Stage 2-7 Boss Guide

The Lost Word incident of chapter 2 has been resolved, but it’s not over yet. Marisa Kirisame, the Witch of Scarlet Dreams, has requested one final duel with Reimu Hakurei. She’s not going down without a fight, so prepare your best Friends and take her down before going home!

Of course, perhaps you’ve already taken her down, and you’re looking to farm her rather powerful Story Card: The Witch of Scarlet Dreams. Restoring 1.5 Spirit Power baseline, and a jaw dropping 2 Spirit Power at Max Limit Break, this is a Story Card any player would love to have plenty of copies of. 

This guide will only discuss how to beat this alternative version of Marisa (aka Alterisa) on Lunatic, as Normal and Hard can simply be beaten with either the same tactics, or by simply overleveling it. Since by reaching this point you've already managed to beat Chapter 1 on Normal or Hard, just apply the same tactics of brute force if you lack a Wood attacker. It will also be separated into two sections: Clearing the fight once, and farming it.

Please note that this guide will assume units who are Max Limit Broken and have a reasonably high Awakening level - this fight is infeasible to clear on Lunatic difficulty without Friends who have their Last Words unlocked. As nothing is gated behind clearing this fight on Lunatic at the time of writing, it is advised you wait to try and take this fight on if you do not yet have MLB Friends.

Marisa Kirisame is a tough customer. Not only does she pack 133200 HP, 7 Barriers and a weakness to only Wood, resisting Sun, Moon, and Star, alongside an immunity to Freezing and Burning Barriers, she also brings skills to the table. Unlike the boss of chapter 1, who would fully randomly buff herself, Marisa is fully consistent: Above 50% HP, she will give herself 5 Levels of Yin & Yang DEF Up for 3 Turns, and apply 2 Layers of Burning Barriers for 3 Turns to all of your units. Below 50% HP, she will randomly: do the first skill, give herself 5 Levels of Evasion up for 2 turns & give all of your units 5 Levels of Yin ATK Down for 2 Turns, or give herself 5 Levels of Yin and Cri ATK Up. 

Additionally, she brings 2 fairies with her. Both fairies have 66000 HP, 4 Barriers, and use skills frequently. One will give all enemies 3 Levels of Yin & Yang DEF Up for 3 Turns, and the other will give all enemies 3 Levels of Cri Evasion and Cri DEF Up for 3 Turns.
 

With all of this said you thus have two primary goals: taking out the fairies as soon as possible, and taking out Marisa as soon as you start attacking her as soon as possible, so as to avoid her spending too much time below 50% HP and performing her deadly ATK Up and DEF Down skills.

If all you want to do is beat the fight once, there are two primary methods of handling the fight.

The primary and easiest approach is to simply aim for a Full Break - DEF buffs and buffs are completely disabled during it, on top of the usual 4x damage bonus, which makes taking Marisa out trivial. You're going to need a mix of Wood or Anomaly (Freeze and Burning will not work, Marisa is immune) attacker(s) who can break at least 7 Barriers total to accomplish this. Global currently only has two units who are capable of this single-handedly: Medicine Melancholy, who can take out the fairies as well in 2 turns, and Lily White, who will need someone to take out the fairies for her so she has time to break all 7 Barriers. If you have neither unit, you can use a combination of various other Wood or Anomaly breakers, such as Reisen Udongein Inaba, or Patchouli Knowledge, in order to break all of Marisa's Barriers. Do note that you may need to bring healers or tanks to keep them alive if you take this route.

The alternative approach is utilizing a team of one powerful Solo Last Word and one powerful All Last Word. Due to Marisa boosting her own DEF so much, she will quickly reach a point where either only super powerful Last Words will damage her, so you need a Solo Last Word with high firepower, such as Flandre Scarlet or Kasen Ibaraki, to take her out. But due to the fairies also wearing down your HP and Barriers, you will also need a powerful All Last Word unit, such as Yuyuko Saigyouji or Reimu Hakurei, in order to take them out and buy time for your Solo nuker to build up Power and take out Marisa in a single shot.

On global, your only options to reliably farm this fight are either Medicine Melancholy (assuming her Skill 1 and Skill 2 are level 10), or Lily White.

If you have Medicine Melancholy: Your first option is to pair her up with Yuyuko Saigyouji and possibly a third All Last Word user for a 90% consistent Full Auto setup (10% of the time Medicine’s second skill will fail to apply a second Poison Barrier). This works because Medicine applies 6 Breaks, and Yuyuko applies the 7th on the first hit of her Last Word - this is also why Yuyuko is indispensable, as she is the only powerful enough attacker with a Wood Last Word. You may need a third attacker, depending on how kitted out your Medicine and Yuyuko are, to finish off the fairies afterwards. This is the only consistent Full Auto setup as of time of writing for Global. 

Alternatively, you can pair a Medicine who has five Awakening stars up with any remotely powerful Last Word attacker, or simply use Medicine herself if she’s got enough stat sticks, levels etc. Simply use Medicine's Confusion: Into Delirium on Marisa turn 1 (or, if soloing with Medicine, use Poison Sign: Poison Breath instead), then on the next turn use her first and second Skill as well as her Last Word for a Full Break. Depending on how powerful your Medicine is, either this alone will be enough, or you will need a second attacker to finish the job - do some experimenting, and see what works for you.

Be warned that a Medicine solo will not  be fully consistent. As she relies on both fairies getting 4 Poison Barriers applied to fully clear them, and at max Awakening and Skill levels Poison Sign: Poison Breath has a 60% chance for a third Poison Barrier on all targets, and her Poison Mist skill has a 90% chance to apply a second Poison Barrier, you need at least one or the other to successfully apply on both fairies. As a result, she can occasionally fail to solo this stage.

If you have Lily White: You will also need to bring two additional Last Word attackers. One with a powerful All Last Word to take care of the fairies immediately, and then any remotely powerful Last Word to take out Marisa when she is fully broken. Turn 1, you will want to use the powerful All Last Word, to take out the fairies, and from there use whatever combination of Spring Sign: Surprise Spring and Petal Blizzard (depending on how many Spirit Power restoring Story Cards you have and if they’re Max Limit Broken or not) you need to break all 7 of Marisa’s barriers. After that, simply use any remotely powerful Last Word to take the Witch of Scarlet Dreams out.