Quick Links
- Mephis/Pheles’ Attacks
- Preparing For Battle
- Battle Strategy
You’ve dealt with the chaff, incompetent antagonists, and mutiny. Heck, you’ve put up with Nanana for tens of hours. It’s time for Crystar to show you its hand. This is the penultimate battle, and the game is not going to pull any punches. No more throw-away narrative slogs – it’s time to show your mettle.
Pheles by herself was a powerhouse of a character when you clashed earlier in the game – even if the fight was cut short. Now you have to deal with a more powerful Pheles, and her partner in crime, Mephis, at the same time. The demons who have been stringing you along this whole time are ready to brawl.
Mephis/Pheles’ Attacks
This fight is chaotic because both of these bosses are flying around launching all manner of death your way. It’s quite difficult to process what’s going on in this fight simply because there can be so many projectiles, orbs, and purple rays flying everywhere.
Mephis and Pheles are both ranged combatants, and they tend to combine their attacks to force you to dodge and maneuver in interesting ways. Their most common attack is an overlapping, fast-moving, homing projectile. Pheles will launch a series of purple bolts as Mephis throws a burst of homing ground projectiles.
Each hit will deal a small amount of damage, but since one hit will lock you in place due to hit-stun, you will likely take multiple hits at once, leading to potentially hundreds of damage. Because Mephis and Pheles tend to float apart, you could be attacked from multiple angles, making this especially hard to dodge. As a general rule, pick a demon, dodge towards it, then dodge to left or right. This should avoid most – if not all the damage.
Mephis and Pheles can also cover about a third of the arena in chains that fall from the sky. You have very little time to react to this attack, with only a brief glimpse of a purple glow on the ground beneath you. If this hits, it will do a hefty chunk of damage. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to inflict any status ailment, like Slow. Keep an eye out for the tell and dodge immediately.
Pheles will throw out a pair of slow-moving homing projectiles from time to time, and these tend to be sent during the Chain attack, or during a combo. These deal decent damage, but also knock you down on contact. This can hamper your ability to fill your Tear Gauge. It has a very clear audio tell, however, so be sure to keep your ears open and dodge.
Finally, both Mephis and Pheles can teleport. This is instantaneous. It makes landing melee combos especially difficult as they could just zip away leaving you locked in a lengthy animation waiting to be punished. This makes ranged attacks especially useful.
Whilst not an attack, one thing to bear in mind when fighting Mephis and Pheles is that they are not your typical humanoid boss. They are immune to hit-stun, interruptions, launchers, and any kind of displacement.
Preparing For Battle
Which Party Members To Bring
You have full access to your party when fighting Mephis and Pheles, which makes a nice change. This allows you to use Nanana, which is something you want to do. Nanana is a powerhouse at this stage in the game. This, combined with her ranged playstyle, make her excellent for dealing with Mephis and Pheles.
Being able to stay away from them gives you better vision, which makes dodging much easier, as well as negating their teleport. Nanana can stand back and launch projectiles all day and there isn’t much Mephis or Pheles can do about it. She is much squishier than your other options, however.
You could also run Rei, who, as always, is just a solid pick for any fight. At this stage in the game, she has access to some incredibly powerful abilities, and her damage should be as high as, if not higher, than Nanana’s. The only downside is her need to get close to her target to be effective. This leaves her vulnerable to point-blank attacks and teleports.
Kokoro and Sen can go in the bin for this fight. Kokoro is way too slow, her skills are not good enough, and her attacks are too restrictive when it comes to range. She falls well short of being comparable to Nanana or Rei.
She’s at least better than Sen though. Sen is a wasted character slot as her stats have long since stagnated. Her terrible scalings have neutered an otherwise interesting character who has some pretty solid skills in her lineup. Pretend she doesn’t exist.
What Skills To Use
For skills, you want to spam Nanana Doodle x3 as much as you can. This skill is ridiculously powerful, covers a large area, and comes out fast. This is the most powerful skill in the game – not just for Nanana. If you can catch Mephis and Pheles with this attack, the damage you will do is staggering. Not to mention, it builds your Chain incredibly fast.
If you are using Rei, you have access to a bunch of useful skills, although Bright Slash and Rain Ray take the cake. Bright Slash deals great damage but locks Rei in place. Rain Ray deals comparable damage, but Rei can move – and even attack – whilst the move plays out. Both are fantastic skills capable of wracking up damage and Tears.
Pick Up Some Items
Because Mephis and Pheles deal high damage, and that damage can be difficult to avoid, you should stock up on healing. This will keep you alive even if you make mistakes. This is especially useful if you are running Nanana, whose health is much lower than the rest of the party.
Panellets and Sfogliatella are must-haves too, as they will boost your ATK and DEF – two stats you want as high as possible when fighting any boss, let alone a late-game one.
One final note, you will not get a chance to stock up after the Mephis/Pheles fight, and instead, you will be launched into the final boss arena. Make sure you are fully stocked before you fight Mephis/Pheles.
Maximize Your Chains
This can be quite a long fight. Mephis and Pheles have meaty health bars, and even with your highly damaging attacks, you won’t easily burn through them. Due to your access to powerful multi-hitting skills, however, you should be building Tears at an unprecedented rate. You will likely be able to activate your Guardian three or more times in this fight.
Due to the ATK and DEF bonus, you want to activate this at every opportunity. Once active, you can more or less tank Mephis and Pheles and relentlessly attack for massive damage.
Consider saving your last transformation for the final boss, as your Tear Gauge will carry over to that fight.
Battle Strategy
Your strategy will depend on who you are using, but assuming you are using Nanana, your aim is to stay back and fire Nanana Doodle x3 as much as possible. This will deal massive damage and boost your Tears. There is no reason not to use this skill every opportunity, so spam it as much as you can.
With Nanana, keep an eye on attacks coming your way. Her HP is very low, so she can’t take much punishment. Down some Sfogliatella to keep your DEF high, negating some of the damage you take.
If you are using Rei, then your strategy would be to target either Pheles or Mephis, and focus them down as quickly as possible. Skills like Bright Slash and Rain Ray are amazing for racking up a lot of damage quickly and should be used often.
Be aware that Mephis and Pheles tend to attack together. Whenever you see a glyph appear under your target, assume her partner is readying an attack also. You will want to dodge behind your target to avoid her attack and then dodge accordingly to avoid her partner’s.
In either case, you will want to burn your Guardian as much as possible. Even Nanana can face tank in this form, so don’t worry too much about taking damage.
Finally, Mephis/Pheles share a boss HP bar, but this does not mean they share HP. Both Mephis and Pheles have their current HP over their heads, and focusing all your attention on one before moving onto the other will make this fight much easier.
With Mephis and Pheles down, it’s time to move onto the true last boss.
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