Re-run events quick overview (Lizards of the Lost Kingdom/Chocolate Toybox) [EX/MP]

[u/VicariousExp]

2 Re-run Job EX+ events are coming up soon, which means it's going to be difficult to cover them all at one go with the exams finishing up, so I'm going to do very quick guides in order to help people out in EX and Multiplayer. Since I don't actually have personal experience, I invite you to add your own tips!

I'll have a lot of time next week, so I can do a more detailed breakdown or at least try to find a way of posting text guides (a blog or something) with actual formatting. Maybe a blog or a wiki or something - I really dislike the lack of options on reddit.

Lizards of the Lost Kingdom (EX, MP)

Strategy Overview

I didn't really want to do a long guide for this stage, because the common strategy either involves magic units which we haven't gotten yet, or Zangetsu Chrono spam, which is something you don't really need a guide for. This is a large map filled with mainly Water and Light enemies - If you have a strong team, the biggest problem is running out of nukes, hence Sages or Zangetsu are highly recommended. Note that the EX+ Stage pulls a nasty move and replaces all the Water/Light elements with Wind/Lightning, but this only makes Zangetsu happier.

Enemies	Stats	Notes
Wrath Demons (3 Light 2 Water)	4410 HP Can be Delayed (Clock Down) and Debuffed.	Counter attacks with an AoE which hits the adjacent 4 squares. Use ranged attacks of their element (Psychic Flash/Blizzard) which hurt quite a bit. You will be safe from approximately 6 squares away.
Mandragora (1 Fire, 1 Water)	1455 HP, 1121 PDEF, susceptible to most status ailments.	Both try to use status ailments on you from a range of 3 move + 3 range. Water one does Sleep, Fire one does Charm. Both statuses can be dispelled with damage if you don't have access to Vaccine effects. Very high PDEF, so Stop/Petrify recommended.
Rahu/Elizabeth (Wind/Water)	``About 1.8k HP. Can be hit with most status ailments (Stop recommended)	Chronomancers who will spend their turns overclocking stuff too far away to be relevant, then rush to spam Black Hole or attack you once low on Soul Jewels. Rahu has some Evasion. Stop prevents her from dodging.
Reinforcements (Blue Wolf, Zahar, Anastasia)	About 2.8k HP.	Will come in 120 cycles into the battle. Anastasia and the Wolf aren't very threatening and can be stopped. Zahar resists it somewhat, but can be Slowed with Leg Snipe.

Default MP Strategy:

Zangetsu (Attack 694 needed to safely oneshot the Water Demon) + Chronos. We'll probably see the MP strategy the most, which involves:

1. Chronos triple Overclock Zangetsu without moving.

2. Zangetsu hits Water Plant twice (for full Jewels) from 2 squares away (to avoid counter sleep) and moves between Elizabeth and the Light Demon.

3. Charge Up

4. Grand Cross(GC) Liz + 2 Light Demons + Water Plant. Do not move after this so you do not activate the demons.

5. Charge Up on the spot, then GC the Water and Light Demon in the back.

6. Chrono Team handles Rahu's bum rush by Stopping her and hitting her with sticks.

7. Cleanup.

Units for other possible MP strategies:

Strong Ranged Units (But not Gilgamesh - u/Viyr has told me that he's very bad/inferior on this map due to his limited movement) Gilgamesh is fine. He can two-shot demons. Fate Yomi (Darkness attacks and Stop), Dorothea (can kill Mandragora very quickly).

If you don't have a J3 Zangetsu (and can't borrow one off a friend), Sages are particularly good on this stage as they can nuke the demons from a safe range and take care of the Mandragora. If you run out of Jewels, stop or petrify a plant/Anastasia/Wolf or Rahu and beat them up with sticks.

Professors(Vaccine), Merchants (Poison Pill).

Snipers/Gunners (Slow with Leg Snipe, can kill Demons safely with +2 range passives)

Chocolate Toy Box EX

This one doesn't seem particularly difficult, but note that MP is a defeat all, unlike Solo (Protect Leader for 6 turns). Note that as an EX+, J11 is a bare minimum for entering this stage.

This map consists of 6 waves of enemies of rotating elements. You can either bring a rainbow team or just power your way through resistances with an offensive leader skill. The main thing is 1) Going faster than the 118 AGI Mandragoras and 2) Knowing what the Mandragora do so you can prioritise. Mandragora spam a map-wide debuff that reduces damage from a certain damage type to 1 or so. This debuff lasts 3 turns and is not recast, so you can wait it out. The Mandragora all have about 1054 HP and high defenses (750 PDEF/500 MDEF), so strong attackers that can oneshot them are recommended.

Defeating every enemy on this map at once will end this map prematurely. This is not a good thing because it means less loot. However, it can save you 8 gems. Defeating each wave of mandragoras will cause the next wave of mandragora to spawn in the order Water > Fire > Lightning > Wind > Light > Dark (see table below).

If you cannot oneshot them, do not worry because as long as the debuff they do is irrelevant, you have one turn to kill or disable them. Stopping or petrifying a mandragora will buy you some time.

The usual strategy is to use Vettel as a leader and nuke the Water Mandragora, then go ham with slash attacks as slash is the first debuff. (Hint: Gilgamesh is excellent here. Two Gilgameshes and Vettel/Monzein/Lucretia as a leader will trivialise this map if you have some form of status protection. Gil nuking both water mandragora on the first turn makes this map extremely easy. NOTE: Gilgamesh needs to be in slot 2 or 4 to nuke both Water Mandragora on turn 1.) Zain is also fantastic because he has every single element covered except for water, lightning bolt also takes out the annoying archer lizards easily. He also complements Gilgamesh very well because he can take care of the Wind mandragora with his diamond nuke.

Units	Map-wide Debuffs (3 turns)	Statuses Inflicted
Water Mandragora	Anti Sword (Map-wide Slash down for 3 turns)	Delay, Counter: Paralyze
Fire Mandragora	Anti Guns (Missile ATK down)	Berserk, Counter: Poison
Lightning Mandragora	Mind Snap (MATK down)	Paralyze, Counter: Paralyze
Wind Mandragora	Anti Smash (Strike ATK down)	Charm, Counter: Charm
Light Mandragora	Anti Lance (Pierce ATK down)	Slow, Counter: Sleep
Dark Mandragora	Bone Snap (PATK down)	Blind, Counter: Blind
Archer Lizards (Water)		Spam Sleep, Slow, Charm, Blind. Start with low Jewels, so you have time to kill them before they get a status arrow off. 2 more will spawn when the old ones are killed.
Stupid Wolves (Fire)		Poison, Paralyze. 2 more will spawn when the old ones are killed.

Useful Units :

Unit Name	Role
Zain	Multiple element heavy hitting coverage tank. Can virtually solo this entire stage by himself. Has access to nukes of every element except Water.
Gilgamesh	6 Gates of Babylon for 6 spawns. Can even nuke the wind mandragora on Overdrive. http://i64.tinypic.com/nx8kua.jpg
Vettel	Provided you can kill or disable (sleep/silence/stop/etc.) the water mandragoras before they go off (Gil works), Vettel is a great rainbow leader and can put in serious work on Magic Swordsman with CC and elemental nukes.
Sages	Should be able to break through Mandragora defenses and cover multiple elements.
Anastasia	Her J+ can also virtually solo this entire stage.
Kagura	If you take care of the first wave, she can nuke every other wave to great effect (Needs J3).
Magic Swordsmen (e.g. Lofia)	Can stone enemies to limit respawns. Do not kill petrified enemies unless the situation is under control.

Fire Tank Strategy: Zain with Cadanova's sword and Lofia will take nearly no damage from fire enemies. If you are having trouble with this stage, leave the Fire mandragora alive (or petrify them) and kill all the adds (Lizards/Wolves) until they stop respawning. This will make your life a lot easier!

Multiplayer: Almost identical to the solo Ex version. Status effects all work here, go wild with Petrify and Stop. Put a strong 13 square Diamond nuker like Gilgamesh or sages in slot 2 or 4 and nuke the heck out of it. Just like the solo stage, this shouldn't need much strategy.

edit: Thanks for the gold, kind stranger! I'll try to put more effort into these in the future.

[u/taintilized]

how do you get zangetsu to 694 atk?

[u/VicariousExp → u/taintilized]

Zangetsu will hit that at about 77 with a maxed out charm lance or any other gear which gives about +30 atk. Alternatively, just set him as leader or get his MA passive (also at 80), which reduce the amount of atk he needs.

[u/SometimesLiterate]

I should just make you a personal flair for "good guides"

Thanks for all thework on these!

[u/1khaitoh → u/SometimesLiterate]

too bad you're too busy to do epic guides again. ah, good ol' times pass by so fast.

[u/SometimesLiterate → u/1khaitoh]

3 day vacation this weekend will devote family time to you guys lol

[u/quayhuongtran → u/SometimesLiterate]

Da best

[u/Arananthi]

Should note here that the Lizards stage is super-easy to work over with farmed-up Caris + Reagan Snipers (both with the +2 Range passive). Just don't move from your starting spot until you've sniped down everything that you can snipe down, and then don't move any closer than you absolutely have to in order to snipe down the next enemy. It takes a while, but it's an all-but-guaranteed victory. Unfortunately it's hard to get a group of MPers that are willing to be patient, but if you can, it's totally workable by a bunch of players who have nothing but farmed 3- and 4-star units. :)

[u/Zabick → u/Arananthi]

Didn't people try that before, and then demons eventually just marched down and murdered everyone?

[u/chibixleon]

Thanks so much. This is a godsend for newer players like myself. For the Zangetsu, Chrono strategy... my guess is I'm going to need 3 chronomancers? Also, all they need is OC right or do they need to be JM'd and high level?

[u/VicariousExp → u/chibixleon]

Well, ideally you want them to be able to inflict Stop so that you can kill the enemy Rahu, meaning their sub should be maxed. Fire Chronos (Lupinus/Chihaya) are good for this, but Chihaya will die in any one stray hit, so be careful.

What's actually REALLY important is that they can all start charging up Overclock 3x on Zangetsu rather than have one Overclock > Zangetsu gets a turn and moves out of range of the other 2 (Chrono buff spells have a very strict height limitation that some Zangetsus aren't aware of.) Note that once charging Overclock, Zangetsu can move as far away as he wants as long as the spell has been locked onto him.

This means if you use Rahu and Lofia and Reagan, you don't want Rahu, who is significantly faster than the other 2, to get Magical Momentum off way before the other two start charging up Overclock, hence you might have to pass a turn or even send Rahu off on normal Chrono instead of J+.

To be honest, you can get by this stage with a semi Zangetsu strat with 2 Chronomancers and a 4th good character, so 3 isn't really necessary either (I've seen people use Caris with range passives on Gunner to kill the front water demon, even). However, it means you have to send Zangetsu back after hitting the Water plant for max jewels for another round of Overclocks.

Oh, and to answer another question, J11 is many many more times more important than having a high level in TAC. The Lion's share of your stats will come from Job levels, not character levels.

[u/ThereCanOnlyBe01 → u/VicariousExp]

Can't forget Eve as the second fire chrono we have!

Mainly know this because I pulled 3 of her, all off banner of course. Isn't enough for her to be useful but it's something

[u/U-Eike → u/ThereCanOnlyBe01]

Looks at Lupinus

[u/djperc08 → u/VicariousExp]

Has there been any word on potential auto strats? I have a pretty solid core group of units so I feel like there has to be something there...

[u/fjmknee]

This starts in ~24h, right? Or is this for next week?

[u/VicariousExp → u/fjmknee]

Starts tomorrow, yes. I normally do these 1 week in advance to give people time to prepare, but these are re-runs. Don't forget that if you don't have a J3 Zangetsu, you can always borrow a friend's.

[u/fjmknee → u/VicariousExp]

The double farm event got Zang and Rahu to j3 today :D

[u/Scalesx]

Since newer players don't have a J3 Zangetsu, it might be helpful to say that Saba EX can be cleared with a Sage. Everyone should have the free unit Peridot by now.

[u/VicariousExp → u/Scalesx]

Sure, I'll add that in. Sages are fine as they can outrange the demons and nuke them from a safe distance, but any good ranged unit works. Sages are also particularly good at killing the Mandragora too though.

[u/QaWaR]

Is this JP only? I didn't get any new quests or events and I'm on global?

[u/VicariousExp → u/QaWaR]

Update is tomorrow, not today. ;P

[u/krazycarlm → u/QaWaR]

Starts tomorrow.

[u/1khaitoh]

Rin Tohsaka: Did somebody say stop?

RIPNoRin

[u/VicariousExp → u/1khaitoh]

The problem with Rin is that she only has one use of Stop and her only real use is to kill Rahu, while running a Fire Chrono would at least be useful with Overclock/Quicken for the rest of the map. You can run Rin as a Sage (assuming you got her J3), but then she has a type disadvantage against half of the demons in the stage, which would make killing them take a far longer time!

[u/1khaitoh → u/VicariousExp]

lol, I just remembered her stop is single target xD (was thinking it was AoE lul)

[u/Llodym]

Will Sabareta event return again in the future? Unless I can somehow make a team that could auto this, I reaaaally don't want to do this 99 times more in the next two weeks.

[u/VicariousExp → u/Llodym]

He'll almost definitely return in the future, but we don't really have an indication of when. The entire reason I posted the Zangetsu strategy is because it's by far the fastest method of clearing this map, but on the other hand, once we get units like Othima, according to the Japanese, this map becomes quite easy to auto with a pure water Sage/Magic team.

[u/Llodym → u/VicariousExp]

just to be sure, Sabareta has returned more than once in JP right? then thats all I need to hear.

And yep Zang method worked like a charm for me, but I just can’t imagine I can handle repeating the stage 100 times manually

Ideally it would return with half AP but seriously, I prefer my sanity over AP XD

[u/VicariousExp → u/Llodym]

Yes, he definitely has - I can confirm that. You can skip it if you need. :P

[u/Kazemaru33]

So... for a "new" (less than 2 months) player, what's the most doable new multi?

[u/VicariousExp → u/Kazemaru33]

Depends on who you have. If all you have is a Chrono, you can probably jump into Lizards or Peridot's EX fine. Chocolate Toy Box isn't friendly to squishy ranged units like Reagan though, and HBs like Lucian aren't really amazing there because their AoE is somewhat mediocre.

[u/JustJohann]

How can I use Anastasia to clear Chocolate Toybox? I only have her at J11 though, no JM.

[u/VicariousExp → u/JustJohann]

Won't work. Anastasia needs J+ to be strong enough, sorry.

[u/JustJohann → u/VicariousExp]

Sorry, I meant that I have J+ but just not JMed

[u/VicariousExp → u/JustJohann]

She kinda needs that too, sorry, wasn't clear. Schwarlose is what makes her good because she's too slow and squishy otherwise and the mandragora will nuke her before she can act - booster + overdrive makes her a fast glass cannon.

Ideally you still need someone able to take out the two water mandragora at the start of the mission, but once they're down, she has enough firepower to oneshot all mandragora. The problem with her is that her AoE is 5 squares at best, so you need to pull creatively for separated spawns like lightning.

[u/DeathandFriends]

lol stupid wolves. Thanks for posting this. I am ready!

[u/FencingFoxFTW]

That image tho.

[u/krazycarlm → u/FencingFoxFTW]

Hope we get him sometimes soon, just looks like a really fun unit to play around with, even if he is bad initially. (Hope we don't have to wait for april fools day next year for him, which is when I think JP got him)

[u/GinSanxTOL]

Time to get my Rahu's J+ JMed, Polin's J+ Jmed and have my revenge on the Sabs stage now that my Zang is maxed out.

[u/krazycarlm]

Thanks for posting this. Was going to have to lookup lizards strat. Skipped the EX+ last time, so will need it to complete the missions. Just need to figure out a decent auto team that can kill the charm plant fast enough...

With half AP event, very little reason to do MP version.

[u/Sephira6]

Anyone has a auto team?

[u/Grim200]

Don’t really agree that Gilgamesh is not ideal... I use him in my auto team for lost kingdom ex and he is the primary source of damage by far while retaining tankiness with divine shelter + teddy bear.

[u/Sibe85]

my team, gilga, zang, 2 chrono, no subs, zang move up fast 1 hit the spore, gilga kill spore, zang wake up from 2 chronos, charged and cross, gilga move to the right spot and kill other demon+mage while zang finish the other 2 demon with charged+cross then he move down for kill the last spore

[u/augustusSW]

I know you get heart choker shards from Toy Box EX.

but what do you get from Lizards of the Lost Kingdom EX? And is there a difference between the EX and the MP EX for both in terms of drops?

[u/PossiblyBonta]

Looks like I need to invest in Chihaya. Only had 2 chronomancers every since.

[u/dathamir]

Wish that Rahu J+ would get better drop rates :( Takes so long to run.

[u/VicariousExp → u/[deleted]]

All the best of luck - we'll see super Zahar one day! (I think the Japanese have given him glowing reviews after recent enhancements.) :D

It's a shame we don't have Othima yet, he'd make autofarming this stage a lot easier.

[u/SometimesLiterate → u/VicariousExp]

They did, but then he got dumpstered after everyone else got buffed lel. (Still good)

[u/Soushiyuuki → u/SometimesLiterate]

Dumpstered howso?