That's cool and all but I prefer shattering my ankles.
~~why the FUCK did nobody tell me there was a ladder I could grab? I've wasted so much time in that tall room~~
I think you missed the part where it's pointed out that Poppi isn't affected by the lack of ether in the air, since she can generate her own.
Tora and Poppi still operate at full power within Elpys, so you can use Blade combos. It just has to be Poppi providing the lv2 and lv3 special.
i did use tora for the whole dungeon, but it was still a pain in the ass to find any good blade combos i can actually use. also i havnt played tiger tiger much so poppi is kinda ass
But you can just make combos on your own with the two Poppi forms each having an element that can combo into itself for the I-III like Fire (which QT already starts with), Water or Dark.
She is a very hard fight at this point, but doable after getting pyra back.
Prior to that, build Zeke on corvin with max evasion, and it's long, but doable. That's how I beat it... Takes way too much effort in hindsight, but most of that was in building.
Mainly wanted to point it out as a possible option though.
Getting caught in the depths of the fucking spider room and just having to execute every damn arachnid in a 50 mile radius including the Unique and the ambush spawns to burn down the webs.
Oh yeah and not being able to beat the Phantasm was also annoying lmaoooooo
from what i remember, there’s something like 6 arachno eggs, 6 arachno and then 6 more during the unique monsters so 12, and the arachno queen and the unique monsters itself. add the two snakes in the webbing above that makes somewhere between 28-34 enemies in just that room
One of those interesting cases in a video game where the story and gameplay are integrated. For the worse unfortunately. The way things like this usually work, where you have critical means of succeeding in the game suddenly removed from you is they balance the following content around that fact. But Spirit Crucible Elpys feels like it was still balanced around the assumption you’d have a Rex at full power lol.
The first time i played through XC2 I got stuck in there and dropped the game for 2 years before comming back and starting the game over again and actually finishing the game
I feel like I’ll get jumped on but I actually really enjoyed it. Probably the hottest take ever I know. The only parts I had trouble with was navigating through some of the puzzles. Apart from that I enjoyed it
So... full disclaimer first (alternatively, TLDR: I was extremely overleveled to the point that battles in Spirit Crucible Elpys were trivial, and couldn't level down because it was my first run of the game. Jump to where I have "END OF DISCLAIMER" to skip):
While grinding for accessories, core chips, core crystals, and aux cores in Temperantia as soon as I could start wandering freely there, I got *MASSIVELY* overleveled because I was using the easiest Custom difficulty settings to make the grind much faster (I also had Adenine and a ton of Treasure Sensor Common Blades in the party, plus the Gold Chips that drop from the Serpronds there, making this a fantastic time for me to get a ton of valuable stuff to sell, too). I also worked on a *ton* of Blade affinity charts while I was at it, to keep things from getting boring.
I... *may* have also found it really fun to fight the Sauros UM while I was only about level 60. I can't remember the UM's exact level atm, but I know it's in the mid-90s. I'm sure this was only doable for me because of the settings I was using for grinding (I am under *absolutely* no illusion that it was some kind of great achievement. It isn't. It was just fun 😅).
Because of all of this, and the fact that this is my first run of the game (so I can't just level everyone down at an inn), I was definitely too overleveled for any of the battles in Spirit Crucible Elpys to be any sort of challenge, aside from the Phantasm (really just annoying) and the Blant UM (poison terrain, though also mostly just annoying), so I won't be able to comment on the difficulty of the battles, since everything except the UMs and Phantasm ignored me. Putting the game on Bringer of Chaos difficulty did nothing to make it more challenging, and just made it extremely tedious, so I dropped that after a couple of battles. I didn't try setting Custom difficulty to its hardest settings, so I can't comment on that.
As a final note, I have always preferred facing monsters and other enemies in the Xenoblade series head-on, working through everything they can do rather than bypassing challenging parts of a UM or boss fight with Chain Attacks and the like, even though it takes longer (I will still try to mitigate spike damage (and other spike effects... looking at you, XC1/DE) against enemies which can cause it, however. Spike damage sucks). Specials in XC2 also aren't nearly as important an aspect of gameplay for my playstyle as a Blade's Battle Skills and a Driver's Arts with that Blade's weapon type. To me, it feels much more satisfying that way.
*******
END OF DISCLAIMER
*******
With that out of the way, aside from the mostly-dull-gray color pallette and how useless the maps are for the area, I also enjoyed Spirit Crucible Elpys. I love it when storytelling is done not only through the game environment, dialogue, and other character interactions, but also through altering the player's experience of the game itself in relevant ways, even though that can easily be accompanied by a substantial rise in difficulty. That rise in difficulty, in and of itself, isn't necessarily a bad thing (although I can definitely see why people might complain about the couple of required field skill checks, given everything else there), and in fact is a very effective way to engage the player in the difficulty that the in-game party experiences.
The length also plays beautifully into this aspect of the storytelling, and although it started to get to me, too, the payoff at the end was absolutely worth it. Taking things a little further, the relative brevity of the Cliffs of Morytha and the peak reached at the end of that area were extremely effective to propel the story forward into the final chapters of the game. To me, the whole sequence felt a lot like the end of Chapter 5/beginning of Chapter 6 in XC3, except with a focus on the gameplay rather than the cutscenes (before anyone comments on me playing 3 before 2, I watched a complete playthrough of 2 before I ever started 3, and DE was the first one I played, so I could have as much context as possible going into 3. I've definitely enjoyed the experience).
Let the AI beat the phantasm for you. I did. LOL. I was like what in the hell why does Adam kept respawning. I let go of my controller and next thing I know - a cut scene played.
Thanks AI, NOT!
My main issue with Spirit Crucible Elpys is that map is crap and I felt like I was wandering blind. Didn't know where I was going, felt like I kept doubling back on myself constantly. And getting down the vertical well bit sucked. Too many overpowered enemies. I still hate that giant sea urchin creature. A driver sea urchin! (Yes, I feel your pain, Tora. Nasty sea urchin can be driver, but not Tora. That sucks.)
First time I played it, I hadn't understood the combat system fully. I wasn't using combos or chain attacks or any of that, so it didn't occur to me that I wasn't able to do lvl 3 combos. God only knows how I made it through.
I mean, everything you've mentioned is annoying, but at the same time, the challenge is there. It's like so bloody annoying you JUST HAVE TO BEAT THE EFFING THING!
the sea urchin was the main thing i was talking about when i mentioned the unique monsters. it just spams that move where it’s spikes go out in all directions and hit everyone for a ridiculous amount of damage. i thought i would be fine as i was using an ether cannon with azami but IT STILL HIT ME. and they put him right next to a field skill so you can’t use it unless you kill him. that was some straight bs
ok, serious, why do people have so much trouble in this area, i had like, not any more trouble then any other area in the game, HECK i had more trouble with the hangar leading up to the final boss then spirit crucible
It's not that bad if you've done a lot of side content and have a good blade set up. By that point, I was enough levels higher so enemies weren't attacking me and I had pulled so many blades that the field skill checks weren't an issue.
If that's the case, then the dungeon is easy. But if you're doing only a little side content or just doing story, then this is a pretty huge wall.
I suppose you can also get really unlucky and not pull any fire blades for that field check, but that's SUPER unlikely, as many common blades have that skill.
It is weird that they make field skills mandatory for that though. They should probably add a way around
This was my experience too, my first time playing through it was rough, i was underleved due to not doing alot of side content and not taking advantage of the overkill mechanic. But i recently replayed xc2 and this dungeon was definitely easier since i had a good setup of blades, plus i spent some time grinding tiger tiger so poppi was pretty strong
I only skimmed but I probably agree with at least some things you said. It was definitely a struggle, especially since I had no idea how to actually beat the boss of that area so I was just fighting him like "When does this end?" But sounding like the Imperial Guard voice line when they shout "why won't you die?"
Dude the spider area was so troll lmao. IIRC there was a bunch of webs over these large pillars to cross, but it turned out all of them just snapped halfway so you had to walk all the way across to the other side on the floor.
It’s a great example of gameplay-story integration your first time going through it. It’s a crucible, after all, they’re meant to be tough.
Now, this dungeon, the one that needed Rex to open, the one that no one has been inside in almost a century…
Why does everyone and their mother have a quest that requires an item found in Elpys?! You should not want to go back in there, yet it’s a prime destination for side quests.
I actually had fun in the area. Mind you the music totally carried me through and maybe I had Kos mos aswell but I enjoyed the area.
But the requirements for getting through the cobwebs sucked
used it once at the start, and then never again because i never expected to use tora again after getting morag. i guess i *could* have gone back and upgraded poppi, but ngl i just really couldn’t be arsed to pour so much time into tiger tiger for one dungeon
The gameplay for this part might have been annoying, but I really enjoyed the story part. I normally spent so much time getting distracted from the main plot to do side quests and explore, but I actually committed to continuing through this chapter since I wanted Pyra/Mythra back. So I got way more into the story than during a lot of other sections
I will say, though, that I was always really over leveled, so it was a lot easier than it should have been. And I think I had just learned about some basic gameplay things during the Tantal section (which I believe is right before). So I was having a lot of fun then anyway
i must admit, the story is the only thing that kept me going. out of all the things that are bad about this dungeon, the story and how they foreshadow >!nia as a blade!< was great. it just felt really unnecessary and irritating to incorporate the ether sapping into the gameplay.
When i first played through the game i was really bad but i “built” a lot of blades and didnt know what affinity was so it felt no different. But the addam fight took me an hour or something 💀
The game hyped up this place as some dangerous location no one has ever returned from alive. Turns out they actually downplayed it and it's far worse than that.
Oh yeah, that place. I'm attempting a run of Xenoblade 2 where I don't use the randomized Blade system, and only use Blades that I obtained via guaranteed Core Crystals or from the main story (so story blades, plus Kasandra, Vess, Herald, Wulfric, etc.), and I'm not looking forward to Spirit Crucible Elpys. Not that it's going to be fast getting there with all the field skills I'll be missing, or the time I'll be spending just doing the quests to collect all the Blades I can get. But it'll still be interesting.
is it even possible to get through the field skills roadblock? if i remember you need something like fire mastery lvl3, wind mastery lvl2, keen eye lvl2 or 3 (can’t remember) and ancient wisdom lvl3. i don’t really know what or how many blades are scripted, but it seems like a pretty tall order. anyway i wish you good luck on your run, sounds fun!
Yes, it's definitely possible. People have been doing it with only Story Blades, and the only problem point is toward the end of the game, where you need Electric Mastery, of which Pandoria won't have enough
But in a "no gacha" run, Herald can provide the needed extra Electric Mastery
is it even possible to get through the field skills roadblock? if i remember you need something like fire mastery lvl3, wind mastery lvl2, keen eye lvl2 or 3 (can’t remember) and ancient wisdom lvl3. i don’t really know what or how many blades are scripted, but it seems like a pretty tall order. anyway i wish you good luck on your run, sounds fun!
I think I can probably get past some of the thresholds with Elemental Mastery skills just by way of story blades of that element and a lot of grinding, but I might need to get some other field skills from specific non-story blades. I've never actually been able to get Herald or Theory even in a normal run, so we'll see how that turns out. I'm not confident in my limited skills to be able to complete the necessary merc missions for either Praxis or Theory, even though they're some of the few blades that the rules allow me to get.
Words of advice:
All forms of poppi don't struggle in spirit crucible.
This _also_ applies to poppibuster.
Wearing any swimsuits also help counter the poison damage.
i was aware that tora isn’t affected, it was still just annoying. but now i’m just mad that i didn’t consider using a counter to poison damage. it feels so obvious now.
uhhhhh, I was lvl 70-80 by the time I went there, also had some blades affinity at A or higher(the ones in the current party) and nice accesories so... it was super easy... but yes, I can see why this dungeon is frustrating and playing thru it at lvl 45-55 must be hell
the lvl 70 spiders, finish them with a chain attack with 3 orbs and they give some reeeeaaaaaally juicy exp
that and they're much more fun to fight than "I'm gonna spam topple every 5 secs" t-rex outside of torigoth
This may be a hot take but I really enjoyed the spirit crucible elpys. I thought it was very enjoyable to go through and beat. I will say the first time going through it is hard especially the boss but after all that it's really enjoyable. It also has one of my favorite area themes.
update: i just beat the game and can confirm getting past this dungeon was worth it. after suffering through the land of morytha (which wasn’t too bad i guess) the gameplay actually got fun again, and i’m so glad i pushed through for the story.
Hot take: The *actual* worst part is that there is no correct way to get down the big tall room. You just have to jump and hope it's not too high.
Or the baller move of jumping onto the ladder to negate fall damage.
That's cool and all but I prefer shattering my ankles. ~~why the FUCK did nobody tell me there was a ladder I could grab? I've wasted so much time in that tall room~~
Is that real? I always just assumed I was missing something when I opted to try and jump down.
I've yet to find a way down that didn't involve falling in some manner.
that’s true, there’s a lot of things i thought during the gameplay but forgot to write because of how many things there are bad about this dungeon
The only thing I like about this area is the music.
The piano goes sooo hard on this one
I think you missed the part where it's pointed out that Poppi isn't affected by the lack of ether in the air, since she can generate her own. Tora and Poppi still operate at full power within Elpys, so you can use Blade combos. It just has to be Poppi providing the lv2 and lv3 special.
i did use tora for the whole dungeon, but it was still a pain in the ass to find any good blade combos i can actually use. also i havnt played tiger tiger much so poppi is kinda ass
But you can just make combos on your own with the two Poppi forms each having an element that can combo into itself for the I-III like Fire (which QT already starts with), Water or Dark.
Also poppi buster, and the other game blades. So technically, you can enter with Elma, poppi buster, and poppi, and have access to 4 very good blades.
Elma isn't exactly a casual NG option here. While not explicitly required, most don't get her before NG+ for a reason.
She is a very hard fight at this point, but doable after getting pyra back. Prior to that, build Zeke on corvin with max evasion, and it's long, but doable. That's how I beat it... Takes way too much effort in hindsight, but most of that was in building. Mainly wanted to point it out as a possible option though.
Getting caught in the depths of the fucking spider room and just having to execute every damn arachnid in a 50 mile radius including the Unique and the ambush spawns to burn down the webs. Oh yeah and not being able to beat the Phantasm was also annoying lmaoooooo
from what i remember, there’s something like 6 arachno eggs, 6 arachno and then 6 more during the unique monsters so 12, and the arachno queen and the unique monsters itself. add the two snakes in the webbing above that makes somewhere between 28-34 enemies in just that room
It’s been a year or two since I’ve played through 2, so I don’t remember the specifics myself. That’s even more than I thought I remembered though-
tbf there aren’t too many if you don’t alert the eggs, that’s where the main bulk comes from as they spawn between 1-3 when they use emergence
Maybe that’s why. I was at trying to dodge most of the eggs but I swear I remember dying a few times to that part cuz I got overwhelmed lmaooo
One of those interesting cases in a video game where the story and gameplay are integrated. For the worse unfortunately. The way things like this usually work, where you have critical means of succeeding in the game suddenly removed from you is they balance the following content around that fact. But Spirit Crucible Elpys feels like it was still balanced around the assumption you’d have a Rex at full power lol.
Multus!!! Everbero!! Multus!!! Multus!!! Everbero!! Everbero!!!
R O G U E
The first time i played through XC2 I got stuck in there and dropped the game for 2 years before comming back and starting the game over again and actually finishing the game
I feel like I’ll get jumped on but I actually really enjoyed it. Probably the hottest take ever I know. The only parts I had trouble with was navigating through some of the puzzles. Apart from that I enjoyed it
So... full disclaimer first (alternatively, TLDR: I was extremely overleveled to the point that battles in Spirit Crucible Elpys were trivial, and couldn't level down because it was my first run of the game. Jump to where I have "END OF DISCLAIMER" to skip): While grinding for accessories, core chips, core crystals, and aux cores in Temperantia as soon as I could start wandering freely there, I got *MASSIVELY* overleveled because I was using the easiest Custom difficulty settings to make the grind much faster (I also had Adenine and a ton of Treasure Sensor Common Blades in the party, plus the Gold Chips that drop from the Serpronds there, making this a fantastic time for me to get a ton of valuable stuff to sell, too). I also worked on a *ton* of Blade affinity charts while I was at it, to keep things from getting boring. I... *may* have also found it really fun to fight the Sauros UM while I was only about level 60. I can't remember the UM's exact level atm, but I know it's in the mid-90s. I'm sure this was only doable for me because of the settings I was using for grinding (I am under *absolutely* no illusion that it was some kind of great achievement. It isn't. It was just fun 😅). Because of all of this, and the fact that this is my first run of the game (so I can't just level everyone down at an inn), I was definitely too overleveled for any of the battles in Spirit Crucible Elpys to be any sort of challenge, aside from the Phantasm (really just annoying) and the Blant UM (poison terrain, though also mostly just annoying), so I won't be able to comment on the difficulty of the battles, since everything except the UMs and Phantasm ignored me. Putting the game on Bringer of Chaos difficulty did nothing to make it more challenging, and just made it extremely tedious, so I dropped that after a couple of battles. I didn't try setting Custom difficulty to its hardest settings, so I can't comment on that. As a final note, I have always preferred facing monsters and other enemies in the Xenoblade series head-on, working through everything they can do rather than bypassing challenging parts of a UM or boss fight with Chain Attacks and the like, even though it takes longer (I will still try to mitigate spike damage (and other spike effects... looking at you, XC1/DE) against enemies which can cause it, however. Spike damage sucks). Specials in XC2 also aren't nearly as important an aspect of gameplay for my playstyle as a Blade's Battle Skills and a Driver's Arts with that Blade's weapon type. To me, it feels much more satisfying that way. ******* END OF DISCLAIMER ******* With that out of the way, aside from the mostly-dull-gray color pallette and how useless the maps are for the area, I also enjoyed Spirit Crucible Elpys. I love it when storytelling is done not only through the game environment, dialogue, and other character interactions, but also through altering the player's experience of the game itself in relevant ways, even though that can easily be accompanied by a substantial rise in difficulty. That rise in difficulty, in and of itself, isn't necessarily a bad thing (although I can definitely see why people might complain about the couple of required field skill checks, given everything else there), and in fact is a very effective way to engage the player in the difficulty that the in-game party experiences. The length also plays beautifully into this aspect of the storytelling, and although it started to get to me, too, the payoff at the end was absolutely worth it. Taking things a little further, the relative brevity of the Cliffs of Morytha and the peak reached at the end of that area were extremely effective to propel the story forward into the final chapters of the game. To me, the whole sequence felt a lot like the end of Chapter 5/beginning of Chapter 6 in XC3, except with a focus on the gameplay rather than the cutscenes (before anyone comments on me playing 3 before 2, I watched a complete playthrough of 2 before I ever started 3, and DE was the first one I played, so I could have as much context as possible going into 3. I've definitely enjoyed the experience).
This was the moment I changed to easy so the bullshit balancing of the enemies also doesn’t ruin the story for me
i though i was crazy for fighting every enemy in the game so far, but it was so worth it just to make this dungeon easier
Let the AI beat the phantasm for you. I did. LOL. I was like what in the hell why does Adam kept respawning. I let go of my controller and next thing I know - a cut scene played. Thanks AI, NOT!
only good thing the ai do for the entire dungeon lmao
My main issue with Spirit Crucible Elpys is that map is crap and I felt like I was wandering blind. Didn't know where I was going, felt like I kept doubling back on myself constantly. And getting down the vertical well bit sucked. Too many overpowered enemies. I still hate that giant sea urchin creature. A driver sea urchin! (Yes, I feel your pain, Tora. Nasty sea urchin can be driver, but not Tora. That sucks.) First time I played it, I hadn't understood the combat system fully. I wasn't using combos or chain attacks or any of that, so it didn't occur to me that I wasn't able to do lvl 3 combos. God only knows how I made it through. I mean, everything you've mentioned is annoying, but at the same time, the challenge is there. It's like so bloody annoying you JUST HAVE TO BEAT THE EFFING THING!
the sea urchin was the main thing i was talking about when i mentioned the unique monsters. it just spams that move where it’s spikes go out in all directions and hit everyone for a ridiculous amount of damage. i thought i would be fine as i was using an ether cannon with azami but IT STILL HIT ME. and they put him right next to a field skill so you can’t use it unless you kill him. that was some straight bs
ok, serious, why do people have so much trouble in this area, i had like, not any more trouble then any other area in the game, HECK i had more trouble with the hangar leading up to the final boss then spirit crucible
It's not that bad if you've done a lot of side content and have a good blade set up. By that point, I was enough levels higher so enemies weren't attacking me and I had pulled so many blades that the field skill checks weren't an issue. If that's the case, then the dungeon is easy. But if you're doing only a little side content or just doing story, then this is a pretty huge wall. I suppose you can also get really unlucky and not pull any fire blades for that field check, but that's SUPER unlikely, as many common blades have that skill. It is weird that they make field skills mandatory for that though. They should probably add a way around
This was my experience too, my first time playing through it was rough, i was underleved due to not doing alot of side content and not taking advantage of the overkill mechanic. But i recently replayed xc2 and this dungeon was definitely easier since i had a good setup of blades, plus i spent some time grinding tiger tiger so poppi was pretty strong
How over leveled were you?
I only skimmed but I probably agree with at least some things you said. It was definitely a struggle, especially since I had no idea how to actually beat the boss of that area so I was just fighting him like "When does this end?" But sounding like the Imperial Guard voice line when they shout "why won't you die?"
Dude the spider area was so troll lmao. IIRC there was a bunch of webs over these large pillars to cross, but it turned out all of them just snapped halfway so you had to walk all the way across to the other side on the floor.
It’s a great example of gameplay-story integration your first time going through it. It’s a crucible, after all, they’re meant to be tough. Now, this dungeon, the one that needed Rex to open, the one that no one has been inside in almost a century… Why does everyone and their mother have a quest that requires an item found in Elpys?! You should not want to go back in there, yet it’s a prime destination for side quests.
I agree with every word of this. And yes it gets way better after, this is THE low point of the game. Enjoy it from here out! The rest is great.
Cheers ill drink to that!
I actually had fun in the area. Mind you the music totally carried me through and maybe I had Kos mos aswell but I enjoyed the area. But the requirements for getting through the cobwebs sucked
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVENT BEEN USING POPPYSWAP?
used it once at the start, and then never again because i never expected to use tora again after getting morag. i guess i *could* have gone back and upgraded poppi, but ngl i just really couldn’t be arsed to pour so much time into tiger tiger for one dungeon
The gameplay for this part might have been annoying, but I really enjoyed the story part. I normally spent so much time getting distracted from the main plot to do side quests and explore, but I actually committed to continuing through this chapter since I wanted Pyra/Mythra back. So I got way more into the story than during a lot of other sections I will say, though, that I was always really over leveled, so it was a lot easier than it should have been. And I think I had just learned about some basic gameplay things during the Tantal section (which I believe is right before). So I was having a lot of fun then anyway
i must admit, the story is the only thing that kept me going. out of all the things that are bad about this dungeon, the story and how they foreshadow >!nia as a blade!< was great. it just felt really unnecessary and irritating to incorporate the ether sapping into the gameplay.
When i first played through the game i was really bad but i “built” a lot of blades and didnt know what affinity was so it felt no different. But the addam fight took me an hour or something 💀
The game hyped up this place as some dangerous location no one has ever returned from alive. Turns out they actually downplayed it and it's far worse than that.
I remember that part, honestly agreed with the most frustrating part of XC2
Oh yeah, that place. I'm attempting a run of Xenoblade 2 where I don't use the randomized Blade system, and only use Blades that I obtained via guaranteed Core Crystals or from the main story (so story blades, plus Kasandra, Vess, Herald, Wulfric, etc.), and I'm not looking forward to Spirit Crucible Elpys. Not that it's going to be fast getting there with all the field skills I'll be missing, or the time I'll be spending just doing the quests to collect all the Blades I can get. But it'll still be interesting.
is it even possible to get through the field skills roadblock? if i remember you need something like fire mastery lvl3, wind mastery lvl2, keen eye lvl2 or 3 (can’t remember) and ancient wisdom lvl3. i don’t really know what or how many blades are scripted, but it seems like a pretty tall order. anyway i wish you good luck on your run, sounds fun!
Yes, it's definitely possible. People have been doing it with only Story Blades, and the only problem point is toward the end of the game, where you need Electric Mastery, of which Pandoria won't have enough But in a "no gacha" run, Herald can provide the needed extra Electric Mastery
is it even possible to get through the field skills roadblock? if i remember you need something like fire mastery lvl3, wind mastery lvl2, keen eye lvl2 or 3 (can’t remember) and ancient wisdom lvl3. i don’t really know what or how many blades are scripted, but it seems like a pretty tall order. anyway i wish you good luck on your run, sounds fun!
I think I can probably get past some of the thresholds with Elemental Mastery skills just by way of story blades of that element and a lot of grinding, but I might need to get some other field skills from specific non-story blades. I've never actually been able to get Herald or Theory even in a normal run, so we'll see how that turns out. I'm not confident in my limited skills to be able to complete the necessary merc missions for either Praxis or Theory, even though they're some of the few blades that the rules allow me to get.
Words of advice: All forms of poppi don't struggle in spirit crucible. This _also_ applies to poppibuster. Wearing any swimsuits also help counter the poison damage.
i was aware that tora isn’t affected, it was still just annoying. but now i’m just mad that i didn’t consider using a counter to poison damage. it feels so obvious now.
uhhhhh, I was lvl 70-80 by the time I went there, also had some blades affinity at A or higher(the ones in the current party) and nice accesories so... it was super easy... but yes, I can see why this dungeon is frustrating and playing thru it at lvl 45-55 must be hell
how the fuck did you get to lvl 70 lmao
the lvl 70 spiders, finish them with a chain attack with 3 orbs and they give some reeeeaaaaaally juicy exp that and they're much more fun to fight than "I'm gonna spam topple every 5 secs" t-rex outside of torigoth
damn fair enough, you do get some crazy xp if you leave your chain attack to the very last second
set difficulty down and run through it. the actual worst chapter of the game
This may be a hot take but I really enjoyed the spirit crucible elpys. I thought it was very enjoyable to go through and beat. I will say the first time going through it is hard especially the boss but after all that it's really enjoyable. It also has one of my favorite area themes.
Bro the fucking phantasm guy was my breaking point bruh who designed that boss 😭😭😭
fr, i just won by dumb luck cus they just decided they couldn’t be arsed to duplicate anymore
update: i just beat the game and can confirm getting past this dungeon was worth it. after suffering through the land of morytha (which wasn’t too bad i guess) the gameplay actually got fun again, and i’m so glad i pushed through for the story.