Update 15

Update 15: If I Ever See This Stupid Rock Again, It'll Be Too Soon

_{Hmm... Am I going overboard on rations? It's just a monster hunt, right? B-But then that group got stranded in the jungle last time this happened...}

Hey, Trin?

E-eep! Um, uh, s-sorry. Hello Astra, can I help you?

Maybe. Can you teach me astrology?

...Astrology take a long time to learn, it wouldn't be something I could teach you in an evening. Besides, you already know magic, right?

No, no, sorry, the... Not the magic kind, the star kind.

Astronomy, then?

Yes! You know things, and I want to know things! I think it's cool.

Mmm. I could lend you a book on the subject, if you want...

Oh, thank you! Although I was hoping you'd teach me yourself...

A-ah... Sorry, I'm not comfortable w-with--

No, it's okay. A book is enough!

A-alright. I'll pick out something for you, uh, by tonight.

Okay! Thank you, Trin!

...Do I really seem 'cool' to her?

Alright, Trin, what do the stars have in store for us?

...Bad luck. R-Really bad luck.

Well, shit, we're already here. Just be careful, everyone.

But--

ASSERTION: NADYM.

Nadym what?

NADYM.

...

Oh, Scatter About. I did not miss you.

Golem

Level: 25

HP: 4608

STR: 46

INT: 19

VIT: 25

WIS: 28

AGI: 18

LUC: 28

EXP Given: 2550

Damage Vulnerabilities:

50%	50%	50%
150%	150%	150%

Disable Vulnerabilities:

25%	75%	25%	25%	50%	75%	0%
10%	10%
75%	50%	75%

Reflection: Counters all fire, ice, or volt damage to Golem with double the amount of damage that would've been dealt to Golem at the caster, as almighty damage.
Rock Hammer: Deals very severe bash damage to one party member. Slow, with average accuracy.
Sledgehammer: Deals very heavy bash damage to one party member, with splash damage. Slow, with average accuracy.
Regen: Restores 470 HP to Golem at the end of every turn, for 4 turns. Average speed.
Endure: When Golem first reaches 0 HP, restores 50% of its HP.

Reflection: Counters all fire, ice, or volt damage to Golem with double the amount of damage that would've been dealt to Golem at the caster, as almighty damage. Initial prep has a 500% speed modifier. Counterattacks cannot miss.
Rock Hammer: Deals 160% melee STR-based bash damage to one party member. Has a 70% speed modifier and a base accuracy of 99%.
Sledgehammer: Deals 135% melee STR-based bash damage to one party member, with splash damage. Has a 70% speed modifier and a base accuracy of 99%.
Regen: Restores 470 HP to Golem at the end of every turn, for 4 turns. Has a 100% speed modifier.
Endure: When Golem first reaches 0 HP, restores 50% of its HP.

Golem is very likely, at 75% HP or lower, to counter being hit with fire, ice, or volt damage by using Reflection on the next turn. There's a small chance it will use Sledgehammer instead, however.
Golem has a chance of using Reflection on any turn where a fire, ice, or volt attack is selected. This chance is very low at high HP, but once Golem falls below 30% HP, this chance is increased quite a bit.
When Golem uses normal Attacks, they will specifically target the party member with the lowest HP.
Golem's chance of using Rock Hammer and Sledgehammer goes up when it gets to lower HP.

If the current turn is a multiple of 5, and Golem is at 50% HP or lower, use Regen.
If Golem was hit with fire, ice, or volt damage last turn:

If Golem is at 75% HP or lower, 80% chance to use Reflection.
Otherwise, use Sledgehammer, targeting the back row.

If Golem is at 30% HP or lower:

If a fire, ice, or volt attack was selected by any party member this turn:

40% chance to use Reflection.
60% chance to use Sledgehammer, targeting the back row.

Otherwise:

30% chance to use Rock Hammer.
60% chance to use Sledgehammer.
10% chance to Attack, targeting the party member with the lowest HP.

If Golem is at 50% HP to 31% HP:

If a fire, ice, or volt attack was selected by any party member this turn:

10% chance to use Reflection.
90% chance to use Sledgehammer, targeting the back row.

Otherwise:

60% chance to use Rock Hammer.
30% chance to use Sledgehammer.
10% chance to Attack, targeting the party member with the lowest HP.

If Golem is at 80% HP to 81% HP:

If a fire, ice, or volt attack was selected by any party member this turn:

5% chance to use Reflection.
95% chance to use Sledgehammer, targeting the back row.

Otherwise:

50% chance to use Rock Hammer.
15% chance to use Sledgehammer.
35% chance to Attack, targeting the party member with the lowest HP.

If none of the above happened:

40% chance to use Rock Hammer.
10% chance to use Sledgehammer.
50% chance to Attack, targeting the party member with the lowest HP.

Drops:

Statue Finger. 100% chance. Sells for 850 en.
- Third-Eye Band (+12 DEF, +12 MDF, +20/30% Base Accuracy): Made from 1 Statue Finger. Costs 1660 en.
3-Lights Gem (Kill while blinded). 100% chance. Sells for 1500 en.
- Septenmelam (+110 DEF, +72 MDF, +5 All Stats; HRO Only): Made from 1 3-Lights Gem. Costs 527000 en.

Anyone in the audience play EO3? Remember that version of Golem? The one that read your inputs and would respond with a counter skill that completely fucked over elemental damage dealers? Yeah, fuck you, it's back.

At least it's optional? Even if you don't set Reflection off it hits hard as hell and lives way too long. By the way, Regen can be dispelled with the War Magus' War Response skill, because Regen is a positive healing buff, and War Response is a negative healing debuff. Opposites cancel each other out.

Ah, good old-fashioned input reading. Talc about unfair.

This version of Golem has a fatal flaw, though: it can't react to Spark Blade's elemental damage properly. Spark Blade is, therefore, a very popular way to "cheese" Golem.

As much as you can cheese a bullshit unfair boss. I call it "leveling the playing field."

wait wait wait WAIT WAIT WAIT JUST A SEC.
YOU'RE TELLING ME I CHEESED THIS THE HARD WAY WHEN I COULDA JUST CHEATED WITH SPARK BLADE???

Vanguard can supposedly bypass Reflection, so Astra throws it on.

Initial prep on Reflection has a 500% Speed modifier, which is unsurmountable for most classes, but a level 2 Vanguard is 5x speed and Links have a 125% speed modifier. 625% in total. Hell, a level 1 Vanguard is 4x which makes links 500%.

Syrel tries to bind Golem's arms to shut off its non-Reflection damage.

Trinity prepares for her only safe attack this whole fight.

And Nadym tries the same thing as Syrel.

Can't touch me, big dumb statue!

Now it actually can't touch you.

Aw, come on, I wanted to show off.

Um, Cason?

Wait, give it a sec.

⚡

Oh, he can do that? W-Why is he not always out, then?

Because he's a lazy shit.

😴

Okay, we are...here... So I should align myself over here...

I wish these took less time to set up.

Ee-ha!

Astra then went on to deal about 80 more damage in follow-ups.

Ka-- Kaboom!

Turn to ru-- Wait, no, you imbecile, rocks don't rust.

We're making good time. Golem hasn't even gotten to do anything yet, which is why I haven't been taking many screenshots.

wow, golem's getting rolled

Aiiiieeeee!

Oh, that grinding rock noise is very terrible, no good, very bad...

⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡

Hey, quit showing me up.

5 turns, and we're already getting Golem to near-Endure range.

Hey, no, that's unfair, you don't get to heal yourself!

...We do it all the time, though.

It's different when they do it!

How?

It is!

Blehhhhhhhh. Jerk.

I have no use for Nadym's Force Boost now, so I just have him use Releasal Spell to get rid of Regen (and also Golem's accumulative resistance to arm binds).

Be purified. In ways which are beneficial to us.

...Oh no.

Yeah, I deserved that...

👋

😤

Okay, that's bullshit.

Hard agree.

See?!

Ow, ow, ow...

Welcome back. We killed the statue, then it got back up.

...Okay then.

If you wanna waste your time, we're not gonna stop you.

Bleck--

That...did not sound good.

Not at all...

We're nearing the end of the fight, so Syrel tries to blind Golem.

Again, apologies for the lack of screenshots, but this fight is mostly just me wailing on Golem while it can't do anything. Until now.

Even I don't have anything to comment. This fight is boring, but it's boring or excruciating. Pick your fucking poison. Golem blows.

Yeah, Golem fucking sucks, I can't even blame you for being jaded about it.

speaking of poison; if you kill golem with ailment related damage (poison, curse, et cetera) it won't use endure. which leads me to how i went around to cheesing this motherfucker at level 20; i whittled it down and clear stance issen'd it.

this has a give or take 65% chance of success assuming you did everything right and if you know me and my rng, you would guess i had to do it twice. wrong! i had to do it thrice.

fuck you golem

How can it have good enough pattern recognition to know to counter magic stuff, but do it at completely wrong times?

Cas, it's a big stone statue, the fact that it has pattern recognition at all is kind of a miracle.

Curse you.

At least Regen heals for less than one Spark Blade.

according to that time araxxor/fetus datamined this, golem checks whether or not an elemental attack was used the previous turn to do a reflect check on the current turn. then again, since spark blade bypasses that...

Ouch, thumb jabbing a rock is a bad idea, ouch, ouch...

if you wish to be a true karate master you must thumb jab a boulder and split it in twain

Alright, you can die now, Golem.

Thank you.

Hey, Trin, Trin, we won! And we got this weird glowy rock!

Y...yay... Ow...

Someone, please treat her-- Oh, never mind, I'll do it.

Yay.

Note to self: request changes to holy armor when we can afford it.

Septenmelam (+110 DEF, +72 MDF, +5 All Stats; HRO Only): Made from 1 3-Lights Gem (Golem Conditional Drop). Costs 527000 en.

Third-Eye Band (+12 DEF, +12 MDF, +20/30% Base Accuracy): Made from 1 Statue Finger (Golem Drop 1). Costs 1660 en.

So, Golem's got the Hero ultimate armor on its conditional drop--decent, +5 to all stats is tiny but decent--and a helmet with a good amount of potential utility on its normal drop. Got a Ronin, Highlander, or Gunner using low-accuracy skills? Slap the Third-Eye Band on them and watch them become way less inaccurate.

C-Cason, a-are you sure this is gonna work?! I-I mean, this is really dangerous, and we waited forever for this weird time stuff to happen s-so--

Trust me, Sharpe, I know what I'm doing.

Do you?!

...Trust me.

Cason!

And now for something completely different: The Pikmin Strat.

"Boring" or "Excruciating"? Nay. I choose the Third Path.

Ridiculous Bullshit.

I love this LP, I'm constantly learning I need to be boulder in my gameplay decisions.

pikmins pikmins everywhere

We wait for Cason to spawn an afterimage, and have Sharpe do whatever he can to keep the two out of harm's way.

Dumb rock.

Waagh!

This'll make Golem inaccurate for a few more turns. As a nice bonus, it'll also keep it from acting before us.

Fun fact for normal parties: Mirage Arrow also causes Reflection to go last, effectively giving you three turns where you don't have to worry about it.

Have I mentioned I love Survivalists?