Undead King Overview

We fought a boss whose gimmick was summons and extra body parts made of summons, a boss whose gimmick was that it actually used the Defend command, and now we fight a boss that's basically a Super Necromancer.

Undead King is really not to be trifled with. His gimmick isn't easily trivialized like Hippogriff, and all of his skills are dangerous:

• Zombie Shield makes him a pain in the ass to damage when he's in Winged form, which is, y'know, what he'll spend most of the fight in
• Ghost Dance hurts enough even with just one attack; most characters are liable to die if they get hit twice
• Open Grave means you have to be careful with physical attacks and especially multi-target physical attacks
• Great Ghost Explosion might as well be a game over if you don't have some combination of Material Guard, Magic Shield, Prayer: Blaze, Fire Mist, etc. However, it's only used if there's any Dead Swordsmen left when Undead King's about to change into Standing form, so it's easy to see it coming
• The Price of Life restores just shy of 1/6 of Undead King's HP
• Poison Bomb hurts like fuck; not much else to it
• Freezing Curse Bomb, much like Great Ghost Explosion, is almost guaranteed to be a game over if you don't have some mitigation. The curse is basically to taunt you if some party members survive somehow. However, it's only used when Undead King starts to get below 50% HP or so

As for the summons: Dead Swordsmen are dangerous enough in their own right. They're pretty durable for a boss summon, and they have a 25% resistance to the one bind that's useful on them. Power Break can really badly hamper physical damage dealers, Falcon Slash is fucking dangerous, and Defender can ruin physical damage dealers' day. Dead Bowmen, on the other hand, are jokes--mostly because 150% fire resistance and 511 HP means you can one-shot them with a decently-leveled Fire Bomb, something Lily happily provides, when combined with some other multi-target skill. It's a good thing that they're ridiculously flimsy, too, because all of the Standing skills are easily capable of fucking up the fight.

I'd ask "what're the best party members for Undead King, you might ask?" rhetorically, but the answer is incredibly obvious: multi-target damage along with one source of heavy single-target damage for when Undead King is in Standing form and you can just wail on him. Poison, in particular, isn't terribly great against Undead King himself because it doesn't get the benefit of him being weak to everything, but it can help make short work of Dead Swordsmen.


Now that we have multiple specializations, boss voting will now not only include each character, but also what specific specialization to take into the fight (Alexis, Iseria, Dosen, and Magda excepted).

Alexis: Alexis is a little tough to pin down in terms of usefulness. On the one hand, he's absolutely fantastic for turning Winged Form into a few free turns, aside from Falcon Slash and Open Grave. On the other hand, he does nothing against Great Ghost Explosion--which, admittedly, isn't that big a downside due to the fact that it's easily predicted--and Freezing Curse Bomb, which is an actual threat I can't predict.

Iseria: Much like Hippogriff, Iseria's usefulness depends on the composition of the rest of the party. Any of the elemental Chains are good for wailing on Undead King during Standing form, and Chain Killer can help wipe out Dead Swordsmen in combination with something like Scythe of Cruel Poison or Poison Bomb. Again, though, other party members that can actually provide the triggers for the Chains are necessary for her to do anything.

Sasha:

• Adamantine Dragoon: Sasha is useful, in large part, due to her Basic skills. For Undead King, the skills specifically given by Adamantine Dragoon really don't do much, especially when she still needs a bunch of skill points in earlier skills.
• Gunpowder Dragoon: Same as above--except for Pillboxes. While they horn in on the summon slots, which is a bit of an issue given that Lily is here, they're still incredibly useful for eating and punishing almost anything the Dead Swordsmen can do--normal attacks, Power Break, Falcon Slash, Ghost Dance, you name it.

Cecil:

• Combo Boxer: Actually not terribly useful here. Lemme explain: Combo Boxer, as a specialization, relies on either on binds being somewhat easily-inflicted and useful--and therein lies the problem. Undead King exclusively uses the head in Winged form, and while Cecil can fairly easily shut down Poison Bomb and Freezing Curse Bomb in Standing form, he'll have a hard time disabling The Price of Life, which is pretty bad, to put it mildly.
• Devastating Fistfighter: If Sasha is in the party, and specifically has the Adamantine specialization, we can theoretically try to make good use of Giant Killer and Ougi Rengokusatsu through a combination of Dragon's Roar and Divide Guard. Ask yourself, however: while this sounds like fun to do, is it really practical using two party slots for it?

Raven:

• Death-Bringing Reaper: Scythe of Cruel Poison, at level 9 or even 10 (we do have an absolute boatload of Amritas lying around), really helps with wiping out Dead Swordsmen, and Great Scythe of Cold Ash can deal some serious pain to Undead King himself due to his simultaneous weaknesses to both cut and ice. Beyond that, Undead King doesn't particularly resist paralysis or panic--if I felt like spreading Raven's skill points out a bit, he can take advantage of that, especially if Magda's along for the ride.
• Death-Warding Reaper: ...Doesn't really bring anything specifically useful for Undead King.

Kaelin:

• Master of the Six Ways: Multistrike is unfortunately of limited usefulness, just by virtue of there being multiple targets in the fight constantly. This is a bigger problem than you'd think, because all of the physical skills rely pretty heavily on Multistrike to make themselves useful in boss fights. I could try to dump as many points into Alter as possible and use that--Alter would get a shitton of bonus damage and petrify chance stacks due to the fact that Undead King is weak to everything.
• Ruler of Fire, Ice, and Lightning: Explosion is the name of the game for this spec in this fight, due to the fact that every possible target is weak to fire. I'd normally say TP is an issue...but, well, thanks to Ceric, we have more than enough Amritas to go around.

Lanzon:

• General: Lanzon benefits quite a bit from Lily being in the fight, due to the fact that she can act basically as a ghost dispenser while Lanzon uses the actual skills.
• Spirit-Summoning Necromancer: Hmm... Open Grave combos well with Pillboxes and/or that tank strategy for Devastating Fistfighter Cecil. That's about all I can think of, unfortunately.
• Spirit-Destroying Necromancer: Requires quite a bit of reskilling Lanzon, but the standard rotation for this spec works well enough for this fight, mostly because of Lily acting as a ghost dispenser for Sacrifice.

Gram:

• Falcon-Accompanied Hound: The hawk has a lot of options for multi-target damage, which is a boon for this fight.
• Dog-Leading Hound: Foot Pierce is an okay way of helping chip at the Dead Swordsmen. This is also the, like, one time that Drop Shot is actually really good, because of the fact that the Undead King is in the back row any time he's in Winged form. Don't forget that dog Hounds can function as primary healers, too, between Animal Therapy and Aid Command.

Jana:

• Four Heavens as One Masurao: Jana'll need some heavy reskilling due to the fact that Reflower is necessary for this spec to be worth it. Other than that, a pretty decent choice for damage--assuming we have Alexis to keep Jana from getting instantly pasted.
• Single Peerless Blade Masurao: Pretty okay. It's a bit early to really make use of Helm Divide, but Mist Slice can still be useful here, especially if I get crits with it.

Mio:

• General: Oracle: Dance is, as always, a pretty big boon for parties with multiple sources of elemental damage.
• Heaven's Wrath Shaman: Oracle: Three Runs can really put the pain on Undead King in Standing form, I suppose. Other than that, the spec itself doesn't have a ton going for it.
• Heaven's Love Shaman: I dump on accuracy/evasion buffs a lot, but for a fight where a single hit can mean the difference between winning and losing, Prayer: Evasion has uses, especially if Alexis is around. Passive healing also helps with general longevity.

Dosen: Now that Dosen has a boatload of Herb Boost points, he can help buff up our front row's max HP, which is extra useful if Sasha is our defensive support.

Magda: Magda isn't terribly useful on her own, but she can be a pretty big help for Raven. Smoke Bomb can also lay some pretty serious hurt on a target.


Voting rules are:

• Four votes max
• You must vote for either Alexis or Sasha
• One vote max per party member, please
• You can specify what specific specialization someone should have; if you don't, however, I'll just default to what the character currently has

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