You can beat the Mayor at level 22 as a Psycho, on challenging: - without any lightning abilities - without allies The goal is to be a totally independent cool guy.
The above numbers include the best equipment, chosen to max instinct. Higher vitality is bad, but you need around 163.
Try it yourself I had some ability points left, I think you could it at level 21. But no lower, since the level-21 staff (with a lot of instinct) is required.
The key is Ultimatum. It provides 95% damage protection. Its 10% health loss is countered by the free will shield. The shield must be cast fresh AFTER Ultimatum, to not lose any of its capacity to enemy attacks cast before the 95% damage reduction. I wonder why no-one ever seems to use this great ability?
Vitality must be at around 163 to survive the first few rounds while preparing. Since the health loss from Ultimatum and Overdrive is calculated as 10% of total health each, vitality must not higher than necessary.
The fight takes around 44 rounds. Kill the Mayor first, his Guardian Cannon is pretty harmless with Ultimatum.
--------------------------------------- Battle sequence against the Mayor, with the aforementioned build.
The only way you may die is if the Cannon crits both its 3rd-round huge attack (4200) and at least one attack of the two before (900): a rare conjunction.
Phase 1, "Set-up": Round 1- Psychopath Form (increasing Epiphany damage to come) 2 - Epiphany on Mayor 3 - Insecurity on Mayor (increasing Epiphany damage by around 84%) 4 - Ultimatum (you were near death) 5 - Free Will (just within Psychopath Form duration for increased shield capacity; now at 4893/5445 hp) 6 - skip turn (do not Traumatize the Cannon or you will be lacking focus later) 7 - skip turn again
That was phase 1. Your doom will be the Mayor's 8-turn stun spell. I think he stuns you three turns later than your Free Will. After two skipped turns, just before the stun spell will usually come, you start phase 2, "Nagging":
8 - Traumatize on Mayor 9 - Retrograde on self (you were already taking heavy damage, so small healing boost) 10 - Traumatize on Mayor 11 - Insecurity on Mayor (Epiphany will be ready again in 1 turn) 12 - Epiphany on Mayor (why not) 13 - Free Will (to dispel debuffs)
Now he will inexorably stun you. But you will have outwaited some of his debuffs and/or dispelled others (with Free Will). Especially the one augmenting Damage-over-Time, or so I hope. He will recast them, but they will not have affected you as long. You may hope he will also cast Retrograde on you, though he doesn't always: that helps, but is not required. You will then survive the unspeakable 8 turns of stun. After that starts phase 3, called Final Mayoral Phase. Psychopath Form should now be ready again.
14-21 - skip 8 turns while you are stunned (really) 22 - Retrograde on self asap (free boost, probably required to survive) 23 - Psychopath Form (Mayor might cast Retrograde on you as well: excellent!) 24 - Free Will (to clear debuffs) 25 - Epiphany on Mayor (now I was at full health again due to his Retrograde) 26 - Insecurity on Mayor 27 - Traumatize on Guardian Cannon unless you are Retrograded (Mayor must receive full Epiphany damage) 28 - Retrograde on self unless already Retrograded (for some reason I had suddenly lost much health) 29 - Traumatize on Guardian Cannon unless Retrograded
The Mayor dies. A pity. Now starts phase 4: Relaxed Kill.
30 - Free Will (removes last vestiges of Mayor, protection, healing) 31 - skip turn unless you have Traumatize available (look, funny: if you Traumatized twice before you have no ability left available whatsoever) 32 - skip turn again (do not start Epiphany or Security: without Psychopath, you would need Epiphany twice) 33 - Traumatize if you have it, or skip turn (to wait for Psychopath to get ready again) 34 - Ultimatum (should be ready again) 35 - Free Will 36 - skip turn (still waiting for Psychopath lest you need to cast Epiphany twice to kill it) 37 - skip turn 38 - Psychopath 39 - Epiphany 40 - Insecurity 41 - Free Will 42-44 - skip 3 turns while relaxing and waiting for Epiphany to kill it. Just do whatever you like, but do not Traumatize during Epiphany. You're done.
