Game:

Highly Responsive to Prayers (1996)

Duration: 4:43

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aka "Renko turns a tough boss into a mildly annoying one"

Baal Avatar is a dangerous physical fighter. It has only two AOEs:

-Magical Blaze, a MYS element spell it can't use effectively due to its low MAG
-Silent Cloud, which inflicts SIL (I've seen it work on Meiling even with 32 SIL resistance)

The rest of its moves are single target (Slash, Double Slash) or row targeting (Samidare Slash, Iai Slash) physical moves. Its main gimmick is using Demon Slashing Dance, a powerful, row targeting move, every 5 turns (so make sure you keep track of its turns).

All of Baal Avatar's attacks are NON-E, meaning the only way to really tank the moves is to have really high HP and DEF. It has 80K DEF, but only 32K MND, meaning magical attackers perform better. Its only weakness is CLD, meaning Kanako is the optimal attacker for this fight.

It has 6M HP, but once you've depleted 3M HP, its HP and SPD increase per turn, so it's basically another damage race. Despite the Wiki recommending level 210, this fight was giving me trouble even at level 220. I'd spend way too much time just healing Meiling and Yuugi/Remilia instead of actually attacking the boss.

Renko ended up making this a lot easier. The -50% to SPD and ATK makes Baal Avatar a LOT more manageable, though I also accidentally got the PAR effect, and you can see for yourself how long it lasts. Most of the remaining bosses are straight up immune to PAR, but this attack seems sooo busted for New Game+

Music is "Reason Boss Battle" from Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Despite the clearly reused and recolored boss sprite, the Translation Notes for LOT1 says that the Baal Avatar is a SMT: Nocturne reference. I don't really see the resemblance, but Demi-Fiend is a boss in LOT2, so I went ahead and gave this boss its original music.

The boss drop, "Gurthang" is a reference to Lord of the Rings (in other words, it's an Angband / Hengband reference).

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