Let's Play Mewgenics: The Bad Care Run

[Shifter55]

After that defeat, we are going to try some shorter runs to the Sewers and Junkyard to build up our supply of rare items and money, as LCK is important for item drops we are going to prioritise cats focusing on it, but our pickings are slim and we only end up with 20 LCK combined in our chosen party. .

Party Stats

Tank Nightcrawler
Find a Rock
Bull Rush
Toss
Slack Off
Insomnia
Schizophrenia
Neverstone
Trowel

Cleric Malibut
Swat
Holy Weapon
Sharing is Caring

Hunter Erica
Sudden Affliction
Needle Shot
Catch Projectiles
Slimy Necklace

Thief Genghis
Steam Roller
Rebound
More!
Bad Gas

This team setup brings our total LCK to 23, and with a Neverstone on Nightcrawler we should have more chances of level ups being funneled to our Thief for further increases to that. I didn't expect to get Schizophrenia, a birth disorder so quickly, but it and Bad Gas should be manageable as all of the other cats have sufficient SPD and CON to deal with the chaos the enemy spawns and AOE create. A Slimy Necklace on Erica to boost projectile catches and a Trowel on Nightcrawler for extra rocks completes the build. As the Junkyard has a more widely useful item pool we will go there for our gathering needs. Unfortunately we didn't screencap these after we chose collars..

As we come up to the Alley miniboss, we haven't had much issue with either of the new disorders, though the enemies Schizophrenia is spawning are from later chapters, and I'm not looking forward to the inevitable adjacent spawn. However we do have a party-wide Fear status from a bad event and that's going to make this first turn interesting... Here are the party changes:

Tank Nightcrawler
-Trowel
+Creepy Photo
+Fear Status

Cleric Malibut
+Trowel
+Witch's Eye
+Turn Foe
+Fear Status

Hunter Erica
+Diversion
+Fear Status

Thief Genghis
+Nightmare Hat
+Fear Status

And looks like we are fighting the Mage miniboss, Lucy. Don't like that buff, we're going to have to spend our mana immediately instead of waiting for openings. Oddly the Fear didn't affect our first cat, but it does mean the other cats retreat into their corners. Lucy freezes Nightcrawler and the Chicken, then advances on Genghis with her flame spell.

Using steam roller we push her out of the tall grass, opening her up for our other cats to attack, with almost full HP, he will be fine taking the hit. Unfortunately she also follows up with a lightning spell that stuns Genghis, stunning him and then downing him due to the Burn and elite buff drain!

Two thirds of the way through her health, we manage to lose Malibut to some misclicks, but Nightcrawler and Erica are in a position to control the miniboss easily, and should finish the fight easily. Unfortunately a hallucination of a skinned cat pushes Lucy into the pair, causing them to miss out on their turns from being frozen by Lucy and taking Erica down to 2HP! Thankfully a prawn is within reach to heal her up, but all it will take is one spell to down her.

Predictably that occurs, and even with Nightcrawler thawing, he is still going to go down next turn due to exhaustion damage from Insomnia. However another hallucination appears and takes out Lucy for us, Lucky!

Party Changes:

Tank Nightcrawler
+Callus

Cleric Malibut
+Peace Symbol Necklace
-Witch's Eye

Hunter Erica
+Self-Assured

Thief Genghis
+Bleed Status
+Chef's Apron
+Slingshade
+Burgle

For the Alley Boss it's Rad Rat again, but faster than birds this time, I don't see the significance of this buff? Either way we focus on pushing him into corner to reduce the impact of the bombs.

In the second round Malibut gets some solid healing in, using Holy Weapon to take a prawn, which is then duplicated on all our cats due to her passive. Erica then cleans up the bombs while the party deals a little damage to the boss.

The cycle of healing Genghis and then grabbing the food he drops continues, until Nightcrawler is finally able to lay the boss to rest.

In the Junkyard, our cats proceed more slowly than desired, often causing Nightcrawler to not benefit from  healing due to Exhaustion. Due to an unlucky meal, Genghis also contracts Incontinence! Having to deal with a puddle every time he gets hit will be interesting.
Party Changes:

Cleric Malibut
+Heathens!
+Glowing Seed

Hunter Erica
+Diversion
+Lil' Slugger
+Feather


Thief Genghis
+Incontinence


Oh, that's a really bad elite buff for this fight, not only will the chance percents on his buffs be weighted in Trampy's favour, but also he now has fleas that can do 9 damage! Hoping for a mega fart to start off our attack, we use our cats' displacement abilities to put Genghis into range. Sadly a flea and a crit bottle throw downs our thief, and likely seals the fate of the battle for us.

As the miniboss falls asleep, completely healing himself, we have half a round to reposition our cats, using needle shot we add more thorns to Nightcrawler, in the hopes we can get his damage high enough to use him as a living weapon against this menace.

On round 6, we seem to be making some progress, but Nightcrawler is low on health and has taken bleed from a bottle attack. Thankfully this grass is keeping the melee cats safe, though it is a risky place for Erica and she also gets taken out.

On our final round, with almost all attacks missing, and exhaustion damage taking it's toll, Trampy pulps our last cat with a critical hit.

We're going to have to do some stat-focused breeding if this is how boss battles are going to go from now on. Freeloader understands the need, summoning 4 kittens in one night using a satanic ritual!

Our goal stat-wise for new cats is 6STR, 6CON, 6INT, 5SPD 5CHA, 6LCK. Without mutations and other bonuses, DEX is not particularly influential on ranged attacks, and we want solid melee attackers that can still use multiple abilities and take hits, once they get into range. INT is a priority regardless of class, and above average LCK should allow for more critical hits when boosted by Collar bonuses. Of our cats, the following have 4 or more stats that exceed these values:

Maokai
Freeloader
Fusilli
Amethyst

In addition we will also be keeping Goosebumps and Luren, as the former is the only one with 7 STR, and the latter is a ? gender cat that will help balance out any breeding issues we come across.
3 days pass, and unfortunately we only get new kittens on the last day, making it somewhat fruitless. However, we have almost run out of food, so we need to send the cats out on an adventure again!