Quick Links
- Carneades' Attacks
- Preparing For Battle
- Battle Strategy
Crystar’s second chapter heavily revolves around the newcomer, Kokoro. Kokoro, despite her appearance, is very much Rei’s senior, and her story centers on her lost lover and child. Enter, Carneades – the literal manifestation of narcissism and psychological abuse. If that wasn’t bad enough, Carneades is partially responsible for some truly abhorrent events that have haunted Kokoro for quite some time.
Carneades, as is fitting for a Revenant who embodies such abhorrent concepts, is a coward. He will constantly run away from the player, throw out projectiles, and hide behind minions. This fight is a step-up from Epicurean in just about every conceivable way, but it is still very much a learning experience.
Carneades' Attacks
Carneades is a tricky sod that specializes in sending out homing projectiles. If they hit, they will interrupt the player, and cause a status ailment, like Confusion or Slow. Confusion will reverse your controls for a while, which makes it incredibly difficult to fight Carneades or dodge follow-up attacks. Slow reduces your movement speed significantly and gimps your dodge distance.
Carneades can also summon minions to help him during this fight. More specifically, Carneades will summon in Hedonic Alpha – that big Spectre who takes way too long to kill with standard attacks. Hedonic Alpha is threatening enough on his own due to his hefty health pool, and damaging attacks. Having to juggle him whilst avoiding Carneades can be quite the pain.
Hedonic Alpha has two attacks, both of which have clear windups. He will either do a punch, similar to Epicurean, or he will do a ground pound. The ground pound is his most dangerous attack since it will hit everything in a fairly large area.
Again, similar to Epicurean, Hedonic Alpha is almost designed to punish you for getting greedy with your attacks. Because Crystar has input delay, if you push your luck too far, you will get a slap.
Preparing For Battle
Which Party Members To Use
In this fight, you have access to the pugilist, Kokoro, and Rei, the protagonist. Of the two, Rei is who you will want to focus on for this fight. Because Carneades is constantly moving away from you, Kokoro can’t do much here. Her attacks are too short-ranged and far too slow. Many of her skills have too much of a windup to be effective as well.
Rei on the other hand has swift standard attacks, a better set of skills, and is just a better character in general. Rei is also much more efficient at dealing with Hedonic Alpha, making her the clear choice.
Which Skills To Use
Since we are using Rei, we have access to a bunch of powerful skills that can deal with Carneades and all of his nonsense. Before we get into that, we need to get rid of Hedonic Alpha as he will be a real thorn in your side if you don’t. For this, you want Tornado.
This multi-hitting attack will stun and launch Hedonic Alpha whilst dealing massive damage. You can follow this with another cast, and Hedonic Alpha will just straight up die. Of course, Carneades can just summon a replacement Hedonic Alpha, so be prepared to repeat this process several times over.
When it comes to killing Carneades, you have two options – Feather Edge or Power Slash. Feather Edge lets you catch Carneades at a distance, reducing your reliance on getting in his face to deal damage. Feather Edge is fairly cheap and will do decent damage. The downside is this gives Carneades breathing room to throw out his projectiles, which you don’t really want to deal with.
Power Slash, on the other hand, is a very powerful melee attack with a deceptive range. If you get close to Carneades, you can very easily hit with two Power Slashes before he manages to escape your range, at which point, you can just move in close again and repeat.
In either case, you will need to spend some time hitting Carneades or Hedonic Alpha with basic attacks to refill your SP.
Pick Up Some Healing
Providing you are dealing with Hedonic Alpha effectively, you probably won’t take much damage in this fight. Carneades’s projectiles are pretty slow, so dodging them isn’t exactly an issue. If you do take damage, however, having some healing items in your inventory will prevent an unexpected Game Over.
There is a Peddler just before the fight, so pick up some Bitter Chocolate and you will be good to go. There is very little reason to go in with less than a full stack of 20, as they are very cheap.
Max Your Tear Gauge
Carneades, despite being noticeably smaller than Epicurean, is just as resistant to damage. This combined with his constant movement can lead to quite a lengthy scrap. Going in with a Max Tear Gauge solves this issue nicely as your damage will double with your Guardian summoned, and you can deliver a devastating final smash once it’s all said and done.
This is the only time you will use Kokoro too, as she too has her own Guardian and separate Tear Gauge. Before you get to Carneades, make sure her Gauge is full, empty it ASAP, swap to Rei, and do it again. This will deal massive damage, and drastically shorten the length of the fight.
Battle Strategy
Carneades is all about crowd control. You want to smack Carneades around with Skills like Power Slash until Hedonic Alpha appears (or reappears), then focus on him with Tornado. This will keep the battlefield clear, and Carneades won’t be anywhere near as dangerous.
Using your Guardian as much as possible is simply a must. Carneades has too much health to chip away at with weaker attacks. Using your Guardian will cut him down to size, and end the fight much quicker. Remember to use Kokoro’s Guardian too, as whilst she’s mostly useless, her Guardian isn’t.
With Carneades down, you are one step closer to reducing Mirai from the Cogs of Rejuvenation.
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