Dragon Quest XI - Low Level (Draconian) Part 27: Tatsunaga

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Published on June 6, 2021 2:43:02 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sT5oexVvs8

Game:

Dragon Quest XI (2017)

Duration: 11:31

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I'm back after another month-long period of absence, and it is time to face an endgame boss - we're really getting to the end of the main story of this long JRPG. Tatsunaga, though it may not seem like it, is one of the hardest bosses faced during this whole run, in stark contrast to many of the bosses we've faced before him that weren't solo'd by the Hero or another character (Switch-exclusive fights).

The battle is notable for being Serena's debut. Not only is she a capable healer with a great collection of support spells, but she comes with all of Veronica's spells as well. Her ability to occasionally double-cast makes her a comparable debuffer to Rab. Rab may be more likely to connect debuffs with his higher magic might, but having a 2nd chance at inflicting a debuff or negative status is something you learn to treasure, to say nothing of potential jackpots when trying to heal the party (something I still use Sylvando for these days).

Tatsunaga's vicious offensive assault turns the battle into a bloodbath in no time at all. He has a regular physical attack, a claw attack that sharply decreases the target's defence, a full-party bash that can cause its victims to skip a turn (there's a way to secure a 50% protection against it, but it will still proc), and a fire breath flurry against a single target - all while acting three times per turn! Even though our levels aren't too low in comparison to what they normally are at this stage of the game, Draconian (Stronger Foes) still leads to us having a really hard time, especially when we can't effectively use the key character, the Luminary due to him being the only one who's really underlevelled.

I briefly tried a double-attacker strategy in which Jade is joined by either Hendrik or Erik as a secondary attacker, but it quickly turned out I do require the three party slots to all be dedicated to defence, as not dying is a great challenge in this run.

Sap and Blunt do work but miss too often and don't really linger on long enough to influence the flow of the battle in our favour. They are mostly cast when we have a spare turn (very rare). Dazzle is probably the most valuable status to inflict, as all of the boss's non-bash attacks will have a significant chance to whiff, including the fire breath attack, which makes survival way more plausible. Sadly, Dazzle is 50% resisted, but we have to take whatever we can get and cling to that as our only hope for getting out alive.

Casting Kabuff to raise defence, or even Serena's Hymn of Fire, is not a bad idea to help us withstand Tastunaga's brutal assault, but as the battle goes on we're extremely unlikely to keep these buffs up as people die right, left and centre. Kabuff isn't effective protection all the time since Tastunaga's attack is desperate for much of the time, too.

Other buffs of note include Serena's auto-revive spells. There's Alma Matter, which can be used on any character in the party, but which only works when the perished character had more than 50% HP before the last blow - when they die, this requirement is seldom met. However, Serena also has a self-buff called Grace of The Goddess, which targets Serena alone and is effective regardless of her vitality prior to being KO'd. I exploit this by placing Serena at the front of the party, where she is more likely to be targeted, and this helps protect more vulnerable characters (to be frank, nobody here can be considered a full-fledged tank).

On my numerous earlier attempts, I used to switch the Luminary in to cast the Brownie Boost Pep Power, struggling with the fight and reviving my characters non-stop, but adjusted my opening turn's strategy by utilising Yggdrasil's Blessing instead. This is an infamous Pep Power, which can be cheesed when the player has ways of triggering Pepped Up state whenever they like, as the blessing grants the characters nigh invincibility for a couple turns. It's not a long time, but it does ensure we don't suffer too many casualties at the very start, this way preventing the sandbagging from ensuing. We get to start dealing our damage and put up some buffs for the rest of the fight.

This way, the fight is only a tiny bit shorter than my successful Brownie Boost strategy, which had me use up more than a dozen Yggdrasil's Leaves for revival purposes, but so much more reliable and safe. The only time somebody dies I don't even lose my character thanks to Grace of the Goddess.

Perhaps this video makes this boss seem weaker than he really is, as he truly is stuff of the nightmares. If I had poorer luck with Dazzle connecting, I'd yell much harder throughout.

Time to enter the game's final dungeon (of the main storyline anyway)...

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