Tales of the Rays - Yuri vs. Gefion (Solo / Hard Mode)
12Yuri solo in a phone game? Why not! Write-up below. No Helper MA was used.
Gefion is the last boss of Arc 1 in Tales of the Rays but she can still pose a challenge to an average solo character four years into the game.
She can cover many ranges fairly quickly with two icicle projectile patterns (straight and around her), a freeze lancer-like beam and a spawning icicle drop on the player's spot. Luckily for Yuri, he can deal with her whole arsenal thanks to Shining Fang's (Ensenga) swift iron stance breaks and Ghost Wolf's (Genrouzan) side switching + invulnerability.
You'll see that much like in Tales of Vesperia, Ghost Wolf is great at opening a sequence, getting out of harm's way and bridging combos.
Because both Gefion's "Freeze Lancer" and icicle drop deal considerable damage even on block (533 for Freeze Lancer, 670-ish for icicle drop), GW is a great way to avoid damage while dealing damage at the same time. The invincibility on it procs early (see 00:09), but it does have a period where you cannot cancel into another move at the end, so a little foresight goes a long way.
If the fight gets dragged into a corner, retreat and let Gefion approach you. She'll do icicle drops after a moment of running away, but as long as you can side switch, you can aggressively avoid taking damage from freeze lancers. 2:22 is what happens if you don't make an effort to create space.
For breaking Iron Stance, the idea is to stay next to Gefion, use GW to evade a potential Freeze Lancer and if she did use it, sneak in a Shining Fang. You can also use it if you think after throwing icicle patterns she'll repeat it as they don't hit point-blank, but you're at the mercy of the AI.
Breaking iron stance is for the most part very consistent but the problem is keeping the amount of necessary hits in my head and any Freeze Lancer typically forces me to deviate from any guaranteed sequences.
That said, if you can secure two GWs, two SFs and nothing else, the second SF will break iron stance during the spinning hits and float Gefion for a follow-up (1:53).
Lifting with SF or Shining Dragon Swarm (Shun'enkazan) are necessary for any semblance of a combo, but Yuri doesn't have much to work with here.
Breaking with first hit of SF or first 3 hits of SDS is a dropped combo, but it's not uncommon for Gefion to block the spinning hits. It's a lot less damage, but she isn't stuffing you with ice which I think is generous for a messed up starter.
So how are the combos? Tiger Blade is guaranteed, even if it breaks through iron stance. Without sacrificing his other key moves that's pretty much all I could do. GW's first hit still combos afterwards but Gefion will recover by the second hit. SF and SDS will drop after the first hit but she often ends up tanking the rest of the hits and thus still nets you some damage.
As a 5-star arte, SDS has a master variation of it if you activate it after the 5th action in a chain known as "Shun'en Shoukazan". The CC cost is high at 17 CC, but damage is good and Yuri is invincible during the whole animation. 34 CC isn't quite enough to entirely lean on artes to reach this master variant without dipping into negative CC which removes backsteps and blocking, so while maintaining my positioning I try to use normal attacks for chip damage and climbing up in an action chain without spending CC. Backstep also adds to a chain and you'll see variations of these sequences throughout the fight, occasionally backstepping an icicle drop to recover CC to compensate for Shoukazan's high CC cost.
Backstepping a move also heals 200 hp because of a Tower Skill. It's not something I'd lean on to heal back to full HP when near death, but it can sustain myself long enough to win. Only 1-hit moves work for backstepping and it penalises with 1 hp damage if you evade through a move successfully.
A small mirrage ratio boost tower skill is also present.
It doesn't stop said oMA from doing it's job, however. With max enhancements Yuri's Divine Wolf "Souen" adds a whopping 1 second of extra stagger time for the next 15 seconds after the MA. This is great, because this MA also allows any attacks to restand the knocked down enemy. Ghost Wolf can convert into an elaborate combo that makes the boss look like a mob enemy. The combo takes all of my CC and then some, so I need a moment to have max CC for it.
Despite a few hiccups, I'm okay with this take. Hard mode beefs up Gefion's stats and iron stance thresholds a fair bit and Rays nerfs meter gain the longer a fight lasts so the exhibited sequences arguably wear out their welcome in this video. I felt I was able to showcase enough aspects of the fight with Yuri here, in comboing, iron stance chipping and neutral situations alike (what it looks like to do it properly and incorrectly).
I hope you like it as well!
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