Energy Nede started rather rough, with Insane Lords and Rikkas flattening Celine before she could get any spells off. This was a striking wake up call; her spellcasting was just too slow to reasonably keep up. I sighed, and switched her out to an offensive melee setup.
That did work out, especially since I found out that Earrings of Magnetism always cast the Power Up spell, not give a random buff as I thought! However, this meant that Celine's swings were just objectively better than her spellcasting, which meant she was playing like a gimped Rena. I detested that fact, I had hoped that she would rely more on her spells, and that they would work better for her, despite all the problems with spellcasting.
Thankfully, Southern Cross remedied this by being a hard hitting spell with a reasonable charge time. Someone on the dev team realized that long charge times on high end spells was NOT a winning combo. If only they applied this principle to other spells! This spell quickly turned things around, as she started destroying the enemies here with little effort. This was worrying in a different way however: it looked like combat would boil down either to encounters she could easily destroy with Southern Cross and thus laugh at, and encounters where she couldn't and they turned out to be a chore.
The Arachnovias were already a great example of this, being too swift for either meleeing or spellcasting, and causing her many headaches until she consumed an Ointment of Veda. This replicated Haste for her, and allowed her to finally get enough distance to pummel them with Southern Cross, at which point they fell quite quickly. Sheesh. She really was a poor Rena.
Then, on a whim, she stole the mayor's secretary's earring.
Thankfully, she could equip the Earring of Frenzy, unlike Rena. This immediately took the place of the Earring of Magnetism, and would remain there for most of the rest of the game! +200% attack is just too good to pass up! She could even replicate it for even more damage, and it took her damage against most foes to 9999! That said, I actually preferred having a Meteor Ring on alongside, more hits ended up adding up to often higher, especially when one of them critted.
Also, remember when I said the Dragonstaff was her ultimate rod?
The Volticry was technically even better, sending damaging shockwaves while casting spells and having a whopping 1100 intelligence on it. What's more, it even raised her effective intelligence further, thanks to its Reckless Magic property. That said, I would need to catch 66 types of fish to get this, and that would just take too long! I don't normally care for fishing minigames in RPGs, and while I spent some time attempting to get this, I don't think it was worth it just to get a weapon, even if it was my character's ultimate weapon!
With that, she was more or less done with the game. Good melee and good ranged damage, what trouble could she possibly face? Her hit rate debuff did hurt her damage noticeably against some foes, and I'm sure it would be even more pronounced on Universe, but aiming for back attacks and casting Bless largely remedied it. What's more, she did have Southern Cross if she really had trouble hitting things.
Zadkiel-Camael-Raphael were her first real challenge in a while, to no real surprise. They have lots of deadly multihit attacks, and two of them teleport around, making the fight extremely chaotic. Eventually she killed Zadkiel and Camael, and wore Raphael down carefully, but it took quite a few tries!
Thankfully, she cruised through the next two bosses, or rather, the Dream Crown "won" those for her. :) Man, what an amazing piece of headgear that is! It was time to get Gabriel himself.
Gabriel was...not much of a challenge. Celine finished him off the exact same way as Rena - careful timing and many melee swings. The Earring of Frenzy was definitely an upgrade over the Ring of Might, as she possessed no elemental vulnerabilities and so could comfortably take any of his spells with some timely healing.
And that's a wrap! Celine's journey started with some good promise, but over time, the flaws of spellcasting became way too blatant and reigned her in. She did eventually break into stride once she made one of her ultimate weapons, and Southern Cross along with the Earring of Frenzy and some women oriented gear made her final lap fairly simple, but she definitely had some serious struggles to contend with. And, honestly, even at her best she played like a poor Rena. Sure, the Earring of Frenzy was a significant improvement over the Ring of Might, but Rena had all of Haste, Guard and Power Up, and the former two alone made her a much better fighter in most situations. She only had Bless, and while that did offset the earring's penalty, it definitely didn't compare to layering the three buffs above. Hell, in most serious fights she basically ended up replicating Rena's Haste with an Ointment of Veda.
I can't say I have high hopes for her in Universe difficulty, but I will sure try. Until next time, then!
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