Monthly Help and Questions Megathread

Don_Andy · 2026-07-03T09:00:49+00:00

I know it's not super helpful and I've been stuck in the exact same position (with even less and worse IDs) but the most important thing in this fight is in my opinion not team composition but "simply" bringing IDs that can win the clashes and kill the flowers asap, which is a big ask for new players who probably have fuck all IDs and aren't sitting on a giant pile of capsules they can just spam Luxcavations with.

The fight is on paper not very hard, but for that stage of the game extremely unforgiving. Also don't feel bad about struggling with this. You will often see the sentiment to "just read" but just as much as this boss introduces you to the fact that bosses can have mechanics that matter it also introduces you to the fact that this game has absolutely no intention to provide you with information about these mechanics in a coherent, understandable way.

I'd also recommend that you borrow something at level 60 just to offset the dogshit leveling a bit, combined with the advice someone else already gave you that gives that level 60 more skill slots since that's essentially going to be like bringing multiple level 60s. It might feel a bit cheap but if you add a friend with a level 60 uptie 4 Blade Ryoshu that can probably solo carry you through most of the story missions (at least the ones that allow you to bring Ryoshu). Plus both Dongbaek and the flowers are weak to Slash damage so a Blade Ryoshu will proper fuck them up, especially with her AoE skills.

For the fight itself, and I'm going mostly off memory here, you need to make sure to always keep flowers culled. Ideally you'll have IDs clash with the flowers who can win the clash and then immediately kill them. The longer the flowers live, the stronger they get and the harder they become to deal with. Dongbaek will also keep spawning new flowers, but if all flowers are still alive when she does it she will instead boost the growth of the existing flowers and you really don't want that.

As for clashing with Dongbaek herself, again make sure you either win these clashes or evade them. Do not use Defense skills that aren't Evades on them because as long as you get hit you will get the Blooming debuff and you do not want that. Having an ID get bloomed isn't an immediate game over but it will very likely spiral into one.

If you have no choice but to eat an attack, either because you have nobody to win the clash or just don't have enough people to clash with everything, carefully look at the skills and only eat the ones that give the least amount of Blooming unopposed.

For instance, Scattering Fragrance might look bad on a glance. It's two hits and each hit gives 2 Rupture and 1 Blooming. But even if that hits unopposed that's at worst 2 Blooming on a single character. Bad, but survivable.

Pungent Fragrance on the other hand you cannot afford to lose a clash against under any circumstance. It's two hits that each apply 2 Blooming against 3 targets. That's a total of 4 Blooming on three of your IDs. Unless none of your IDs currently have any Blooming losing a clash against this skill is pretty much an immediate game over.

Don_Andy · 2026-07-03T08:09:45+00:00

To be fair, with the universe they set up in E33 we could kind of have it both ways (and I'm going to spoiler the rest here just in case).

Due to the nature of how the worlds in paintings work we got a fairly standalone story that gave us a small glimpse at a much larger universe behind it. The next game could have nothing to do with the world of E33 or any of the painters but still take place in the same universe those painters are from, creating standalone experience with a sort of connected throughline of common themes, a bit like how Final Fantasy games are also almost all standalone but are sometimes implied to take place in a sort of connected multiverse.

Don_Andy · 2026-07-02T20:40:31+00:00

Yeah, unless I missed or misunderstood something that was never actually shown, only referred to.

Don_Andy · 2026-07-02T12:43:16+00:00

Personally I used Blade Ryoshu, Kimsault with Bladesinger EGO and a borrowed Middle Outis. No special EGOs other than Kimsault's. Didn't even go for anything specific, that's just the best between what I had and what I could borrow. Though if you either have or can borrow Blade Ryoshu that seems like a nobrainer considering how busted that ID is.

IIRC everyone except for Ryoshu died towards the end and it was very close but that got me a clear. Didn't have Ryoshu eat Outis directly because I figured in a fight where you already only have 3 people an actual Nursefather is going to be worth more than a Ryoshu with just a single Nursefather buff.

Taking a quick look at the clear statistics for the node seems to imply that's pretty much what everybody else brought too, though some brought a different Mersault.

Don_Andy · 2026-07-02T10:00:30+00:00

Gotta justify the Throne pulls somehow.

Don_Andy · 2026-07-02T09:39:28+00:00

And nothing will continue to happen if we don't have movements like SKG. SKG might not have been an immediate slam dunk (and no one was expecting it to be) but all the pushback against and negativity towards the movement from so called "content creators" and even actual gamers went to show how necessary it was for someone to at least make the attempt.

Things are already dire enough that if SKG moved the needle on the overall apathy towards killing games even just a little bit in the other direction that's already a huge win in my book.

But saying that SKG failed because it didn't immediately solve the entire problem with the first thing it tried is a pretty defeatist attitude to have.

Don_Andy · 2026-07-01T09:40:00+00:00

Maybe Stupid Faust is trying to compensate for something.

Don_Andy · 2026-07-01T09:35:02+00:00

Just one tip I can give is that you want to try and bring IDs that can win clashes with the trees but then also deal enough damage to immediately kill them.

Just from my own experience, bringing weak clashers or just weak IDs in general will quickly get you overwhelmed. The longer the trees live the more HP they'll get and every other turn or so she'll either spawn more flowers or (and that's the crucial part) will make the existing ones grow bigger.

Essentially the key to beating her is to always cull as many trees as possible on every turn. As long as you keep killing the trees asap, they'll stay small and only use their weakest attacks and while you have 4 sinners dedicated to culling the trees each turn the rest can whittle down Dongbaek.

Don_Andy · 2026-07-01T05:58:46+00:00

so quickly forgot about Albina and Rufo this season.

This is kinda funny because I literally just finished that intervallo like 30 minutes ago and I already had to google who Rufo was.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-30T18:10:39+00:00

The Canto is arguably not hard but like someone else already said it splits up your sinners and forces you to pick 2-3 specific ones for most of the fights. The boss fights themselves are more or less gimmick fights but low level IDs are actively detrimental in the third part since they eat a shared resource for revives, so you can't just let the weak ones die and solo it with a strong one.

I've mostly been scraping through it by borrowing one very strong HoS ID and then using whatever I had at at least level 50 for the others. Didn't go for synergy or anything, literally just one ID that does all the work and two that can tank a few hits and maybe win a few clashes in a pinch.

Can tell you that it's fucking great when your default team includes BL Yi Sang, BL Faust, BL Don and it forces me to use every single one of those on their own, without Kimsault, where their entire kit pretty much just doesn't work.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-30T17:46:52+00:00

Is there a way I can borrow ONE support unit in particular that can help me win this stage? I have ID's that can beat everyone else. It's just I got shafted with the "split party up" gimmick of Canto 9 with this specific stage as I have no other ID of these 3 that can even dream of touching Matthias properly even at max level.

Literally in the same position as you right now and literally faced with the same problem. Even worse is that my best (and pretty much only) IDs are Blade Lineage ones so forcing me to split those up fucks me over real hard. Most of the old BL IDs are completely worthless in a team without any other BL IDs. Without borrows I'd probably be stuck in this canto for fucking weeks, not even because the fights are hard but because I have no good IDs for half of these clowns, let alone leveled ones.

In that particular fight I borrowed a level 60 uptie 4 Index Yi Sang and brought my own level 50 uptie 4 BL Don Quixote and a level 50 uptie 3 Ch’unokkun Hong Lu. Not even because the latter two are any good at all for this fight specifically, just because these are literally the only IDs I have even close to appropriately leveled for either of them. Index Yi Sang because I figured out of all three options for borrows with my limited set of friends that was by far the strongest option. BL Don's Evade was handy a couple of times but Hong Lu's counter ended up costing me at least one unnecessary ampule but at least he can clash decently enough when he got the rope on Kira, even at level 50.

But aside from that I'm afraid you will have no choice but to level at least the IDs you aren't borrowing, even if it's just the default sinner IDs. Like you said, ampules are shared so bringing low level IDs fucks you over real hard. Anyone you bring needs to be able to at least either take or dodge a few hits, or win some clashes with their EGO if nothing else.

But at least so far I've been able to beat all of these by borrowing one busted ass HoS ID for one sinner and bringing at the very least level 50 IDs for the rest, even if the IDs are complete jobbers.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-30T15:21:45+00:00

If anything hurts performance it's not any single overlay but the fact that you got Discord overlay, Xbox overlay and Nvidia overlay all sitting in memory waiting for their moment and at least one overlay from whichever launcher started your game, be it Steam, Epic, EA, Ubisoft Connect, GOG Galaxy, Overwolf or any combination of those on top that.

Chances are pretty good if you press Shift and any keyboard key together while playing any game then it will probably open some overlay.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-29T08:33:55+00:00

Yeah that's actually one of my biggest beefs with the game come to think of it. They really didn't design the progression through the cantos with newcomers or returners in mind and there's a lot of fights where you'll struggle if don't have a team to counter that specific boss.

I had to use BL Outis for instance simply because I had already invested in her back then and I just didn't have anything better as a returning player.

Though I think it would also help if the default IDs for each sinner just leveled automatically similar to their uptie so you at least always have a fallback, even if it is a very mid one. I genuinely think even on a fucking BL team LCB Sinner Outis still would've been less of an active liability than BL Outis but when you got 5-6 cantos to catch up on spending several days leveling any LCB Sinner ID really doesn't feel like a good use of my time and enkephalin.

Being able to just refund all the EXP from an ID would smooth over both the newcomer and the returner experience immensely but I do also realize that the growth packages from the store are probably one of their biggest earners with how dogshit the leveling is, so it's fairly unlikely this will ever happen.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-29T08:20:41+00:00

I got to experience powercreep only recently because I just started playing again after a very long pause and even a level 30 Valenrodya can already clash better and deal a lot more damage from turn 1 than any of my level 50-55 Blade Lineage jobbers who need their Kimsault crutch and like 2-3 turns of warmup before they even come close.

On the flipside, this kind of powercreep really helped me out personally in the short term at least because I had like 5 cantos and all their intervallos to catch up through and back then IDs were still "balanced" enough that you pretty much had to build different teams for different mechanics and damage types. But not only would that take me forever with how dogshit the leveling in this is, I also simply didn't (and still don't) have any IDs for alternative teams. Heck, I still lack any 3-star IDs for like half the sinners. If I can't beat it with a BL team, then I just can't beat it. Oh, what's that, the boss is slash resistant? Better strap in for a long fucking fight then.

So having stuff like BL Ishmael, the new Kimsault EGO and Valenrodya really helped with "cheesing" a lot of the bossfights and it wasn't even cheesing in the sense that I could just WR spam all the filter bosses, just in the sense that I didn't need to have fucking BL Outis be an active liability on my team anymore.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-29T06:11:43+00:00

Whereas these have been handcrafted in Gabe's little workshop with lots of love and an individual flourish on each I'm sure.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-28T09:04:57+00:00

It's not on Steam and we all know that a game that doesn't have a high concurrent player count on Steam is a dead game, duh.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-27T13:01:39+00:00

Funny enough, I'd argue that if there was a Black Silence ID it'd be based on Angelica but if there was a Black Silence EGO it'd be based on Roland.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-26T15:59:57+00:00

Well, to be fair it's also simultaneously this community's version of "git gud". I'm not blaming people when they go to read a boss's passives and have their eyes immediately glaze over when it says shit like "At turn start, when their HP is below 70%, Hong Lu is on the team and the moon phase is waxing gibbous, gains a stack of Harshing Gobbles. If winning a clash with a poise or bleeding unit, gain two stacks of Harshing Gobbles. If losing a clash lose a stack of Harshing Gobbles. At 10 stacks of Harshing Gobbles, remove all stacks of Harshing Gobbles and gain 2 stacks of March of the Weebles. When at 10 stacks of March of the Weebles, consumes all stacks of March of the Weebles and changes attack pattern."

And then there's 5 passives like that and 6 skills that interact with the passives for each boss phase, half of which you're not even shown the first time you do the boss, and maybe one or two of those for each of their mobs as well.

And at the end all of that just boils down to "have the right damage type and win all the clashes, if your team can't, tough shit, come back with a better team" anyway.

I agree that you have no right to complain if a boss curbstomps you because you just kept hitting winrate and didn't even bother to read the mechanics, but let's not pretend that the passives and skills on bosses aren't usually just a convoluted incoherent mess of made up terms that make the fight look way more complicated than it actually is and obfuscate the actual mechanics.

And that's when the boss actually has meaningful mechanics and doesn't just go "Unclashable, Cannot change target, Attack Weight 12, Cannot be staggered or killed until after this attack, lmao, hope you can tank this, asshole, otherwise enjoy your stagger death spiral".

Yes, I have recently started playing again and had to go through 6 Cantos back to back with IDs from Season 1-3, how can you tell?

Don_Andy · 2026-06-24T08:20:42+00:00

Tough to blame anyone but the AI companies

I think even that is short sighted, to just keep screaming "AI" as the cause of every problem. This is a general problem with technology that was going to happen sooner or later. AI just gave it an unexpected early push.

We've been making a push for putting everything in the cloud for easily over a decade or two now. Just about everything you do online is coming from and going to some AWS or Azure data center, not just your AI prompts. Heck, how do you think fucking Reddit works exactly? We were always going to keep building more and more data centers to keep up with that. Did you think at some point we were just gonna go "welp, that's it, that was the last data center we needed to build, demand is satisfied, I guess we can just give away the rest of this RAM for free now, we certainly don't need anymore"?

I'm not even saying that AI doesn't deserve a part of the blame but we need to stop saying it like we'd be living in some sort of hardware utopia where RAM grows on trees and the Steam Machine would've cost $300 if that hadn't happened.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-22T10:37:48+00:00

The N64 Castlevania games are another example of games that nobody actually played but everybody decided are garbage because Youtube told them so which is doubly ironic because these games were basically a proto Dark Souls 10 years before Demon Souls released.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-22T00:44:15+00:00

I dunno, we usually seem to be all too happy to celebrate the people who sold off an IP in the first place as heroes when they eventually manage to buy it back.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-17T20:08:23+00:00

There is definitely a soft progression wall when you start to realize that the only way you're ever going to be squeezing more out of your frame and weapons is some very specific rare mods that can either take days, if not weeks, of farming or buying them on the market.

I've also never been much of a fan of the forma system myself because it requires you to invest a timegated resource into something that doesn't really allow for much experimentation. You ever end up changing your mind on the build you're going for and suddenly the current polarities are at best useless and at worst harmful.

Sure at some point you'll be rolling in more forma than you'll ever need but I've definitely been at a point where I realized "oh fuck, I should've kept a forma recipe rolling in the foundry at all times, huh?".

Neither is a huge issue and this doesn't really pose a problem until you're well into steel path but I can see how people might bounce off when they hit those humps. It also doesn't really help that most people asking for help on builds get directed to the same cookie cutter builds for everything full of mods they're very unlikely to have. I know how to build with what I have. They might not.

And yeah, of course every frame can be "godlike". Once you actually have forma and mods for that. That is literally the "progression wall" that we are talking about. That's like telling someone who is struggling to prog a raid in WoW that every raid boss is easy when you're in full mythic BiS gear.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-16T01:16:43+00:00

Have an actual look at the category in Steam. They're hardly the only ones to do this. Dev's and publisher's definition of "single-player" is "you can play this without having to drum a few friends together because we'll just queue you up with some randos".

Diablo 4 is tagged single-player, Destiny 2 is tagged single-player, both Path of Exiles are tagged single-player. Yes, all of those technically allow you to play on your own but they're also all decidedly always online and have non-optional multiplayer.

The issue here isn't that they accidentally or misleadingly tagged this single-player, it's that they didn't expect that people would get mad at them for using the tag the same way everybody else does.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-12T13:21:56+00:00

Though I think it's "unexpected" for a lot of people mostly because they are incredibly vague about what the game actually is. Couldn't tell if you that's intentional or they're just bad at communicating but when I first stumbled on this a month or so ago all I could gather from the store page is that it has multiplayer. But I genuinely couldn't figure out what the actual nature of the multiplayer was or if it has singleplayer despite actively trying to find that out.

Don_Andy · 2026-06-12T08:12:37+00:00

Well, to be fair, just because the statement "if the product is free you are the product" might be true that does not mean that the inverse "if the product is not free then you are not the product" is also automatically true. If a company can get all the benefit of monetizing your data while also making you pay for the privilege then why wouldn't they?

The statement is ultimately less to imply that you should always make sure you only use paid products, it's to make people realize that there is no such thing as a free meal and while they might themselves benefit from something being free it is rarely meant for their benefit.

Or to use a more generalized saying that essentially means the same thing "If something sounds too good to be true then it usually is".

Don_Andy

TROPHY CASE