Well, I was a bit bored recently and decided to go back to Etrian Mystery Dungeon after not touching it for ages. As for what I was doing in that game, well, yesterday I bested the Equinox Garden, one of those dungeons that seem to be common in the Mystery Dungeon series that resets your level to 1 and doesn't let you bring items in... So today I decided to push my luck and tackle a dungeon I had a Mission to explore, the Phantom Depths, another such Lv.1/no items dungeon, expecting to finish it in about the same amount of time...
Though, as the one person who's played up to that point is probably aware, it is a much, much longer afair, which went from a fairly pleasent stoll through to a trial of endurence, resource management and how well my Protector could tank hits that would go from early morning to just after noon.
Eventually, however - after 60 floors - I was not expecting there to be a boss, and, despite the cool-looking areana where you fight it, I wasn't exactly pleased about it either, especially since my Runemaster (a.k.a. mage) and Medic were both running low on TP towards the end of the dungeon. And that particular boss happens to be rather tough - some of its attacks could almost OHKO my Protector, and they're (obviously) supposed to be the tanks.
But in the end...
It didn't even matter After a few turns of about 30 damage per good hit, the thing managed to knock a couple of my party members' health into the red, forcing my Medic to use a party-wide heal... but as was scrolling through the list of said Medic's skills, I noticeed that one of them, Star Drop happened to be an offensive one that also inflicted Physical Defense Down. Now, I had tried to inflict the thing with other status effects but none of them had actually landed, so I was dubious if this one would... But, as you can probably guess by the way I went into detail about it, when I had the chance to use it, it did indeed land. Thus I proceeded to have my Landsknecht spam Swift Stab, a multi-hiting stab move, while my Protector and Medic also whacked the thing, in-between tanking hits and keeping the party alive, respectively, each of those hits doing just over 100 damage, a noticable improvement. (Oh, and my Runemaster was also there too, I guess.)
However, even that was not enough, and it was still kicking and my Medic was approaching 60 TP left (with their more advanced skills like party-wide heals and revival costing around 15 TP each), so I knew I had to finish the fight soon or face certian defeat. Thus, when next I had the chance, I used Star Drop again, hoping for another Phys. Def Down... And low and behold, I landed it again. Cue all-out assult on the thing to try and wear it down, and shotrly afterwards... The beast fell! Victory! Ah... I guess the moral of the story here is to never underestimate a combat Medic.
*Note: Events in that encounter may not have happened exactly in the order described, but something something dramatic effect something something creative lisence. 