The New Stage 84 And Other Oddities

The first big thing I wanted to mention today was that Stage 84 is no longer a "tricks and hax" clear only design, just a bit difficult to clear. It is still challenging but not at all the level of impossible that it once was.

[Updated Post on April 26, 2014 with normal ranger team]

• My first stage clear since revision
• Normal ranger team stage clear

Revisions to Stage 84

For one thing, Akira (the big boss with the snowboard and white hoodie) only appears once in the entire stage no matter how you play your strategy. And more importantly, Akira's attack and health has been dramatically decreased. The purple "fart" attack no longer one-shots your rangers. Your rangers can actually attack Akira and you can visibly see that the boss health bar is going down. You do still get multiple Ryoko (the walrus boss), as well as the smaller enemies including the white multi-eye guy, the penguins, the spray paint guy with the red jacket, poop flies, and snowballs. But at least everything is reasonably defeatable.

In fact, where once this stage was impossibly favoring splash rangers, I would suggest that you go heavy on your most powerful single target rangers. If you have a ranged splash attacker (Opera James, Clara, Sorcerer Cony), bring one to help with the times where there are multiple enemies out. By and large, the fastest way to kill Akira and Ryoko will be someone like max level Sindy, Ellin, or even Boss. They attack from far range and they hit really hard.

For front line, you can use anyone you feel comfortable with tanking and someone who can do decent damage. Thunder, Frog, General and Underwear (maxed lv 50) Brown are good. Macho, Masked, Fighter Moon are also fine choices. Xan, Styne, even Bob are effective, too. Use Sol, Cobe and Jessica with caution if they are your only splash damage. There are times where a lot of small enemies pop out and they may be helpful to help get rid of them, but they will surely die when multiple white enemies are spitting on the front line. There is not a lot of one-shot-death type of damage here, so I personally don't feel the need to bring any lowbies.

Take #1: My Preferred Team

You'll start the stage with some small enemies like always. There is a lot of time before Akira pops out. I was able to get minerals upgraded to 6 without too much trouble. New 84's boss is not all that tough compared to before. Just make sure you keep it far enough away from your ranged group. If you start fighting him too close or if he inches towards you too much, Tornado him back. He won't live very long.

Akira died and I was able to get to max mineral before even reaching halfway point.

Ryoko pops out sometime later down the road. This is the first Ryoko. He's slow and alone so it is not hard to deal with until his backup arrives.

Later on, his eyeball friend comes to join the party but Ryoko is almost dead anyway. Missiles can hit all of them together.

With the big guys out of the way, the tower is ripe for taking. But the last wave is coming out now. 

Having splash rangers still does help because you can cleave the tower while killing the other bosses, but it is not required. This is the second Ryoko. This is a bit more difficult because he is accompanied with several eyeball friends. Keep pushing with melee and tank rangers and they should not get closer. Thomas, Ice Shot and Meteor will also help.

This is probably the point at which having one splash ranger will help you quickly kill the white multi-eye guys. Clara will do nicely here. 

After second Ryoko dies, I break down their front door.

The screenshots are all from my first try of Stage 84 after they changed it. I went in prepared with all items and Friend and ready to be trampled, but it was all quite manageable. I ended up not using any items or help at all and just pushed through it quite traditionally. I'm shocked at how plain the new version is, but at the same time, I think I've been scarred by the difficulty and precision required of the original version so I was playing at the top of my game. The stage isn't what I consider "easy" but it is surely not impossible with normal team compositions now.

Take #2: Normal Ranger Team

The Dream Team

This go-through is for those players who have access to only rangers that are obtainable from stages. This was still quite doable, but the one thing I noticed is that Styne's speed is a major con for this fight. It's a very long pathway and Styne moves so slowly that reinforcements arrive sometimes too late, and it gets dangerous for the rangers in the back of your group (Ellin, Sindy, Clara). Fighter Moon at level 60 is pretty meaty, but he's really not a health tank. Styne at level 60 (mine was 40) might be able to hold on better because of more HP, but to be safe, I still advocate that if you use him, put him as your highest priority for deployment to ensure that the front line is safely guarded from the bosses. 

I ended up using a Friend, Meteor, Ice Shot, and Tornado for this. 

Start by upgrading your minerals as high as you can safely manage before the first enemy gets 3/4 of the way to you. Then start deploying Styne, Fighter Moon, and your Friend. Shortly after, Akira, the snowboarding boss, will approach. You'll want to keep Styne and Fighter Moon coming out every chance you get while also deploying Sindy and Clara. Ellin was my lowest priority.
If the boss kills all your Moon & Styne at any point, use Ice Shot to freeze him to buy some time.  And if you still run into danger, buy yourself more time by hitting Tornado. Do not allow him to actually fart on your damage-dealing rangers! Hit your items before it happens.

When I got to the walrus boss + white multi-eye boss, I hit Meteor. It should help bring them down a bit and get rid of the smaller enemies while you deploy  more Claras, Sindys and Ellins. 

Remember to keep your Moon and Styne deployed all the time. When you hit Hurry Up, more white multi-eye guys will come out and some penguins! Keep the pressure on the foot of the enemy tower and Clara will soon finish off the tower with her splash damage.

Victory!

I have mixed feelings about the revised Stage 86. On one hand, I'm upset that the game developers took so long to "fix" such a frustrating stage, but on the other I am glad they did something. I just wish that they didn't change it so that it was so straightforward, a little bit too straightforward!

Enemy Tower Health Change

The last thing that I wanted to point out since the new zone release is the oddities of the enemy towers. It looks like a bug but I don't know what it implies.

The enemy towers of Temple of Ice and most of Ancient Museum had 500000 to 680000 HP originally. After Altar of Flame and Castle in the Sky released, all of the towers now have 999999 HP displayed on the health bar. However, when you start to hit the tower, it tells a different story.

Stage 73

Stage 76

Notice that the health bars on the enemy towers are not at full but it still says 999999/999999. For Stage 76, it appears that the tower has about 2 million HP or more because it is at half health and still has 999999 HP. Have they significantly increased enemy tower health to combat the splash damage strategies that players have been using to clear difficult stages? Are the developers unable to display numbers past the 999999 cap? Or is this all just a bug?

Same applies for player's tower. The HP is still increasing with upgrades, it's just just not displaying any HP beyond 999999. It's hard to see because our towers don't have as much hp as enemy towers, but it's definitely behaving the same way.