Hojo never seems to go down well. I'll see what I can do.
Got past the fight and now making my way through the Northern Cave. As for feedback regarding Hojo:
First Form:
- Why does Poodler Prime take Poison damage where Bad Rap Prime Absorbs it? Seems to be none of them should be vulnerable to Poison.
- When either Bad Rap or Poodler is out of the way, Hojo exclusively uses ?? ?? Vial which is Hidden Elemental. As such he can be rendered harmless until the next phase with Escort Guard or Materia=Elemental Combinations in armour.
Second Form:
- Prophetic Hojo exclusively uses Mako Spit once Right Arm is dead. This means with Poison protection on all your characters you have another harmless phase while you chop down his Left Arm or main body. The loss of Right Arm removes 75% of his moveset (He no longer uses his Physical attack as expected but he also stops using Transmute Gas and Rabid Gale).
- Physical attacks from Right Arm seem to fluctuate alot regarding Critical Hits.
Final Form:
- Physical attacks such as Combo and his unnamed Life Steal attack seem to have abnormally high crit rates.
- Cellular Guard and Cellular MGuard seem a bit funny about how they work, is it number of hits or damage dealt that makes Hojo decide which one to switch to? Do Limit Breaks also affect it? He seems to be biased towards Cellular Guard over Cellular MGuard, despite damage or number of hits.
- Phantasm is a hard hitting Hidden Elemental attack which if you're protecting from it like with ?? ?? vial poses little threat, however he has enough other attacks that can pose a threat that this isn't an issue. It's still heavily punishing for anyone not protecting from Hidden.
Summary:
The first two forms are a drawn out prelude to the final form which poses the only real threat. Periods of harmlessness from bosses coupled with high HP pools result in a rather mind-numbing chop down of the first two forms. Once you reach the final form you have the fustration of the inconsistencies of Cellular Guard and Cellular MGuard. The attacks themselves in the final form are fine except for the feeling of RNG screwing you over regarding the Critical Hit chance of his Physical attacks.
Recommendations:
- Give first form Hojo something other than ?? ?? Vial to deal damage to the party. Perhaps a couple different elemental and status vials to keep us on our toes. First Form Hojo and his pets HP Pools are fine as they are as L5 Suicide can efficiently deal with them.
- When Right Arm dies, keep it's ability to use Transmute Gas and Rabid Gale. You'd obviously expect his Physical attack to be disabled but with only Mako Spit to attack us once that arm dies, a party of Poison protected characters render this form harmless. Consider reducing the HP pool to counterbalance the ability to maintain himself as a threat throughout the form.
- During the Final Form, make the use of Cellular Guard and MGuard a bit more consistent about when they are used. It should hopefully make the fight less fustrating, if Cellular Guard and MGuard were based on how much damage of a certain type taken then it could potentially work as a means of determining the Boss HP without Sense.
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Off Topic: Noticed this in the Extra Battle: Gold Match but it appears that even if your Level is a multiple of 5, L5 Death doesn't seem to work at all. I also think you can still access matches which are not unlocked.
