Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 Major Boss Battle FAQ Started: 4/10/06 Finished: 4/12/06 Redone for submission: 7/26/06 Reredone: 8/6/06 By: Crimson Ink (Jonathan Puglia) Contact: JMPuglia@gmail.com INTRO: This FAQ is written primarily as a guide to beating Satan. No matter what anyone says, he's extremely hard, and requires days of preperation. Ideally, one would read this FAQ near the beggining of their hard-mode run-through and prepare for the battle throughout the entire game. However, it is still possible to beat him otherwise, but with a smaller margin of victory. Areas regarding the three other major optional bosses were added much later because GameFaqs was not allowing me to post a FAQ on just one boss. This seems rediculous considering the hundreds of other FAQs focuing on just one battle, but I digress. I suggest reading the Satan area first for overall preperations, as the other three are not nearly as hard, and would not require an entire game-time of preperation. Much of the information found here is repetitive of Kaoli's FAQ, only with the English version names. However, there is enough of my own input to make it original. Table of Contents: a. Shiva b. Vishnu c. Seth d. Satan A. The Basics B. Him 1. Stats 'n' Things 2. Skills 3. Satan's Affinities 4. Meat & Potatoes C. You 1. Party to Use Stats Rings Skills Placement 2. Items D. The Battle Turn 1 1. First Portion (HP 30000-15000) 2. Second Portion (HP 15000-7500) 3. Third Portion (HP 7500 to just above 1500) 4. Final Blow E. Any Questions? F. Thanks/Legals a. Shiva To fight Shiva, you must have received the pinaka from a parvati. Those chicks in the final dungeon who only cast extremely powerful magic on you. You remember her, right? She shows up alone and blows you into smitherenes until you cancelout your elemental weakness? Ooooh, heeer! Yes, her. With a little help from Item Find (yes, it IS useful afterall) you will eventually find it. You need to level up anyway, so you might as well be patient. In that last vestibule before you encounter the last boss, there are two doors you can not enter. I believe it's the one on the left that holds Shiva, let me know if I'm wrong on that. Anyway, Shiva's main trick is his/her changing affinity. You can't hurt him with anything physical/bullet/hunt and almighty is NOT recommended. The first turn of combat, he is only vulnerable to ice and fire, after that, the rotation begins. What he's weak against each turn: Turn A: fire and ice Turn B: ice and electricity Turn C: electricity and force Turn D: force and earth Turn E: only earth Turn F: any elemental attack return to Turn A Is that it? No. But that's the biggest thing you need to know. I like Seraph, Argilla and Gale/Cielo for this one, making it possible to attack on any turn. Equip them each with the best elemental attacks they have, paired with the Amp and/or boost applicable. Mind Charges are also good. Pyriphlegathon is nice, but has fewer possible turns than, say, zan- or zio-dyne,so I would count it out. Cielo, however, is more likely to have gone down the healing paths, so I had him in. I would give all three of them mediarahan. If only two have it, then mediarama is acceptable on the third, but two is best. Like I said, do NOT use almighty. She gets all PMSy on you and uses Third Eye, which would pose deadly unless in the mid-80s. I didn't find -kaja or -nda skills necessary, so I'm not sure about this, but apparently if you max out either, he flips out and chews you up. Find out for yourself if you like, but I have no info on this. Turn-kill him with Void Death and Void Ailment and the battle will be a cinch. Lastly, if you have physical resist or better, slap it on. Then you don't even have to worry about damage kills. What do you get for beating him? Exp, money, and access to his skill set. Third Eye is pretty sweet, but at this point, you probably have more than enough ability to cream all the random battles anyway, so who cares? Phys absorb,though. It makes me want to scream that you can't get it earlier. Oh, yeah, and did I mention, the TURN RING. Sweet googly-moogly, you get another press turn. b. Vishnu This one is a wee bit harder, but not by much. You need the nandaka that is dropped by Narashimha. He's the Lion looky dude with the sword. He's usually not much of a problem, but once in awhile he criticals about seven times in a row and you realize you haven't saved in a month and then you cry. Yes, him. Anyway, Vishnu also has changing affinites, but it isn't turn by turn and he changes his attack pattern to match his weakness/strengths. He goes by what you hit him with. He generally becomes the element that would resist the last attack he sustained. This goes as follows: Affinity Start: Any element or bullet works. He starts like this. His attack can be just about anything. Affinity Physical: Any element works, but not bullet. He ends up here randomly to throw you off. Or after being hit with bullet or almighty. Expect major physical attacks including Chaturbhuja, an ultimate physical/almighty/random attack that will destroy you and your body parts. Affinity Ice: Use electicity, earth, force or bullet on him. This happens after youattack with fire. Expect Ice attacks like mabufudyne or weaker. Affinity Fire: Same attacks as Ice. Comes after being hit with ice. Anticipate maragidyne. Affinity Electricity: Fire, ice, earth and bullet. Comes after force. Expect Maziodyne. Affinity Force: Fire, ice, electricity and bullet. Comes after earth. You know thedrill. Affinity Earth: Fire, ice, force and bullet. This opens things up to obvious strategy. First, after you finish attacking him,make sure to slap on the appropriate Void-[element]. Next, stay away from almighty, physical and bullet, it's not helping. Besides this, a few pointers: Physical resistance is good, a la Phys Resist, high vitality, rakukaja. Dekaja, dekaja, dekaja. Just have it, alright? Much healing. Sometimes, especially as he realizes you are winning, he usesCaterbhuja just 'cause. Heal it up and be on your way. Having that Turn Ring his great! If you fight Vishnu first, he's harder. But after Shiva, I'd say he's much easier. After this, you get the Aura ring. WOW! +20 TO ALL YOUR STATS!?!?! Sounds great, right? Meh. I'm not impressed. It's nice, but you need more thanstats for the last two optional bosses. At high levels, some stats are already near-maxed, and some of the effect is wasted. Whatever. c. Seth Sethy is found past a previously locked door on the fifth layer. Go to the last Large Karma Terminal and move on backwards until you find it. There are some traps (you'll see) but nothing you can't handle at this point (you should be mid-80s or higher.) Like the other bosses, Seth has a certain way of being beat. A certain stradegy that is almost IMPLIED in fighting him. Seth is weak to bullets, of all things. Everything else is fine (except earth) but it'sthe bullet weakness you have to shoot for. Get it? So the strategy revolves solely around Seraph shooting magatama bullets. Clearly have him in human form, ou probably have enough room for the skill. Puthim in front with the Dual Ring. This means he can attack four times every round if he so chooses. This rate of weakness-striking means that on a turn that has everyone on the field, everyone goes at least twice. Give Seraph High Critical, Counter, and MAX/MIN Critical to maximize his damage output. Obviously, fight Seth at the appropriate Solar Noise. Make the Charge combo available, too (see the Satan section on details) andgive the Synchro Ring to one of the other members to waste only one-half pressturn doing it. I suggest having Pyriphlegethon around as well as the third members' best elemental attack. Mind Charge is nice and Last Word is not a bad idea either. This makes using Argilla alot easier. Give someone Mediarahan. It will help. Two of Seth's unique attacks make the battle difficult despite the air-tight strategy. First is Spiteful Force. It's underwhelming at first, but gets stronger as he loses HP. So have your HP in the 900s via Data, high vitality, leveling, and/or HP- raising skills. Don't let bad data consumption effect your over-all Satan strategy, though. Keep track of what you do. Second is Desert Breath or something. He blows one member out of the battle and knocks them down to 150hp. No big deal, you've go extra turns to bring 'em back. Enjoy! And now.......... Satan ------- The Basics ------ [The REAL intro] So, you've decided to fight Satan. You've gotten yourself in to quite a situation. First off, you have to be playing on hard, which means you have to play through DDS2 at least once or start from a finished DDS file to be here in the first place. Second, you've got to do everything else in the game before you get to fight Satan. Which includes fighting Seth, which means you have to fight Shiva and Vishnu, which means you have to find the nandaka and the pinaka, which means you have to spend excrutiating amounts of time fighting enemies in the final dungeon. You've got this done, right? Well, I bet you think you're pretty hot stuff, eh? Not so fast. You'll find that Satan takes a little more than preparedness. He takes patience, consistency, a high tolerance for pain and, of course, LUCK. It's this last one that makes things so frustrating. Anyway, since you've already fought Seth, you know where to find Satan. Just keep going and you'll end up facing the same kind of room and door you fought Seth through. Save it - naturally. And see for yourself how hard he is. If you make it to five turns without the rest of this FAQ, consider that a win and move on with your life. Otherwise, let's get going. ------- Him ------ How hard can he be? We'll let's take a look. 1. Stats 'n' things HP: 30,000 (if this were a Final Fantasy, this wouldn't be a problem. However, this is a metric &%$! ton in SMT) MP: no less than infiniti All stats: Super high, I suppose. Don't ask. Weaknesses: [See: 3. Satan's Affinities] 2. Skills: You name it, he's got it, practically. Plus some you haven't seen before. I'll describe what they do, roughly when you'll see them during the fight and what effect they may have on the battle. These first four are unique to him: *Futility: This is the FIRST reason he's such a pain. He does this once, before anything else happens. You know all of those Null _____, Resist _____ and Repel _____ skills you've since worked so hard for? They're now useless. With the exception of Null Sleep (which isn't really like the other nulls, and which I wouldn't suggest taking anyway) and Null critical (actually, I'm not sure this stays one, but since he doesn't use physical attacks, critical hits aren't much of a concern). *God's Breath: The other (and biggest) reason he's such a pain. The HP cap is 999. This hits with 9999. No joke. Nothing you can do to survive it. The only way to get past this is by using the Charge combo until at least one of your characters is completely full on all their stat-ups. Yes, one of your characters can have less (because he/she died) than the others. Yes, he WILL use debilitate to knock off your charges. Let me explain in detail. Your stat-ups move from -3 to 0 to +3. Debilitate adds -1, charge adds +1. Using Dekunda brings you to 0 if you are negative (but does nothing if you are positive) and getting dekaja'ed brings you to 0 if you are positive (and does nothing if you are negative). This may seem elementary, but questions do arise. To reiterate, at least one of your characters must be at +3 in ALL of their stat-ups. God's Breath (or dekaja, if you did things right) happens on a certain turn throughout the entire fight, which will be detailed later. *Temptaion: Again, why he's a pain. All of your party is charmed. The effect is 100% accurate unless you have Void Charm or Void Ailment on. Nothing is more dangerous than this besides the above attack. This happens on a set turn at a certain point through the battle. *Retribution: More pain. This kills one character instantly. Apparently, it's the character with the lowest magic stat. This information is consistent with my findings, so I won't dispute. Interestingly, this is the least of your worries, but since it happens twice in a row, and near the end of the battle, it makes it really hard to do alot of damage while keeping up your defenses. Dekaja: He uses this when you've done things right. You'll see. This is described in God's Breath. Dekunda: He really only uses this when you have used -nda skills to a -3. This is why using debilitate only twice is so advisable. Also described in God's Breath. Any time during the battle. Debilitate: Effectively his most annoying "regular" skill, because it gets in the way of using Charge. Also described in God's Breath. Any time during the battle. Mamudoon: This is only a problem during select turns and when you've screwed up. Most of the time, you PRAY for him to use this because it will be a turn killer. If you don't have Void Death on, there's a chance it can kill any or all of your characters. Pretty accurate, too. Any time during the battle. Mahamaon: This is the other skill you pray for him to use. It may wreck two of your guys, but if you are doing things my way, this is a turn killer for him. This reduces your HP to about 1/4. Humans are noteffected by this or other expel attacks (Hint, hint). Any time during the battle. Any and all [elemental root word)-dyne skills: These only show up in the first part of the battle. They aren't too much of a problem. If you are on the right track, you have little to worry about. Damage kills won't happen unless you mess up. Watch out for the one that corresponds to the weakness of your one element-weak character (zandyne, unless you deviate from my plans). An interesting note: Satan likes to keep your guys' HPs close to even to one another. This means he won't typically pound one guy into the ground while ignoring the rest. This is probably the only consession they give you in the battle. You'll end up really nervous because one character is super low on HP while the other's are only kinda low. He'll almost ALWAYS attack the one that isn't lowest. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Any and all [stat root word)-kaja skills: He seems to only do these when he gets a few extra turns to play with. It's wierd, and completely based on if he gets lucky. I suggest using Debilitate one more time, waiting for him to dekunda, and using Debiliate 2x again. It's harder to do later in the battle, though. But like I said, a lot is based on luck. All of the best "Random" elemental skills (e.g. Tempest, Jupiter's Fury): Again, watch for the one you're weak to. There's not much you can do, but watch it anyway. This is where damage kills become possible, so heal when necessary. These happen in the middle part of the battle. All of the Ma-(elemental root word)-dyne skills: Damage kills finally become a real problem, if you didn't already have enough keeping you on your toes. These are at the end of the battle, when things are most hectic. Megidoloan: Never a good thing, but rarely a terribly bad thing. When you've been dekaja-ed it is the most of a problem. Although they happen during any point in the battle, they SEEM to be most frequent at the end, when you're busy worrying about damage kills. At the beginning, though, you kinda hope for them because (since they hit everyone) they increase the chance of someone dodging. Vanity: This is arguably his most deadly regular attack, even though it does no damage. Charm, sleep, mute and confuse are not your friends. This is another thing that makes the luck factor so important (and I don't just mean the stat). Sometimes Satan just gets really lucky and you end up with a dead-weight party. Sometimes he uses it three times in a row and he only mutes the last character (which made me yell with glee). This happens throughout the battle. 3. Satan's Affinities: Like Shiva, Satan's affinities change in a predictable pattern. Predictablility is nice, but change isn't. You mess this up, you're toast. I'm not kidding, either. If you make ONE mistake in this battle, there's a good chance you've blown it all. Satan has 4 rotating affinites that change every round. This corresponds to his physical/elemental weaknesses as well as the set skill he might use. He starts on Affinity 1 and moves through 2, 3 and 4 and goes back to 1. Satan always halves all-mighty damage. Curse and expel skills are always reflected. Ailments and hunt never work. Bullet is considered physical for this FAQ. Turn 1: Physical (bullet) is reflected. All elementals are fair game. Turn 2: Fire, ice, electricity are reflected. Physical, bullet, force and earth work. Turn 3: Ice, electricity, and force are reflected Physical, fire and earth work. Turn 4: Electricity, force and earth reflected. Physical, fire and ice work. What's important: Earth works on turns 1-3. Phys/bullet works on 2-4. 4. The meat and potatoes: First off, Satan starts with Futility. Remember this one? It kills all of your resist/null/repels, including anything from rings. That's all he does as his pre-emptive turn, and you start your turn. Second, when he does go, he gets five turns filled with high-end elemental magic, mamudoons, mahamaons and debilitate. Third, EVERY fourth turn he gets, he instant-kills your party with God's Breath IF you are not fully Charged, as detailed earlier. This needs to be clarified, though. This happens between turns 3 and 4. So make sure you are fully charged. Heck, Charge a fourth time to be sure if you are at ALL uncertain. If he debilitates, Charge more. When you get hit with Dekaja, get Charging. As if Satan wasn't hard enough, he gets continually harder as you fight him. Tempation comes into play after you get Satan to half health (15000). This means you MUST keep track of his health. A calculator is highly advisable. You have to prepare with Void Charm or Void Ailment at appropriate times. First, use it the turn his HP fall below the mark, he will use it just to show you it's there. This isn't true if you use it on turn 3, because he'll use Dekaja instead, but unless you are also keeping track of that on a piece of paper (also advisable, although I just kept track in my head after fighting him so many times. I would do it just to be sure. After the initial Temptation, he then does it between turns 4 and 1. This means that after you get Dekaja-ed, you MUST use your Void Charm/Ailment as well as begin Charging again. Remember this: DO NOT USE VOID DEATH AFTER VOID CHARM! THE SECOND CANCELS OUT THE FIRST! Read that again if you have to, it is imperitive. That's certainly not all. When he hits 1/4 health (7500), he throws Retribution into the remaining two turns. As mentioned, Retribution kills the character with the lowest magic stat. Please, do not try to get around this by evening them out. That makes it random, and you want Satan as PREDICTABLE as possible. This is a big problem when it comes to Charging, but keep in mind that only one character really has to be fully charged. If he kills at random, you can not control who gets all the charges, and if he throws Debilitate in there, things get hairy. Is that it? Of course not! Although I have never witnessed this, Satan heals himself fully if he gets a turn between zero and 1500. That means get him close to 1500 one turn and kill him another. Late in the battle, though, you have very few turns to even get your charges in, let alone attack. An Impel Stone is a MUST. If you used it to survive him getting lucky with a Vanity, you can give it a shot, but it looks REAL doubtful. ------ You ------ 1. Party To Use, all on level 99 of course: Seraph. Seraph is a shoe-in. Stats: In case you've been working on the Strength Stat so far, abandon it. I fought this battle with Seraph at Str in the 60s, the rest were all maxed. This maximizes your defenses and chance for critical. However, Vitality really isn't that important since he uses no physical attacks, and you have room for HP Surge. However, I'm fairly certain Str doesn't affect bullet damage (correct me if I'm wrong) so that has even less effect on the battle. If it DOES effect it, then abandon Vit and max out Str. Max HP are a must, use HP data if you have to. Maybe Life Surge. Since Seraph has naturally higher stats, the least data should go to him. Ring: Give him the Avoid Ring you won from Seth. It didn't seem like much at first, but it is completely necessary in this battle. Skills: As I insinuated, Seraph will be in human form, so no skills, but shooting. This means he attacks on turns 2-4. Give him the Magatama bullet. Human form also turns Mahamaon into a turn killer, great in combination with the Avoid Ring. Set skills include: *Critical *MAX critical (or MIN) *HP Surge (if you need it - I didn't) *Resolution (Lower HP = Higher Damage) *Null Critical (not really necessary) *Human Form *Quick Cure (might as well) *[Whatever else you want. NOT Null sleep.] Placement: Last. He is the support character. He does steady damage and gets criticals, but the characters with skills need to go first, for obvious reasons. Want to try him up front to hope for criticals? Go ahead, I warned you. Cielo. No elemental weaknesses, baby. Plus he's likely to be down at least some of the paths you need him to have gone: ailments, healing, death and stat-ers. Stats: Max as much as possible, except magic. Cielo will be attacking with physical moves, so any and all Power Data you have should go to him. You should be able to see the merit of maxed Vit, Agility and Luck by yourself. If you need to prioritize, though, here you go: Ag, Mag (NOT MAXED), Luck, Vit, Str. This doesn't seem consistent with what I've said previously, but: You ALWAYS need more Ag, Mag is your biggest defense in this battle, you need luck to critical (more important than Str), Vit can be supplemented with HP data and the HP Surge skill, and since you don't need to spend Power data on anyone else, it can all be dumped on him. Ring: Synchro Ring. You need him casting Charge all the damn time, remember? Skills: *Any -kaja skill (to combine with Mind Charge) *Void Death (when Argilla can't cast it) *Life Surge (for obvious reasons) *Salvation (don't settle for less) *Critical *MAX critical (or MIN - your choice) *Any mega physical damage skill. This is the skill you use to finish Satan off, when he's down near 1500 and you have an impel stone worth of turns to kill him. I recommend Divine Light. It will throw on the third Debilitate and has a chance of hitting twice (which is great for high-crit chances). Also, Cielo looks so cool flying through the enemy. *[Your choice. I wentwith Quick Cure. Debilitate, Power Charge, Dekunda and Void Charm/Ailment are all viable options.] Placement: Middle. Sometimes you need Dekunda or Salvation before you can Charge. Argilla: You can try Gale if you like because of Pyriphlegethon. I like Earth's turn spread better. I like Argilla's access to the necessary skills, and I like her stat spread better. You decide. Either way, this is the weakest link because of unavoidable elemental weakness. Stats: Mag, Ag, Vit, Luck, Str. Make damn sure Ma and Ag are maxed. Mazandyne will destroy you otherwise. Dodging and defense are key. Her magic will also be your biggest hitter. One more thing: get her to 999 HP without HP Surge. You need the extra skill slot. Having alot of MP helps too. Ring: Turn ring. Gotta have it on someone. Skills: *Mind Charge (do this when you have a free turn) *Titanomachia *Salvation *Void Death (This should be up every turn, except when Void Ailment/Charm is.) *Void Ailment/Charm *Earth Amp (trust me) *Debilitate (only ever have 2 unless you want him to reset his power with Dekunda) *Dekunda (do this whenever your charge is negative so you don't waste time casting Charge.) Placement: First. You need her casting Salvation and Dekunda. This also makes her the character who always goes twice, so she does a lot of Voiding and gives her the opportunity to use Mind Charge and Titanomachia in the same turn. 2. Items Impel Stone, obviously A couple of Soma Some panacaeas Magatama bullet Avoid Ring Synchro Ring Turn Ring Lots and lots of data (spent before battle, naturally. Get them from enemies on the sun. They're not too hard with lots of Luck and the Item Find Skill. Leveling up to 99 should get you a lot as is.) Revival Orb (why wouldn't you have this???) ------- The Battle ------- Here's the basic structure of the battle: Turn 1, Satan: Futility, nothing else. Turn 1, You: Argilla, Debilitate; Cielo, Charge; Seraph, pass (he can not attack); Argilla, Void Death; Cielo, Charge. 1. First section of the battle (HP 30000-15000): *Satan will be using anything including Debilitate, Vanity, -dyne, Mamudoon, Mahamaon, Megidoloan, and a possible -kaja. On turn 4, he uses God's Breath or Dekaja. *You make sure he has two Debilitates on. If he uses a -kaja, force him to reset. *Make sure you have 3 Charges by the end of turn 3. *Salvation when necessary - when someone's HP are below 500 and/or when there is an Ailment in play. Use an item if you have to. *Use a Soma when MP get low (saves a Salvation turn, don't worry about conservation). *Use Void Death EVERY turn. *Your major damage turns are 2 and 3 when both earth and physical work and you already have your Charges up. Criticals will be flying (I sure hope you entered on MAX [or MIN] solar noise), getting you extra turns. *Mind Charge before using Titanomachia. *You eventually get the hang of it all. Practice actually helps. After about 15 tries (admitantly, not as prepared as I should have been), I started to remember exactly what I needed to do and when. *Satan does ignorable damage during this part, sometimes you get screwed with a Vanity. He'll turn-kill himself often with Mamudoon and Mahamaon, with the help of Seraph's Avoid Ring. *MAKE SURE you use Void Charm/Ailment right after you get him to cross the 15000 threshold. 2. Second Portion of the battle (HP 15000-7500): Take the last part and add a little frustration: *Use Void Charm/Ailment right after you get hit with Dekaja, the next turn is Temptation. This leaves you open to Mamudoon, which SUCKS. That is another little thing you need to be lucky about. *The turn when he uses Dekaja is also particularly annoying because his damage is more significant without your Charges, not to mention more powerful skills. *Watch your health closely, don' t let it go below 700. *After Dekaja, your turn should look like this: Void Charm, Charge, Pass, [Salvation], Charge. That Salvation can be something else, be flexible. It can also be switched with the Void Charm, since Argilla goes twice, but I do that first just in case.If you need to Dekunda before you Charge, go right ahead. If you've got an extra turn because he used Mamudoon or something, then you can try taking a shot with Seraph or using Mind Charge or something. Just remember: you CAN NOT use earth skills this turn. *Continue to reach 3 Charges before turn 4 and such. *When you get him past 7500, brace yourself. There is no stopping Retribution. 3. Third Portion (HP 7500 to just above 1500): *If you've even made it this far, pat yourself on the back. You've done well. Don't get cocky, though. *This is where knowing exactly what's going on is most important. *Your cycle goes like this: Temptation, Retribution, Retribution, God's Breath / Dekaja. *There's nothing you can do to stop Retribution, so you must deal with it. *If things are going right, you can have 3 Charges before turn 2, when Cielo gets killed.That means that you don't necessarily have to use more Charges. Just use the revival orb to bring him back and get whatever small amount of damage you can before using Void Death. *DO NOT CROSS THE 1500HP THRESHOLD UNTIL YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY READY! 4. The Final Blow (HP just above 1500): *Hopefully, as you kept track of his HP, you were able to get him very, very close to 1500. On either turn 2 or 3, your chance arises. *The run-down *Three turns, because Cielo was killed. *Argilla revives Cielo; two turns. *Cielo uses Divine Light, this brings Satan to -3 charge; one turn (or one and a half, depending on if it was critical). *Critical or no, Seraph uses your impel stone. You then have 4 half-turns or 4 halves and a whole. This is enough time for at least one Mind Charged Titanomachia, another Divine Light and a Seraph attack or two. *Congratulations, you've just beaten Satan. Brahman is going to be cake. ------ Any Questions? ------- Anything you want to ask me? Go right ahead and send me an email at the address at the beginning. I'll respond just as long as it has "DDS" in the title. I'll post your questions here. Why I don't recommend Null Sleep: Yeah, you might fall asleep, but this is easily remedied. You have two guys with Salvation. If they are incompacitated for whatever reason, you are already boned. However, if they are charmed, they may attack the sleeping guy, waking him up, making him available for healing. This is a good thing. It's a bad thing if your sleeper dodges and kills your turns that could be used WAKING PEOPLE UP. And that's that. It's one chance for another. Why Cielo has less-than-maxed magic (i.e. the one who gets killed by Retribution): Because he's in the middle. This means the first person revives him and then he is able to go. You don't lose the advantage of the turn ring. He does charge. It's really the best set-up. ------- Thanks/Legal ------- First, I'd like to thank Kaoli for his/her FAQ. I used the beginning of your Satan section for my basic battle plan, but I really developed my own stradegy after that. The reason I wrote my own FAQ was because #1 I did things a little different (and in my opinion, a little better) and #2 because you don't use the American Version names of the skills or anything. Did you have an import? Second, I'd like to thank JaggedJim. Also had good FAQs. He helped me on the boards too. Third, I guess I'm supposed to go on about how you shouldn't be stealing my stuff. I don't know if I really care. I guess I could always get one of my lawyer relatives to sue you, but am I really going to find out? Probably not. Just referencing me would be nice if you do present my material elsewhere. Besides, where else does one need to look for a FAQ?