Yes, I know the alternative interpretations of its name are “The Defeated” and “Vanquished” but the pun is on the similarity of Luther and Loser in katakana. It’s funny! Probably more-so if you’re Japanese, who have a reputation for this wordplay humour stuff apparently.

This post will be talking about the emergency quest and share information on the battle’s mechanics as best as they are currently understood.

Update 12th July 2015: I see some people are finding this guide lately in searches. Be aware that this guide does not apply to Extra-Hard Falz Loser yet, as some of his mechanics are different. To summarize: You will need to break both of Loser’s shoulders before the clock weakspot will be exposed permanently. You also need to break all of his mantle crystals and beak to expose its throat weakspot.

A note to PSO2NA Players:

Hi there! Be aware this blog post was written back when Luther came out on the Japanese servers and is using terms that the fan localization team were using back then. We called it Dark Falz Loser for… reasons. Don’t worry about it.

The main thing you’re going to want to be aware of is that Mirage is Blind on the NA servers. The rest of the information here should still be relevant. I hope this old article is still useful to you!

Apos Dorios

Like Dark Falz Elder, the emergency quest is split into 2 sections. The first section lasts half an hour and requires players to defeat a certain number of Apos Dorios (which includes a rare variant). Unlike Dark Falz Elder, the number of Apos Dorios you personally kill does actually matter. The more Apos Dorios your character defeats, the more drops you will be entitled to should you defeat Dark Falz. To receive the most drops, you need to defeat 4 Apos Dorios on each character; it doesn’t matter what difficulty this is.

Try to reach 100% in the time limit! However, if your ship doesn’t make it to 100% don’t fret, as you will get to fight Dark Falz Loser either way. There are two different quests for Dark Falz Loser and which one appears does indeed depend on whether or not your ship reached 100%.

If your ship surpassed 100%, you will be up against the real Dark Falz Loser. This is signified by his more elaborate crown and headwings. If your ship fails, then you will fight the fake instead. The fake one is mechanically identical to the real one in every way, the difference is the fake one will not drop 12* weapons at all.

Elemental!

Apos Dorios has a large number of elemental attacks at its disposal, however it will only align with one of three elements per fight; fire, ice and lightning. Each element has its own unique theme song!

Mechanics

Unlike Falz Arm, its weak-point has to be exposed. This seems to only occur if players manage to break all 4 bombs, which Apos Dorios will place down when it reaches about 50% hp. The bombs have a fair amount of hp themselves, so players are going to have to be on top of them as soon as they spawn.

Apos Dorios’ tail can be broken. This will reduce the range of some of its attacks.

The boss is vulnerable to the Panic status effect. When panicked, the boss will stumble and remain still for a good period of time. This is extremely helpful for melee classes and Satellite Cannon-ers alike, so forces may want to consider spamming Ilgrants during the fight.

Weak Bullet

Apos Dorios can inflict weak-bullet on multiple characters and it will do so many times throughout the fight. His attacks hurt enough as they are, if you have weak-bullet on you almost every attack is now a one-hit KO.

Watch out for this red circle. If it’s following your character this means that Apos has targetted you for a weakbullet. Get ready to use your class’s dodge to avoid it, or use Just-Guard if you’re really confident.

The Loser

This fight is long. Perhaps a little too long, but absolutely adequately challenging. Just be advised that if you end up with a particularly unlucky load-out in your Multi-Party that the fight could take the entire 30 minutes and you could even time out. Don’t use your boosters too early, you may waste them!

Some players have expressed concern about how much HP it has and how the boss may be too difficult, however I will caution people to temper their wishes for it to have less HP or to be made easier. We have only fought this boss around 4-10 times so far. Players on the whole haven’t really grown familiar with the tactics or the best way to kill him. While he is definitely durable in comparison to previous 12-man bosses, you may need to remember that, at the start, 15 minute long Dark Falz Elder battles weren’t unusual. Elder had a weakspot you could always hit, at that. Give it time and as players become more familiar with the fight we may see 5 minute Loser battles become a more common thing.

With that said, let’s have a look at the mechanics.

Mechanics

This section will be expanded as more is found out.

The first thing for all players to note is that, below 60% hp or so, Loser emits a large number of elemental fields in the arena. These are easily seen (they’re bright red!) unless you’re in TPS mode, in which case you may find you’ll end up randomly dying without knowing why. Some fields have a nasty habit of stacking up, leading to extremely quick deaths even for more durable characters.

Break an arm!

Simply break one of Loser’s arm-plates. This will stun him temporarily, allowing you attack his shoulders. Should you break his shoulder, this appears to expose his core for a very short while.

Once a shoulder has been successfully broken, that arm will no longer regenerate. This means you won’t be able to break that arm to stun it any more.

The Clock

His clock is vulnerable to the Mirage status effect, but this will only expose the clock weak-point for a short while.

While the clock is open, you need to apply as much damage as you can to it as it is your best chance to expose an easily accessed weak-point. The clock can be broken while it isn’t open, however as it reduces all damage inflicted on it to about 1/5th it would take a stupendously long time to brute force it. Note that Loser’s resistance to Mirage skyrockets after it’s been inflicted three times.

Note on inflicting Mirage

Infliction rates listed on techs don’t necessarily reflect the rate per hit, but the rate per cast. While Gizan does do a high number of hits, it isn’t inflicting ~20% per hit. That 20% refers to the total attack. As such, it’s likely more reliable to just use Sazan or Zan to inflict it. The point of this is to really say that spamming Gizan on the clock is NOT more likely to inflict Mirage on it.

Homing Mines

This attack is used frequently and each mine can deal severe blows to characters, 2-shotting glass cannon builds. Making use of the i-frames of your class’s dodge should make them considerably easier to deal with, as they have a long turning circle. Just-guarding them will cause them to explode with no harm to you.

Crystals

Remember those dangerous elemental attacks I mentioned earlier? Well these can be neutralized if you break these crystals. Each one corresponds to an elemental attack, so destroying all of them will remove all of its deadly fields.

Despite what rumors say, breaking crystals has no effect on the power of his homing mines.

THE BEAK

Get Dark Falz right in the hooter, as this will stun him for a short while, exposing its core. Breaking the beak otherwise serves no mechanical function.

TIME STOP

That move people feared so when they saw the developers fail to it during the livestream. When this move occurs, simply wiggle your direction keys or joystick until you’re free. It’s the same mechanic as escaping Rockbear’s grab and numerous other grabbing moves.

Once free, all that remains are the four swords dotted about. Each sword will cover a quarter of the arena in a deadly area-of-effect attack. There are numerous ways to approach this part.

1) Break a sword. If you manage to break one then simply stay in that area, as that quarter of the arena will no longer hand the deadly aoe applied to it.

2) Turn invincible. If you don’t think they’re going to break in time, then activate and hold your photon blast if available. You can also use Katana Combat should you have Combat Escape. As far as I am aware these are the only two ways to avoid the aoe (I don’t know if Iron Will will ptotect you or not! Latency may kill you before the invulnerability takes effect).

3?) Have a shitload of HP – Due to a post by a reputable tanky player I was under the impression that this attack could never be face-tanked (it does hit around 5,000 damage 10 times). However, with enough HP, as high a resistance as the Hunter tree can offer, Darker-resistance latent, Automate-Halfline and JP latency (the most important bit really), you can indeed survive the attack directly. Video evidence here: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm23596178

4) Mirage-Escape / Stylish Roll – It would seem that, if timed right, both these dodges can allow you to avoid the damage entirely.

Loser will use this attack twice during the fight. At what times isn’t entirely certain (possibly once at 50% hp and again at 25? It may be 60% and 30% however). The second time he uses the attack you will have significantly less time to break a sword. Be ready with a way to turn invincible just in case.

Other Information

A Japanese user uploading a drawing, noting some mechanics down. This was then translated by someone. Sharing this image below.

Early days! The player-base in general doesn’t seem entirely sure how to handle the boss. This post will be edited for accuracy as more information is found it.

Sincesta Stones

Numerous welfare 11*s were added. These cost 100 Syncesta each, which at the rate I seem to be acquiring them feels like it’d be around 8-10 rounds of the emergency quest turning up in order to get one.

Of course, the weapons themselves aren’t that impressive in terms of stats. Being dark element is also not especially useful. It isn’t known yet if these 11*s can be used to obtain trading passes as far as I know, yet.

THE END!

So that’s Dark Falz Loser. It’s nice to have a boss that can wipe an entire 12-man party should they be unprepared, but he really isn’t that difficult overall.

Overall a very enjoyable fight I think, just it’s rather a pity that it’s arrived in such a glitchy state. Players have reported bosses turning invisible, the shield mechanic on Apos Dorios malfunctioning causing it to turn invincible permanently, occasional bugs in Loser’s AI among other things. Interestingly, so far no emergency maintenance has been scheduled to do anything about it, but I expect it’s coming.