Lulu and the Red Dragon

After some mandatory preparation (fluff about unlocking effects during synthesis) Lulua finally decided she was ready to confront the red dragon with supposedly much higher quality Craft (non elemental bombs). 

I was not convinced. We gave it a shot and got him/her down to 1000/2500 HP before getting barbecued.

Time to think more strategically.

We put Lulu and Piana in support, and traded offensives for heals in their "infinity slots". But Lulu decided to start at the front anyway, cause Tri-Bloom (some defense buff + slow MP regen; likely 3 turns worth).

Although that could have been a react, we got a rough opening with Eva going down in the first round. Initially I replaced her with Piana.

Piana functioned as the team's pillar, mainly used to apply a single target defense buff over and over on a rota; after exhausting MP she just replenished (barely) from some orange potion.

After a couple of turns noticed physicals did trigger a react, so I just put Aurel at the back. Proved a good choice (Aurel has a spontaneous heal). Also found one of the characters had a defense debuff. 

The illusionist comes with infinite mana and an ice spell. Not extremely powerful, but this triggers support attacks (from Lulu, until I swapped her with Aurel and ice cards.

Overall, 5 levels below the boss we won by attrition (20 turns, stable HP throughout).

Neat touches:

  • Support types have strong attacks, which are free (but require a skill at the front to activate)
  • Offensive types have passive heal reacts (how knightly) so they don't idle if for some reason we need them in support.
Overall the system feels like a magic vs physical with an ace (the illusionist). It's not too bad, in that there is reason enough to swap front/back lines depending on foe, and the alchemists are good in support, but also good at zapping lesser foes. 

This is good news: don't want the flashier and cuter contenders to stay on the bench!

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