main Soul). All Debuffs on her are gone.
Round 2 - Use Sephiroth for Def, Atk with Dike
Round 3 - Use Jormungandr for Atk down, OD atk kills my soul, Brynhildr, and Urania

All downhill from there......won't bother with the rest

I'll try to switch out Meph with Amon next time. Also would be nice if more of my friends would equip Behemoth......Would be nice if I could draw her. Currently about 700 jewels away from next 10 draw gotcha...

I don't really see the issue. Switch Amon in and you should have this wrapped up. Amon will give you 2 Petrify evades. If you can start the boss fight at 100% Burst and shave off 50% of her HP with it, you're well on your way to victory. That's actually better than I typically do on Ultimate.

...oh wait, did you use all your skills and Burst in the same turn? Why are you doing that? You should save all your damage skills for the Rage phase. Also, if all your debuffs are falling off after just one turn you're taking WAY too long. You need to work much more quickly. If there's a pause between abilities, you're doing it wrong. Practice on Disasters or something.

..... first time ever I I saw the boss using single burst in rage mode. I have the ray dragon buff up, def buff up, boss was down 15% dmg, yet she one tap beholog(4.8k single) before landing another 1.8k on andromedia.

I was like wtf....

Originally Posted by sanahtlig

I don't really see the issue. Switch Amon in and you should have this wrapped up. Amon will give you 2 Petrify evades. If you can start the boss fight at 100% Burst and shave off 50% of her HP with it, you're well on your way to victory. That's actually better than I typically do on Ultimate.

...oh wait, did you use all your skills and Burst in the same turn? Why are you doing that? You should save all your damage skills for the Rage phase. Also, if all your debuffs are falling off after just one turn you're taking WAY too long. You need to work much more quickly. If there's a pause between abilities, you're doing it wrong. Practice on Disasters or something.

This Time I put in Amon in place of Maphistopheles. The first group took longer, but that was also due to my sneak attack not affecting all of the creatures. I came in to Medusa with full burst. I used what few abilities I had, then burst her. She was just a bit away from rage. After one attack she was raged, and sure enough as soon as she goes into rage she removes all of your Debuffs you work so hard to put on. Now I know to wait until after rage to use them all. During this whole battle she did not try to petrify me once. After I got her into rage, I survived 2 of her ODs (She only did just over 1k damage each hit, which confirmed to me that she must do something like 3x damage to stoned chars). She had about 1/4 of her life left when I got her to stun. It only took about 2 more rounds of attacks to kill her off.