I'm nearing the end of content on another long run, so as I only do these every few months, I'll provide some feedback and notes on my current run and new features that are here that weren't last time I played this deep.
CSdev I'm about to be in Loop 20 and I can choose Judgment or Love:
Code:
Saitama
Boss: Judgment
Damage Mitigation: 23% per level
Preparedness: Final Battle on Day 26
Luxuries: 792% Trauma resolution speed
Elites: 2 Angel Chosen
A battle against the leader of the Devil Chosen. Defeating a Devil protected by two Angels is already a difficult task, and Judgment's unique abilities will only make it harder.
15 Influence
Kyoto
Boss: Love
Damage Mitigation: 30% per level
Preparedness: Final Battle on Day 20
Luxuries: 233% Trauma resolution speed
Elites: 2 Devil Chosen
A battle against the leader of the Angel Chosen. Although Love herself is not a strong combatant, the support she gives to her allies will make them incredibly powerful.
15 Influence
I pathed through all loops 1-10 with no warps. I took Splendor first in Loop 10 and made her my Second-in-Command. I then took the warp from Loop 11 to Loop 14 to minimize the amount of time I spent with Splendor's motivation drain. In Loop 15 I took on Victory and distorted her through Megalomania, which flips two of Splendor's traits: I chose Motivation (of course) and Species Damage.
I got a really good assortment of items this run! Some might say it's
suspicously good. I'll come clean about this run in particular at the end of the post--it's not 100% legitimate, but it's probably 80-85% legitimate.
Items:
Code:
Tomorrow's Newspaper
All Demon Commander customization options are always unlocked.
When purchasing the upgrades which normally unlock those options,
an Evil Energy refund is granted with a maximum value equal to half
the number of items owned. [Currently: 5]
Reason's Pantsu
The highest circumstance penalty to circumstance damage will not be
raised by increasing PLEA.
Splendor's Pantsu
Caress deals +40% damage against targets using service.
Basis's Pantsu
Chosen relationship level no longer provides any protection against Defiler+
and Orgy actions.
Reign's Pantsu
FEAR, PAIN, and SHAM can provide 1 opening level even when their conditions
do not apply. The opening level cap on DISG is increased by 1.
---
Dowsing Rod
When gaining this item, pick one of three offered weak items to gain as well.
Executor Drone
The daily extermination requirement is increased by 100.
Psychographer's Thesis
Forsaken recover 3% Motivation per day.
Hot Tag
When deploying an upgraded Demon Commander, can also deploy a Forsaken of equal or lesser cost for no extra EE. Swapping between them consumes a turn and frees any Captured Chosen.
Broken Shackles
Begin each loop with +20 Evil Energy.
If you're super observant, you might notice that while this is the right number of Items for 20 Loops (10 Items, every odd-numbered loop grants one), the fact that I have Dowsing Rod means that I got two Items in one loop. I did turn something back in to Splendor for Influence, I don't remember what exactly (Inevitability maybe?) so that happened.
I'm basing my thoughts here on the idea that essentially all the "Heavyweight" items are supposed to be very powerful, game-breaking, etc. With that said, Hot Tag is really, really good at opening up options. I love it so much.
I use Hot Tag to choose between any of these three possibilities:
- Usually in the early days of new Loops, I can send out a low-cost Commander with a Drain Punisher along with Slayer, my ever-reliable Undead Demon Knight who is massively specialized in Trauma damage. This is usually enough to get breaks right away and I start the next day with quite a bit more energy than the previous, because of the EE refund from Energy Raider. I like this but it may be a bit too powerful.
- After I get whatever +100EE Distortion I decide to go for (Tempted or Rampant), I can send out monstrous endgame Demon Commanders and Slayer can sit on the sidelines, watch, and give me back 90% of the EE I use for the Demon. This mode is the one that kind of breaks the game? 140EE Demon Commanders essentially cost 14EE when I can do this.
- I can use it for its presumed intended effect and send a powerful Commander that fills in the gaps in any particular Forsaken. This effect is powerful but not game-breaking in my opinion, and I really like it.
My suggestion for balancing: instead of the EE refund for Energy Raider, give them some other ability when used with Hot Tag. If you have a good idea, put it in here, but my own thought is to allow the discount that affects other Undead to apply to those summoned with Hot Tag instead of the EE refund. So if you send an Energy Raider out with a 10EE Commander, it'll calculate reputation strength as if it were sent out with 40EE and no EE refund. Because of the formula I don't think this would result in a big buff in strength--it gets harder and harder to raise Reputation Strength the further away from the "natural" cost of the Forsaken. Just a thought.
Broken Shackles is very nice and does what it says. It's made Sacrificing much less valuable but that's fine. It's very powerful with Tomorrow's Newspaper for starting out loops, but honestly, there are enough ways to get some EE at the start of Loops that this isn't a big deal. And, I wanted to really platy around with Despair, which is a newer mechanic that wasn't there last time I did a long playthrough.
Achievements:
Code:
Residual Energy
Forsaken Sacrificed: 11
Level: 3 (Next: 15 sacrifices)
Bonus: +3 Starting EE
The supernaturally-enhanced bodies of former Chosen make for excellent breeding stock.
This role prevents them from fighting in battle, but it can give you a head start in establishing
new bases of operations. And they tend to start enjoying it before too long.
Impregnation Specialty
Chosen Impregnated: 46
Level: 3 (Next: 60 impregnated)
Bonus: -600% Impregnation Threshold
As the Chosen hear rumors that you're able to impregnate even them,
their lack of faith in their own protections will cause it to become even
easier to do so.
Hypnosis Specialty
Chosen Hypnotized: 47
Level: 3 (Next: 60 hypnotized)
Bonus: -600% Hypnosis Threshold
Much of the difficulty in Demonic Hypnosis comes from finding exploitable weaknesses in the
target's thought process. But all human minds share some similarities, and the more you break,
the more tricks you figure out.
Drain Specialty
Chosen Drained: 63
Level: 4 (Next: 160 drained)
Bonus: -700% Drain Threshold
The Holy Energy which empowers the Chosen is inherently difficult for a Demon to absorb,
but whenever you do successfully begin draining energy from one of the Chosen, her aura
mingles with your own, and you find it easier to draw more of their energy into yourself.
Parasitism Specialty
Chosen Parasitized: 49
Level: 3 (Next: 60 parasitized)
Bonus: -600% Parasitism Threshold
The public loves to see the Chosen humiliated, and as it becomes more common for their
transformations to become corrupted by you, everyone's anticipation for the next such
corruption will do much of the work for you.
Tempting
Chosen Tempted: 50
Level: 4 (Next: 80 Tempted)
Bonus: Tempt requirement decreases 30% per use
The Chosen are carefully guided by their handlers and by society at large so that they don't
even consider the possibility of turning to the side of the Demons. But the more they see
other Chosen being treated kindly by the Thralls, the more willing they'll be to think of
you as a potential ally.
Mindbreaking
Chosen with Aversion: 24
Level: 3 (Next: 30 with Aversion)
Bonus: Aversion requirement decreases 4 rounds per use
The Thralls you bring with you from city to city will gradually build their skills as they learn
how to cause as much suffering as possible to their victims. Every Chosen mindbroken is
a useful example of what techniques work best.
Persuasive
Chosen successfully Negotiated with: 19
Level: 3 (Next: 30 Negotiated)
Bonus: Every Negotiation grants quadruple the Resolve damage to Appeal
A reputation for being reasonable can also be useful for a Demon Lord.
As word spreads that Chosen can influence you by more peaceful methods,
the idea of fighting will become less attractive.
Provocative
Chosen made to Rampage: 21
Level: 3 (Next: 30 Rampaged)
Bonus: Rampage strength increases 20% per turn
When the Chosen completely give in to their violent impulses, they invite Demonic
energy into their bodies, allowing themselves to be corrupted. The more you observe
this process first-hand, the more you'll be able to speed it along.
Heroine Hunter
Superior Chosen Broken: 9
Level: 3 (Next: 15 Broken)
Bonus: Moderate increase to Resolve damage
The public may not know the difference, but the Chosen themselves are keenly aware
that some of their number are far more competent than others. As you prove that
you can convert even the best of them to the Demonic cause, they'll all lose hope
of ever winning against you.
Animal Tamer
Animalistic Chosen Broken: 7
Level: 3 (Next: 15 Broken)
Bonus: Each instance of circumstance damage deals at least 45 damage
Animalistic Chosen are special in that they draw their psychic energy from two sources:
humanity's sense of justice, and humanity's respect for nature. Even after becoming
Forsaken, they retain their connection to the latter source, and you can turn that power
to your own purposes, undermining the resistance of even your most resolute foes.
Ghost Buster
Undead Chosen Broken: 9
Level: 3 (Next: 15 Broken)
Bonus: Quadruples unresolved trauma when deciding whether to perform downtime
activities which generate 2 or more EE
The Undead cause subtle psychic disturbances wherever they go, inducing people to
feel subconsciously less secure in their emotions, and therefore more likely to to
act out in desperate ways. As you begin to bring more and more Undead Forsaken
with you from city to city, even the Chosen defending those cities will begin to feel the effects.
Devil Summoner
Devil Chosen Broken: 5
Level: 2 (Next: 6 Broken)
Bonus: +20% damage dealt by Forsaken
People always hesitate before committing evil, fearful of punishment either in this world
or in the world beyond. But as the Devils themselves fall under your sway, it will
become clear that those who serve you are beyond all punishment.
Angel Corruptor
Angel Chosen Broken: 4
Level: 2 (Next: 6 Broken)
Bonus: x3 bonus for sparing Forsaken, can spare Forsaken instead of sacrificing them
Angels are empowered to reward mortals, but those which serve the Demons can use
this ability in some creative ways. With Angels providing incentive for your minions to
work together, the Demonic hive can become its own twisted sort of 'Heaven'.
Competitive Workplace
Forsaken Recruited as Second-in-Command: 26
Level: 4 (Next: 40 Recruited)
Bonus: Second-in-Command deals +60% damage
When Chosen join you for the promise of becoming your second-in-command, they do
so for selfish reasons. But if they subsequently find out that the position has a high
turnover, they'll work harder in hopes of convincing you not to replace them.
Bringer of Despair
Chosen Defeated Using Accuse: 44
Level: 4 (Next: 100 Defeated)
Bonus: -1600EE required for Despair
Most methods of defeating the Chosen involve causing them to make some sort of
fatal, sinful error that tips them over the edge onto the path of evil. It's easy enough
for future Chosen to convince themselves that they won't make the same mistake.
But when the team seems to do everything right and still simply lacks the power to win,
other Chosen can't help but doubt their own power as well.
The big new achievement that wasn't in last time is the Despair-related achievement, so after 20 Loops I'll give my thoughts--it's kind of boring, and the cost is way too high in late game loops. What Despair requires you to do is spend a bunch of days generating max EE, repeating yourself in a way that this game mostly avoids doing during Loops. There'll be an exact sequence of turns that get all the Chosen to do +50EE downtimes that you'll need to repeat whenever they heal enough trauma to start going to +15EE. Finding that sequence once can be an interesting challenge at times! I like finding that sequence. But I don't like doing it repeatedly. Last loop required 2950 EE in 29 days to get Despair on an Angel, a Devil, and an Animalistic (the Angel was converted through Megalomania, hence the higher cost). But once I worked out how to get 150EE and did the calculation on day 5 or so, I used Cheat Engine to just give me that EE because that is Boring as Hell to do 20 times in a row. I'd like it to not be, so here are some possibilities for you to consider that could enliven this discussion:
- Change it to something else entirely. Gathering a ton of EE through straight linear math is never going to be exciting in the way that new breaks are. I think a long time ago I suggested making something like a counter for how many times Chosen flip from friend to rival, but I'd really just like to see something else here other than gathering thousands of EE.
- Keep it the way it is, but start adding even more extreme downtimes beyond the 1T resolutions, maybe at powers of 10. 10T could be +200EE. 100T could be +750EE. 1P could be +2500EE. If you feel uncomfortable writing more stuff that's obviously going to be very dark just give the EE and don't make up new downtimes. It needs to not be 10 days of waiting after you've already essentially won. This has a side benefit of making Angels a bit more interesting since they can actually get rid of enormous amounts of Trauma. This gives you the option of writing more scenes, so your call really.
- The simple option: if you manage to get +150EE in Downtimes, they've given into Despair as much as they're going to. Just give the player the option of ending the Loop with Despair on all 3 Chosen at that point. Even the Chosen admit that their resistance is just a facade at that point of damage resolution. Give the player a button that ends the nightmare. There aren't any Chosen generating +50EE Downtimes that still feel "I'm making a difference!" (You'd have to do something else for Loops with two Devils I guess). Or, if you get them to +50EE, the Accuse option becomes available in the final battle. Remember that ending Loops early already requires an additional +300 EE or more because of Imago Quickening.
Other, quick notes:
It's really quite difficult to do Megalomania distortion on Angels, even with all the tools I have. If they start doing Invitation to Heaven they can fuck up your plans severely because they have to NOT be surrounded, and they can use that move to get themselves surrounded. It's not a bad interaction or anything, just making you aware of it. At some point you may (or may not) want to change this in some way for Angels specifically as Angels are specifically about giving up everything to protect their friends, and the Thralls running away and giving up at the sight of an Angel who kind of will let them do whatever they want to her just feels a bit... off. Maybe just a different scene writing in general could fix it? I imagine a scene something like the other two Chosen enjoying all the luxuries their status affords while the Angel is getting all kinds of fucked up in battle would be easy to write and fix some of the dissonance here, maybe with changing the button from "Retreat" to "Abduct (Angelname)" would keep the general feeling the same. And then the others don't even try to rescue her...
Splendor fight is still kind of a drag with a long period where the outcome is predetermined but scraping together 300+EE for Imago Quickening is tricky and getting Despair before the Undead drain grows too big is really difficult. It just kind of drags at the end, not sure what you'll do with this information.
The Victory fight is still by far my favorite as you slowly chip away at her resolve. More of this please.
I still hate Splendor's Motivation drain a lot but with warps I only have to put up with it for Loop 11, 14, and 15 if I fight her first. I do that by saving up tons of worthless Forsaken and then Sacrificing them one by one whenever I want to deploy a Forsaken that's inevitably at 0 Motivation. You
monster CSdev .
I'd like it if some sort of variety mechanic were included in Splendor's bargain system? You have similar code for a ton of other things in the game, from making sure Forsaken don't do the same T3 move again right away to putting "rejected" items into a pool that's only offered once the standard pool is exhausted. If I didn't want to make her fight for me on Day 22, it's probably a safe bet that I'm not going to accept her offering to fight for me on Day 23. Offer something else ya dumb bitch! (Obviously at some point she may only have one thing left to offer but this would make it better).
I had a Forsaken hit by Candle of Snuffed-Out Life so hard that she was for all of the rest of the Loop below her Tantrum threshold (she was Rampant so her Motivation deployment cost is negative). It was like less than half as bad as having Splendor damaging motivation but it still sucked. It really sucked that it continued even during the training phase--was any thought given to making this effect wear off after the battle part of the loop is done?
Book of Inviolable Taboo is really really bad for highly specialized Forsaken. Even at level 1 it removes 24k of Expertise. Once you start getting much over 100k Expertise, this represents many full days of training (I consider a good day of training one where I get 8k useful Expertise). At high levels and multiple uses it takes Forsaken quickly from highly focused scalpel to blunt unsharpened butter knife in a single fight. I don't like it can you tell
It's fine to have things I don't like in the game though, it can be dealt with by just having some generic Forsaken sitting around with moderate cost and on an eternal training plan.
Other stuff I'd like while I'm compiling the CS wishlist:
- Make some ladies speak with an accent.
- Make some black and brown ladies. (Image pack modders plz?)
- Make relationships between Forsaken have some weight and influenceable by player decisions. (Slayer keeps tantruming? maybe the other Forsaken gang up on her and silence her more permanently.)
- More interactions between Chosen and civilians, especially in combat. Make it feel more like combat in populated areas, not just full of Thralls fighting a few Chosen. The Capture/Surround text always makes it look like "oops, clumsy me dropping my rifle and slipping right next to a horde of Thralls with my dress pulled up" and never makes it feel like "I have to act immediately to save this poor innocent and I'll deal with the consequences later!" This is an opportunity to make Chosen feel more heroic.
I'm going to do After-Action Reports as I go through the boss fights once I start doing them. This will be my first time fighting either Love or Judgment and I've not read up too much on them, so I'll kind of do so now before I make my decision about which to fight. Thanks to Wiki User Icecoffee for the info, some of which I have verified by the decompiled Corrupted Saviors.jar, but all of which I will trust.
That's my feedback on the first 20 loops thanks now on to the present
Love or Judgment:
Love:
Unconditional Redeemer Love, an Angel of the highest choir of the Chayot, most often regarded as the best example of how the heavenly host should behave. Kind, patient, prudent, steadfast, diligent, and above all else humble, she always seemed to be the living embodiment of virtue itself, very suitable to become one of the Chosen.
For her part, Love knows that the public can be fickle about who they support, and she tried to mentally prepare herself to face the utmost humiliation in exchange for being able to save
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. But even if she's prepared on a conscious level, she privately dreads it even more than the inevitable physical torture she's sure to face.
The one thing that she's not prepared to give up is her pacifism. She maintains a philosophy of never harming others, only helping them, and her strict adherence to that principle is what originally earned her so much respect. She plans on accepting whatever happens to her in order to buy time for her partners to defeat the Demons.
Love hasn't been subjected to any outright torture yet, but she's prepared for it. In her mind, she's already imagined the countless ways that the Demons might make her suffer in order to break her will and turn her against her partners. She just hopes that she'll be able to hold firm when the time comes.
In order to cope with that, Love is prepared to relax her policy of abstaining from sexual relations with others. She has built up quite a lot of sexual frustration over the years since her last human incarnation, and at this point, it looks unlikely that she'll be able to hold off on exploring those sensations as an Angel with Victory as she had originally hoped. She knows that she'll need to use every stress relief method at her disposal to keep her sanity intact until the Demons are defeated.
Abilities[
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]
Angel Chosen:
- At the start of every turn, decreases all allies' Surround durations by 1 turn. Whenever this ability is activated, increase own Surround duration by 1 turn
- Before selecting downtime actions, absorbs 90% of allies' ANGST and Trauma (both resolved and unresolved)
- While two Angels are present, the lower-ANGST Angel will only activate these abilities when they would help the non-Angel ally
- Does not grant bonus Evil Energy for Significant and Minor Vulnerability Breaks
- Alternative Tier-3 Break moves which restore the deployed Forsaken's motivation
- Quadruple Resolve in final battle
- Quadruple Achievement Weight
Selfless Zeal:
- Must always be the initial target for the day's battle
- Stronger Ego Murder, Twisted Reward, Forgiveness, and Invitation to Heaven
- Allies are immune to Resolve loss in the final battle unless they're currently using their species equivalent of one of these moves, regardless of Distortion
- Will never kill allies in the final battle
Unconditional Redemption:
- Every day, allies lose 50% from their lowest (but still higher than 100%) Punisher effectiveness. If this would cause the Punisher effectiveness to reach 100%, the associated T3 Break is reversed. Vulnerabilities which have undergone Total Break cannot be targeted by this effect
Distortion Effects[
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]
Rampage - Trait: Demon Knight (Ruined Exemplar)
- Cannot be trained or deployed. Never tantrums. Passively increases all damage to bosses by +20%. Passively causes all Chosen to take +12.5% damage per Angel ally
Negotiation (if Victory has not been corrupted) - Trait: Flexible Peacemaker (Reunited Owner)
- Enhances the bonus granted from defeating Victory (if Victory is defeated with Despair or Aversion)
- Victory's Infamous Lapdog trait changes to "Passively increases all damage to bosses by +50% and all damage to Animalistic Chosen by +100%"
- Victory's Symbol of Futility trait also adds "-400 Evil Energy required to trigger Despair".
Negotiation (while Victory is a Forsaken) - Trait: Flexible Peacemaker (Pillar of Mercy)
- Whenever Love or Wisdom is deployed, Victory gains a compounding +10% damage bonus for the rest of the loop
- Whenever Victory or Wisdom is deployed, Love's next deployment in the current loop costs no Evil Energy
Aversion - Trait: Dissociative Identity (Redirected Dedication)
- While consenting, training can only increase Disgrace.
- +200% damage
- x2 capture duration
Temptation - Trait: Eager Partner (Evangelist of Hedonism)
- Passively increases all damage to Chosen who have experienced no Morality Breaks and no Confidence Breaks by 20%
Megalomania (if Victory has not been corrupted) - Trait: Ambitious Underling (Contagious Zeal)
Trait: Second-in-Command
- No deployment cost for final battle, training plan cannot increase corruption, cannot train without consent
- Grants one-third the Megalomaniac Forsaken achievement bonus to all other Forsaken
- All Forsaken deal bonus damage equal to half their remaining Stamina, but lose all remaining Stamina after the battle
Megalomania (while Victory is a Forsaken) - Trait: Ambitious Underling (Absolute Trust)
- Deals half damage in battle, immediately grants Second-in-Command position to Victory if possible
- Other Chosen defeated with Megalomania will not replace Victory
- Victory deals +50% damage
Despair - Trait: Humbled Heroine (Residual Respect)
- Automatically Spared when defeated, providing double the usual passive bonus
I don't currently know what her "Stronger Ego Murder, Twisted Reward, Forgiveness, and Invitation to Heaven" means, but I am assuming that like most other bosses it just lasts for more turns.
Love seems like she'd be really easy to break, but that runs a bit of risk of making her Devil companions essentially damage-immune. But, I think that the fairly standard method I've developed of mostly leaving her alone until her partners come in, then hitting them really hard would allow me to get through the Loop in much less than 20 days. I could be wrong though.
I don't really like fighting Devils, because I have to send out Forsaken and get them all fucked up by T3 breaks
I have Forsaken set aside for this specific purpose so it's not that big of a deal, just a thing I dislike as I'd rather send out Forsaken that do what I want them than send out Forsaken to take big hits to their carefully crafted Expertise levels. I like it even less here because Love is going to heal back +50 PE on each devil, meaning I've got to do even more capturing with Forsaken and lose even more to Book of Inviolable Taboo.
If I win against Love, assuming I'm able to convert both her friends, I get two more Devil Chosen for the Devil Summoner achievement, which is one of the best achievements to build. So that's nice.
I don't see that vanilla Forsaken Love has any special traits (like say Victory's Animal Forsaken Leader ability to deal +150% damage if defeated without a Distortion). Since that's the case, I'd want to defeat her with a Distortion rather than trying to chew through 400% Resolve for no benefit.
My analysis of her stated Distortion Effects:
- Rampant: Seems pretty fine. Does this " Passively causes all Chosen to take +12.5% damage per Angel ally " mean that it only works against Chosen with Angels in the loop on their side? I think it does, and I already feel like I've got a handle on Angels in general so this maxes at +25% damage in a fight with 2 Angels I already know how to handle. It definitely would make the Judgment fight easier though and who knows what future bosses might be like?
- Negotiation: I have Victory defeated, so I would get the second form of this trait. Victory might be strong but she's also at -50% damage due to her being a defeated former Second-in-Command so in 20 day loops I'm not going to spend 6 days on her deployment to get her up to strength. Plus with no traits strengthening Love at all she's going to hit like a standard Forsaken so deploying her for free is less than ideal. Plus I can usually deploy her for free anyway with Hot Tag gee this is a lot of words about how much I don't want this one it's bad.
- Aversion: Actually good. +200% damage is a lot, I have an Averted Angel already but doubling the Capture duration is also a lot. Strong contender.
- Temptation: Seems kind of bad? If Chosen come in pre-broken in either category it does nothing. Also I get breaks on like day 1-3 so most of the loop this does nothing. Bad bad no. This ability might be useful if Victory was still in the boss pool, but Love doesn't go into the pool until Victory is beaten. Other bosses may of course change this.
- Megalomania: Probably pretty good, if I'm really sure Victory is strong. I don't know if putting Victory back in the position gets rid of her "defeated Second-in-Command" -50% damage. If it does then Victory becomes quite strong all of a sudden and makes a good 2IC. If not then she's just "OK".
- Despair: might be OK depending on how her breaks work out? I don't know how possible this is considering that she's paired up with 2 devils though. 115EE is the most I can expect to generate day by day and that will take continuous effort to maintain since Love steals back the trauma/angst from her buddies.
So let's look at Judgment:
As Chosen[
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]
Abyssal Accuser Judgment, ruler of Hell and leader of the Zabaniyah, recognized and respected by the various other species of Devils as the foremost authority on the punishment of the sinful. As a fallen Angel, her primary responsibility is to see that the souls of the dead receive what they deserve for what they did during life. However, as one of the Chosen, she also has the duty to fight against the Demons - against embodied sin itself.
She doesn't fight against the Demons as often as
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or
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, but only because her other responsibilities keep her so busy. As such, she doesn't have as much of a reputation for combat prowess. But all of the terror felt toward the Devils contributes towards her strength. She's not to be underestimated.
Ruling Hell has left her little time for building a social life, but she has never been the kind of person to need much human companionship. There's always a wall between herself and mortals due to the knowledge that she may be responsible for determining their afterlife after they die, and among Devils, her place at the top of the hierarchy of Hell means that personal friendships aren't appropriate. Judgment places great importance on social propriety.
Judgment is accustomed to being the final authority within her domain, and whenever resistance crops up, she pushes past it with self-assured certainty. Even when she was commanded to kneel in service before humanity, she became a Devil rather than obeying. That same will is now focused on the destruction of the Demons.
With all the sinful mortals she's judged in her time, Judgment is far from ignorant about sexual matters. But she doesn't indulge in hedonism herself. And when sexual misconduct causes disruption to society, she has no qualms about judging it just as harshly as more obviously harmful sins. It will not be easy to tempt her to fall into pleasure.
Abilities[
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]
Devil Chosen:
- Base damage taken is decreased by double Allies' ANGST bonuses (but never to less than own ANGST bonus)
- Allies cannot pick downtime actions which generate more Evil Energy than own downtime action
- If two Devils are present, third ally must pick downtime action which generates less than theirs
- Alternative Tier-3 Break moves
- Quadruple Resolve in Final Battle
- Quadruple Achievement Weight
Strength and Severity:
- Cannot be the initial target for the day's battle
- Stronger Candle of Snuffed Out Life, Book of Inviolable Taboo, Mutual Damnation, and Bell of Silent Shame
- Immune to Resolve loss in the final battle unless one of these moves has been used, regardless of Distortion
- Cannot be killed by allies in the final battle
- Can win the final battle by herself
After Tier 3
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breaks, Judgement unlocks a stronger version of the Devil Tier 3 tactics.
Slaughter replaced with Severe Candle of Snuffed Out Life
- This move can only be used when a Forsaken is deployed and not currently capturing anybody
- Increase HATE level by 1, then decrease the deployed Forsaken's maximum Motivation by 10% per HATE level for the rest of the loop
- This decrease is multiplicative (so a 20% decrease means that the Forsaken's new maximum Motivation is four-fifths of its previous value)
- A Forsaken's deployment cost will never be greater than her maximum Motivation
- Progresses Impregnation Effectiveness by 20% times HATE level
Fantasize replaced with Severe Book of Inviolable Taboo
- This move can be used on the first turn of being captured by a Forsaken
- ncrease PLEA level by 1, then remove 48,000 per PLEA level expertise from the capturing Forsaken
- The removed expertise is divided between the types of damage used by the Forsaken's combat style, and this can change the Forsaken's combat style
- Progresses Hypnosis Effectiveness by 30% times PLEA level
Detonate replaced with Severe Mutual Damnation
- Unlike Detonate, does not trigger when Captured. Instead, used as a normal move
- This move can only be used while a Forsaken is deployed
- Increase INJU level by 1, then damage the deployed Forsaken's Stamina by 20% per INJU level
- If this brings the deployed Forsaken to below 0% Stamina, then the Forsaken is disabled for the rest of the fight before being reset to 0% Stamina
- Progresses Drain Effectiveness by 20% times INJU level
Merciless Leadership:
- Until Candle of Snuffed Out Life, Book of Inviolable Taboo, Mutual Damnation, or Bell of Silent Shame have been used, allies have x10 trauma requirement to begin using their equivalents of these moves
Trait: Devil Forsaken Leader Deployment removes 10% Motivation from all other Forsaken, +150% damage, Distortion trait changed
Distortion Effects[
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Rampage - Trait: Demon Knight (Runaway Punishment)
- +50% all circumstance damage
- Forsaken who tantrum deal -50% damage but grant +10% damage to Judgment for rest of loop
Negotiation - Trait: Flexible Peacemaker (Scourge of Heaven)
- +50% PLEA and INJU damage
- Uses better between Hostility and Obedience to determine Stamina regeneration
- +15% damage per T1 Break suffered by target and +60% damage per T3 Break suffered by target
Aversion - Trait: Dissociative Identity (Fallen Mentor)
- +50% INJU and EXPO damage
- After every Orgy, the next Capture can target flying Chosen
- Flips an extra negative Splendor trait upon defeat
Temptation - Trait: Eager Partner (Newfound Pacifism)
- Cannot be trained or deployed. Never tantrums. Passively increases all damage to bosses and Devil Chosen by +20%
Megalomania - Trait: Ambitious Underling (Rule in Hell)
- Special Defiler
- Additional effect as Second-in-Command
Trait: Second-in-Command
- No deployment cost for final battle, training plan cannot increase corruption, cannot train without consent
- Forsaken will never tantrum
- Every deployment decreases all other Forsaken's Obedience by 1%
- For every 1% Obedience gained during any Forsaken's training, all other Forsaken lose 10% Motivation
Despair (with any Total Vulnerability Breaks) Trait: Humbled Heroine (Harbinger of Punishment)
- +50% INJU and EXPO damage
- Deployment cost is decreased by yesterday's highest Evil Energy generation among the three Chosen (but never to less than 1)
Unique Defiler: Intimidate (none)
- By spending an action, target Chosen who haven't yet used Slaughter or Fantasize (or their species' equivalent of these moves) will be permanently forbidden from ever starting to do so
Despair (without a Total Vulnerability Breaks) Trait: Humbled Heroine (Diplomatic Incident)
- Automatically Spared when defeated, providing double the usual passive bonus
- Angel Chosen will no longer absorb trauma from Devil Chosen
The Judgment fight is also against 2 Angel Chosen, which will be enough to level the "Angel Corruptor" achievement, which is something I'm making heavy use of with Despair this playthrough. I have fought 2x Angel before, but never with a Devil ally so I'm pretty sure this is the tougher of the two fights.
This fight also gives me 6 days longer than the Love fight and has a slightly lower Damage Mitigation than that fight also. I don't entirely know how well things are balanced at this level but I have paths to victory available, I think.
She uses stronger versions of the Devil Tier 3 Tactics, which I already hate a lot (especially Book of Inviolable Taboo which ruins a lot of late game training progress very quickly). But unlike the other fight, she'd be the only Devil here.
It seems like the major challenge is figuring out how to get her to use T3 moves, because until then her allies won't start using T3 moves, and at least one ally has to start before the final battle can be won.
Again, unlike Victory, she doesn't have a generic "beat without Distortions for MOAR POWER" trait, so I don't see any reason to convert through 400% Morale instead of using a Distortion.
My analysis of her Distortions:
- Rampant: +50% all stacking is pretty good actually considering she starts with +150%. The fact that I can send her out with basically whatever cost I want with Hot Tag, along with a Demon Commander dealing whatever damage she can't, is overall a highly attractive choice.
- Negotiation: +50% PLEA, INJU is going to be quite strong with her natural +150%. Dealing more damage as the Chosen get more broken is much more attractive than dealing extra damage to already broken Chosen. I already have an Animalistic who is fairly strong in this area with some relevant self-buffs from her Punishers, but this is still an attractive choice.
- Aversion: This is the standard Devil trait, except that an extra Splendor trait gets flipped, right? If I already hadn't flipped Splendor's worst two traits this would be quite attractive but as of now the only two left are allowing her to fight for us and an extra +2 Influence per loop, and neither of these benefits seems very amazing.
- Temptation: Seems OK. Extra bonus to Devil Chosen, which are the most difficult for me to start breaking is actually useful.
- Megalomania: Not great for my playstyle. I often get some bitches that won't go along with a Grand Concert until their will has been broken a lot through a +40 Obedience session, which by my reading would put every other Forsaken's Motivation at 0%. Not ideal. The ability to lose Obedience on all Forsaken at once is good but I have enough different usable Forsaken with low enough Obedience that I'm never waiting long for Stamina to come back.
- Despair 1 (with any T4 Breaks): +INJU, EXPO and reduced Deployment cost. With Hot Tag I can generally deploy her for free anyway, so this is less useful for this run. her special defiler, Intimidate, totally keeps Devil Forsaken from using Book of Inviolable Taboo and part of me wants to take it just for that (have I mentioned I hate this? I feel like I have). It also would keep Angel chosen from using Ego Murder and Twisted Reward, which are my least favorite abilities on them, and keep Animalistic Chosen from using Wild hunt which they use all the freaking time. But overall I'm not that interested in reducing the space that enemies move in.
- Despair 2 (with no T4 Breaks): Spared with double bonus is fine. Devils give a lot of bonus in this area, enough to make a difference in whatever stat they end up buffing. Angels no longer using absorption on Devils is huge, but in general my playstyle is much more about opening up new modes of attack for me rather than restricting the enemies' ways of attack, as a matter of personal preference.
So which is better to fight first? Any direct comparison has to consider the fact that the one I don't fight now, I'll be fighting in Loop 25 with increased difficulty. With that additional consideration I think I'm ready to decide on
Judgment
as the target for Loop 20. I'm not sure what Distortion I'll put on her, but I can always decide that later once I can see her Punishers.
Notes on the "legitimacy" of this playthrough
I rushed through this in various ways, most notably by giving myself (Cheat Engine) EE to afford Despair rather than playing through each loop to its natural conclusion. It's certainly "cheating" in a sense to realize that I could gain 1500 EE by playing a battle perfectly 10 times and then choosing instead to skip all of that mess. Even more so because I'm getting extra days of training (which don't mean all that much, my Forsaken are mostly trained how I want them, it just means fewer buttons to click over and over than skipping through combat).
In a similar vein of "rushing" to get to Loop 20, sometimes, rather than finding the absolute narrow combination of factors to trigger Megalomania vs. Angel Chosen, I would sometimes make changes to the number of Surround turns if I was like close to triggering it rather than reloading a save, trying slightly different Demon Commanders until I found the one that was just perfect. I never did this to give myself a Megalomania that I felt I couldn't have earned, I just wanted to get to this place more quickly.
There is one thing that happened that is truly cheating, but surprisingly it didn't involve Cheat Engine at all. At the start of one particular odd-numbered Loop, I think it was during one of the ones that I had earned an "alternative exit" but I'm not 100% sure, I saw the offered items, went into another menu to check something about my Forsaken, and came back to see different items. "Did those items just change?" I wondered, trying it again and seeing a different set of items there. "Yep, that happened." So at one particular point during the game, I was allowed to just... keep cycling through the item pool until I saw something I actually wanted. I should have kept a save and posted it, but at the time I was only thinking of the opportunity to set myself up with one of the good Panties for a good Heavyweight item. I think that was when I picked up Basis's Pantsu, not 100% sure.
If I notice it happening again I'll try to keep a save there and see if it's repeatable. But that probably won't happen until the next time I try a long run--if you can find this and fix it with this info
CSdev that's great otherwise you might have to wait.
