Tales of Xillia 2 : Shadow Muzet - Leia 2024 solo

Описание: This Muzet is as annoying as Muzet 2(the Enslaved Catalyst one), but for entirely different reasons. Considering my original take,    • Tales of Xillia 2: Shadow Muzet (Master) -...   , I thought it would be impossible to no-damage this before going in, but figuring her out was both an interesting AND frustrating experience =0v.

Muzet has 2 phases. In the first phase, she will attempt to cast spells mostly. This isn't troublesome in itself, but she has two abilities that makes it tricky; more on that later. She has a skill called Grace, that prevents staggering while casting a spell; you can, however, knock her out of the spell the moment after the casting is finished. Most of her normal counters are also usually spells, though if you are in melee range, she might use Illusionary Charge(in air) or whip artes on ground(Fire Whip/Wind Tussle), though this is rare. If she's in the air, she has the Aerial Spell skill, so she will counter-cast while in the air. Being in the air with her casting a high level spell is the best time to rack up damage, and potentially setting her up for a reset after she lands. This phase is relatively novel to deal with, though some of the timings to catch her can be tricky.

The second phase is where she changes to a mostly melee approach. This can be difficult phase if I want to be aggressive(which I do of course). Counters are all her melee artes, but mostly the whip artes, and Illusionary Charge. The whip artes are dangerous because they can auto-turn during the entirety of the attack, so even well-timed Eagle's Rages can get caught even if I end up behind her. She is also more likely to Overlimit in this phase. Even this in and of itself is not "bad"-bad, but due to the aforementioned abilities, it makes this fight a nightmare.

Those two abilities are Emergency Warp, and an ability to "auto-counter" with Sharpened Petals(acSP). Because of Emergency Warp, she gets a free 'get-out-of-jail-free' card. She does it much more profusely than her other two encounters, she can now do it in the air, and she is more than capable of attacking immediately after the warp if the hit she warped on procs a counter. As far as acSP goes, it can proc on any hit; there is no counter notification prompt(she does have an unusual stagger animation), and she just throws it out after being hit. There are a few rules to this:

she can't do it if she recovers(i.e. flips back up after being knocked down)
she can be stopped from using it before its active if she is continuously being hit
if she blue ! counters, it will override the acSP from coming out
she can't do it on a hit that knocks down(unless she resists knock down, via Damage Control, or whatever)

Therefore, in the first phase, I will use artes in a way that will prevent her from using acSP , except in the instances where I bait it(usually with Darting Claw, but i have a couple of setups) into Eagle's Rage on the ground. When she actually gets to cast, I chase, and attack her so that I can hit her right as the casting is finished to hopefully prop her into the air and make her counter there so I can rack up as much damage as possible. In the second phase, I play a bit more patient, and don't commit to too much attacking and just playing really safe. A bit boring, but playing hyper aggressive for 3 mins straight only to lose to a small miscalculation, unregistered input, mis-input, camera mixups after she warps, or slight off-axis attack getting acSP'd was just too much to bear.

I just fly into the sky when she Overlimits. Elemental Hymn is better here than the original Xillia; it has bonkers tracking ability and lasts for quite a while. I just didn't want to deal with it as I lost to it several times =0v.

Note that you could equip a water weapon and inflict skillseal, and you won't have to deal with Grace, but then you'd have to deal with Shock Sphere, which is much worse in my opinion. And attacking her during casting is an easy way to rack up the damage without worrying about retaliation as much.

Playlist:    • Tales of Xillia 2 - Leia 2024 NO Weakness/...  

Modifications made:
set Leia's Max HP to 18(so I can die in 1 hit)
set STR and DEX to 9999(this can be done legitimately at endgame)
changed Chronos 3 encounter to the video's boss and battlefield to Illusionary Darkness; avoids needing to link to deal damage
- result from above caps the encounter at level 77 by default instead of the enemy's original level(if its higher, and it will be for Shadow bosses)

Music:
Axel Ljung - Once Upon a Time in Detroit 3
Jazzinuf - Moonbeams

BIG thanks to @Sora3100 for the cheat table to make this run possible =03.