[Stage] Challenge Stageset for Deep

[LeoGautama]

This is something I've been making for quite a while. It's a custom stage file with all 5 stages in it. (The Survival is blank), and you're supposed to play it with Deep, in Normal Difficulty. (Using FPS Changer is okay)

The difficulty varies from stage to stage, stage 1 being what would seem easy to stage 5 that is really, really hard. To me at least. I still can't beat it.

You can also play it with another player, but it's designed for one player so the number of the enemies will mostly double if you do, making it much harder. The bosses won't multiply though, as I've removed the ratio tags for them.

Screenshots (Click to View)

Guide/Walkthrough/Strategy, utter copypasta from somewhere where I released this first. (Click to View)

Stage 1
The Stage 1 in the stageset is a somewhat easy stage, but nowhere as easy as the original Stage 1. You'll fight Henry & Rudolf as bosses here, and many Bandits and Hunters that always seem to make this forest their turf.

Hardest phases:
1-1: There will be a phase with 6 Bandits, 3 from the right and the other three from the left. This should be easy with Deep's ability to hit multiple enemies with his Dash Attack. There'll also be the exact same phase after that except with Hunter. Do the same, but watch out for their arrows. (Tip: Use diagonal Dash Attacks to hit them easily!)

1-2: There will be a Knight with a bunch of Bandits and Hunters. The easy way is to take out the Bandits and Hunters first using Diagonal Dash Attacks. Some Bandits will reserve, but only once. Once the Knight is left alone it should be easy.

1-3: You'll fight two Knights at once in the last phase! Here are some easy ways to defeat more than one Knight at once using Deep:
Way 1: (Diagonal) Dash Attack, then Dash Sword from behind.
Way 2: Jump vertically and keep using Jump Attack. Try to target the same Knight with two consecutive Jump Attacks. First Jump Attack should break the armor and the second damage him.
Way 3: Diagonal Dash Attack them to break their armor. Then Diagonal Dash Attack again.

1-4: You'll fight Henry accompanied by two Hunters, one of which have quite a few reserves. Henry only have 200 HP there, so it shouldn't be at all hard. Also Henry isn't treated as a boss there, means you don't have to take him out first to take out the Hunters. After defeating Henry, some Hunters will show up, they're 5x2 Hunters. (5 Hunters with one reserve each)

1-5: CAREFUL! For some reason, when you enter this substage the Mark will spawn on the left. Run to the right at the start, then fight them. After fighting a whole bunch of Bandits you'll get some milk and one Bandit as opponent with some reserves. You're supposed to drink here if your HP have dropped.

After all that, you'll fight the bosses of the stage: Henry and Rudolf! As bosses, they also have soldiers. The Bandit and Hunter have infinite reserves until the bosses are both dead, so don't bother trying to take them out first. Knight and Jan both have one reserve, but are also soldiers, so if you kill off the bosses first they'll lose their reserve. Henry and Rudolf both have only 200 HP despite being the stage end bosses, so even a few Dash Attacks should bring them down.

Stage 2
Stage 2 is, of course, harder than Stage 1. Things won't be as easy as how they are in Stage 1. You'll fight some Knights here, and sometimes Bandits will chase you from behind. The boss in this stage is Bat.

Hardest Phases:
2-1: You'll fight 2 Knights again... But this time they will both have one reserve each! Later you'll also fight 3 Jacks... But with Bandits approaching from behind! They shouldn't be too hard.

2-2: The first phase is very easy, just some Bandits, with loads of reserves. Then a Knight, with Hunters as soldiers, but they are limited to x3, so it shouldn't be too hard. The easy way is to finish off the Knight while the Hunters are reserving, although it's already easy. Then some Sorcerers. 4x2 Sorcerers, precisely. They aren't hard to beat, just dash attack them altogether. Also there's one Bandit among them, which shouldn't be at all hard to beat. After that however, you'll fight four Knights! They're separated at start though, so they aren't hard to beat especially if you finish off the one on your side first before the others come.

2-3: There'll be a lot of milks in the first phase. Drink as much as you need then kill the Bandits. Jan will come with three Knights after that, you might want to kill Jan first since she have no reserves and can heal the Knights. Then Woody comes with his buddies spamming somewhere behind, then you'll fight his buddies (Davis & Dennis) themselves along with a Knight. Shouldn't be too hard, they all got 200 HP each. You might want to grab Woody from the left to use all those projectiles against him.

2-4: Lots of Sorcerers from the left! They have a lot of reserves, too. Be careful in this part! You'll need some spare HP for the next phase. Which is where you'll fight lots of Bandits and Hunters, and with one Knight too! I'd say you take out the Bandits and Hunters first, despite their reserves, unless you got a good chance in taking out the Knight first.

2-5: You'll fight 3 Knights in the first place. Which may not be actually easier than when you fight 4 Knights, since this time you fight in a smaller place and they're not separated this time. After that, you will fight Jan with 3 knights. Looks familiar? This time it's different though, Jan will have one reserve. It's up to you whether to finish off the Knights first or kill off Jan first. Then you'll get some milk. If the Bandit picks up a bottle, drink near him so that he won't drink. The milk can be a good distraction for the enemies in the next phase.

Boss battle! You'll fight Bat right after that. This boss fight is harder than Henry and Rudolf's. Bat have a larger army and can spam bats. The Jack will not reserve if you kill him, the Sorcerer is x3 and all but one Bandit and one Hunter. One Knight have one reserve and the other none. There are several ways on beating this phase, the way I use is to keep Dash Attack-ing Bat along with anyone who's near him until Bat's dead, and combo if you got the chance. Once Bat's dead everything should be much easier, since there will be no one to spam bats.

Stage 3
Stage 3 is more challenging then the second one. There will be LOTS of Bandits here, sometimes with Hunters, and also Monks, and Knight whenever Louis shows up. Maybe the Great Wall is used as a long road by the Monks to go between temples and the Bandits are there to rob them of the expensive temple goods they carry. But unfortunately, both the Bandits and the Monks will attack you, and the Monks won't carry anything to slow them down, except if they picked up a rock or a wooden box in the way. Well, actually not. Those Monks are probably being mind-controlled or misled by Julian, while the Bandits just have the urge to punch you in the face, or just Julian's minions.

3-1: Bunch of Bandits, bunch of Bandits with Mark, bunch of Monks, and... A REAL bunch of Bandits. Reserves included, you'll fight 32 Bandits in the last phase. Should be easy using Deep's Dash Attack, though.

3-2: Bunch of Bandits and Hunters. Bunch of Jacks. (Make sure you don't got Flash Kick'd by 4+ Jacks at once!) Bunch of Marks. (Okay, only four) Then a lot of Bandits and Hunters, coming from both right and left, with lots of reserves.

3-3: After fighting some Jacks, Hunters, and then more Bandits, a lot of Hunters will start coming as milk bottles fall from the sky. Don't drink the milk! Instead, kill of the Hunters until there is only one left of them, then drink. You can let them drink, the milks here have reserves anyway. After that, Louis will come with a bunch of Knights. The Dash Attack + Dash Sword (D > J) will be very useful here, since all the enemies have armor. Louis here only have 200 HP and is not treated as a boss, so take them out in whatever order you like.

3-4: There's only one substage in this fight, but it's hard. You'll fight six Monks at once! Sounds hard enough? No, actually it isn't. Because it's actually harder than that. These six Monks are constantly healed throughout the fight! Winning this battle will result in something that you like. Proceed to the next substage when ready, to the boss fight!

3-5: Boss fight! Louis will come at you again as LouisEX, bringing two of his Knights, and a Sorcerer. Unfortunately, a bunch of Bandits will also follow, and some Hunters as well. This fight is pretty hard - if you're lacking confidence you might want to lower your fps a bit using FPS Changer.

All the soldiers are limited, so it's actually possible to take them all out then face LouisEX one on one, but there's quite a lot of them, especially some Bandits.
- LouisEX have 500 HP.
- The two Knights and the Sorcerer have no reserve.
- Three Bandits have one reserve each.
- One Hunter have one reserve, another Hunter have none, while the other one have 3 reserves.
- There is one more Bandit who have 3 reserve and another who have 5.
So if you can't take out the Knights, you might want to take out LouisEX first while slashing on the Bandits and Hunters. Also kill the Sorcerer since it has low HP and no reserve.

Stage 4
Things will start to get hard in stage 4. Or harder, if you think stage 3 is already hard. You will, however, get lots of milks with near-infinite reserves here. And of course, you'll fight Firen, Freeze and Firzen here in this stage.

4-1 consists of 4 phases, 4-2 to 4-4 only 2 phases and 4-5 only one.

4-1:

Phase 1

Enemies:
- Sorcerer x10 x2

Now, that's a lot of Sorcerers. This isn't too hard, but if you're not careful enough you may get lots of damage from all those ice blasts and fireballs. So you be careful enough. Use diagonal dash attacks. Two dash attacks are enough to finish each Sorcerer.

Phase 2

Enemies:
- Sorcerer x8
- Jack x8

It's another of those phases where there are lots of enemies, but no reserve. Strategy still the same, Diagonal Dash Attacks and Dash Swords.


Phase 3

Enemies:
- Mark x10

Ten Marks! They have no reserve either, but Marks are tough. Don't forget to use the somersault/break fall (Jump after falling) when you're hit then Dash away so you won't get hit by a combo too big. This is one of the hardest phases in the stage. The space should be fairly wide since it's the third phase though.

Phase 4

Enemies:
- Knight x4

- Sorcerer x6
- Jan x1
+ Milk x3, on the left with lots of reserves!

There are some milks with lots of reserve here in this phase. They can distract the enemy or heal you. Make sure you're not the one distracted instead though! They have reserves so much that it's almost impossible to run out of those. So if you need one but didn't get one, you can always let the enemy drink the milk so that it will reserve and then you can take that one. It's recommended to take on the Sorcerers and Jan first, and try getting some milk if you are low on HP.

IMPORTANT: Unless your dark HP is already high, drink some milk before going to the next substage! This way, you will get 500 HP in the next phase.

4-2:

Phase 1
Enemies:
- Hunter x10 x3

This shouldn't be too hard, seeing how you fought off weak enemies in even larger numbers in stage 3. Just watch out for those arrows and enemy reserves.

Phase 2
Enemies:
- Firen [BOSS] [500 HP]
- Sorcerer x2 [SOLDIER]
- Sorcerer x6 x2
+ Milk x1 with a lot of reserves on the right

Miniboss time! If you kill of the Sorcerers first you will end up with Firen with only 2 Sorcerers, or you may just want to take out everyone. This shouldn't be too hard, but in case you got low HP, grab the milk on the right. If you want to kill Firen first, just make sure he doesn't get milk.

4-3:

Phase 1
Enemies:
- Monk x3
- Sorcerer x5 x3

Not much to say here, except that the Sorcerers have a lot of reserves. You will probably want to take out the Monks first since they have no reserves. Dash Sword works well if no Monks or Sorcerer from behind are there to interrupt it.

Phase 2

Enemies:
- Freeze [BOSS] [500 HP]
- Sorcerer x2 [SOLDIER]
- Sorcerer x6 x2
+ Milk x1 with a lot of reserves on the left

Miniboss time! Again! It's the same as fighting Firen, except that Freeze and his minions come from the left. Be careful not to land on Ice Blasts after attacking!

Again, don't forget to fill up your HP before leaving for the next substage.


4-4:

Phase 1
Enemies:
- Sorcerer x15

Only 15 Sorcerers... Keep using those Dash Attacks especially when they're grouped to pick some item.

Phase 2
Enemies:
- Firen [BOSS] [500 HP]
- Sorcerer x1 [SOLDIER]
- Sorcerer x2
- Sorcerer x2 x2
[From the back]

- Freeze [BOSS] [500 HP]
- Sorcerer x1 [SOLDIER]
- Sorcerer x2
- Sorcerer x2 x2
+ Milk x3 on the center with tons of reserves. If you are having difficulty on trying to get the chance to combo or attack Firen and Freeze, take out the Sorcerers first. As you can see in the list, only 2 of them are infinite soldiers, the rest with only one or no reserves at all. Again, if you're low on HP go drink some milk in the middle, there are more of those this time.Remember to drink milk before heading to the next substage! For the very next phase, is the final boss battle of Stage 4...

4-5:
Enemies:
- Firzen [1000 HP]
- Sorcerer x1
- Mark x1
- Sorcerer x3
- Sorcerer x2 x2
- Jan x1
- Sorcerer x1 x4
+ 3 Milks in the left, middle and right, with tons of reserves

BOSS BATTLE! The easiest way here is to take on the followers first, DESPITE Firzen spamming all the time. Always be careful against Overwhelming Disaster, especially the ice ones, and also keep a look out on Firzen, as he may explode anytime. Also, Firzen is actually not a 'boss', meaning he don't have the tag, so there will be no infinite soldiers or soldiers that will stop coming once Firzen is defeated. So focus on the followers first.

Mark and Jan both have no reserves, but they're quite hard to take on with all those Sorcerers running around... You might want to take on the Sorcerers first.

Again, focus on the followers first. If Firzen picks up a milk then let him drink it, that will give you the chance to beat up the followers in the mean time.

Once the followers are down, there should probably be only the one Sorcerer who have 3 reserves. Now you can start attacking Firzen. Don't let your guard down - Firzen is the most dangerous boss in (unmodified) LF2, he can kill you instantly if you're not careful enough. Using the milks as a lure is a good way to safely kill him - stand someplace from the milk with also some z distance, then as Firzen picks it up, attack him, and combo him with the [Attack x2, Grab, Grab Attack x5, D>J] combo since since [Attack x2, D>J] won't work well with him holding the milk.

Stage 5
Stage 5 is extremely hard to me, and I still can't beat it with the rules (Normal using Deep, no cheats no mod). So good luck if you're going to try it. In the 1st and 2nd substages you face opponents that are often followers, while in the 3rd you will get milk with tons of reserves while fighting some opponents in exception of in 5-2 where you only get to fight one Monk and 5-5 where its phase 3 is fairly easy.

5-1:
Phase 1
It's Henry & Rudolf again! They're accompanied with some Hunters. This phase is very easy compared to the rest of the stage, just try not to receive too much damage so you can survive the next substages. All but one Hunters don't have infinite reserves, but Henry and Rudolf only have 200 HP, and when I do this phase they usually die about the same time, so there's no need for much targeting. Oh, but do target Rudolf, or he might do Disappear or Multiple/Clones.

Phase 2
Now it's Dennis-Woody-Davis, the combo kings! They have (several) Mark, Jack and Jan with them. Kill Jan first since she can heal, then probably try to kill off Davis, Woody and Dennis since Mark and Jack have reserves, and Dragon Punches and Tiger Dashes and Chasing Blasts are quite annoying and can deal some damage.

Phase 3
Grab a milk and drink a bit if you're at dangerous HP. If not, just attack the opponents, which are all kinds of followers. Nothing in this phase have reserves, except the milk, which have , so just fight once you're at safe HP then spare someone so you can drink the milk and recover your HP before going to the next phase. This applies for the other Phase 3s too; Don't get distracted by the milk and drink it before fighting only if you're at a dangerous HP, otherwise fight first.

Phase 4
Here comes the 2 heroes that haven't made appearance yet in this substage: Deep and John. Or one, since you're Deep too, if you're following the challenge at least. Unlike the previous hero characters, they have 500 HP!

Kill off Deep and John first, and maybe some Sorcerers too. Kill Knights last in this phase.

5-2:
Phase 1
Justins coming. They all have reserves. Justin's attacks are fast, so be careful, try to not lose much HP, be patient in this phase as Justins will often attack you once you make a little mistake.

Phase 2
Marks and Hunters. The Hunters have and the Marks have none, so between targetting Marks or Hunters is your choice . Use your Dash Attacks.

Phase 3
Well, not much to say here. Just don't forget to recover your HP to full before killing the Monk.

Phase 4
Boss fight!
BOSS: Bat
HP: 500
Strategy:
Target Bat right away! There's actually only 1 Hunter that have an unlimited reserves anyway, and Bat's a big spammer. Kill off Bat first. Keep using Dash Attacks on him til he dies. Then you can kill off the Hunters, then the Knights. This strategy actually helps.

5-3:
Phase 1:
Enemies: 10 Monks
Aside from the Shaolin Palm, Monks aren't really that dangerous. They're fairly slow and have no other special moves. BUT be careful of their Super Punches!! If you get hit by 3+ of their Super Punches at once it'll be a lot of damage. So just be careful again. That's how first phases are. You need to be careful not to lose too much HP so you can survive until the 3rd phase where you can drink milk.

Phase 2:
Enemies: 10 Knights
This is one reason why you shouldn't lose too much HP in the previous phase. Use Dash Attacks, Dash Sword, etc. Sometimes an item drops and separates them which would be some help since you can take on one smaller group.

Phase 3:
Enemies: 10 Monks
Here they are again! There are also some milk. As said before, unless you're at a really low HP, fight first and drink later, otherwise grab one quickly and drink some, then fight.

Phase 4:
Boss fight!
BOSS: LouisEX
HP: 500
Strategy:
LouisEX is the fastest character in the game, and he's accompanied with Bandits and Knights who are really slow. If you can catch him in the start where he's separated from his minions due to their speed difference, you can combo him and that would be a good start.

It's recommended to target LouisEX first and kill him off first like in your fight against Bat, especially if you managed to combo him in the start. The Bandits have quite a lot of reserves and in my opinion it's easier if you kill LouisEX first.

5-4:
Phase 1:
"So after I've faced waves of 10 Monks and 10 Knights, now there's 10 Sorcerers coming? This should be really easy compared to those."
Actually, no. You should still be careful. They may be just Sorcerers with only 100 HPs each, but these little guys will keep coming. There's actually 30 of them. They have . Again, try to avoid getting so much damage. You will need to survive.

Phase 2:
Next is 10 Marks. Unless you have a low HP you should hopefully get through this. You know, with Dash Attacks and D>J and all the usual strategy.

Phase 3:
Again and for the last time, 10 Monks. This is Phase 3, so there are Milks with . Aside from allowing you to recover to full HP, they are also useful as baits for the next phase.

Phase 4:
Boss fight!
BOSS: Firzen
HP: 1000
Strategy:
This is really hard. I think I haven't won this one. Looking at the stage.dat might be a good idea if you want to think of your own strategy.

There will be milk with , but unlike back at Queen Island, there's only one of them this time. If you managed to kill all the followers, you can fight Firzen alone and that would be easy, but killing all the minions would be the hard part, with Overwhelming Disasters and Arctic Volcano eruptions happening every so very often.

Judging from the amount of reserves, the best way is probably to try to find the chance to kill Knights first since they have no reserves, then or when you can't, attack Jacks. Then Sorcerers, then Bandit. Bandits have so much reserves this time, so Jacks and Sorcerers are actually at higher priority.

5-5:
Phase 1
Enemies:
6 Knights
6x2 Justins

Which to kill first? Maybe Justins, unless you got a good chance on killing Knights. Try to get the minimum damage possible, this is becoming really important since you're now at 5-5.

Phase 2
Enemies:
1 Jan
3 Knights
4 Justins

This is quite mercifully easy compared to the previous ones, as none of them have reserves. Kill Jan first, then Justins, then Knights.

Phase 3
Boss fight? Maybe not.
Enemies:
Bat
LouisEX

Guess who will be with you in the rest phase this time. Oh wait, it already said there who they are. Okay, nevermind. They're Bat and LouisEX. They both have 500 HP. As usual, drink a little bit first if you're at a dangerous HP, then kill one of them, then recover your HP to full. I don't really know who you should kill first, though. Bat may be a big spammer, but LouisEX is really fast.

JUST MAKE SURE YOU RECOVER YOUR HP TO FULL. YOU'LL NEED IT.

Phase 4
FINAL BOSS FIGHT!!!
FINAL BOSS: Julian
HP: 2500

You know how in the standard Stage 5 you get to fight Julian with 2500 HP? You'll do it here too, BUT this time you have no allies. And they have tons of soldiers.

Milks are scattered through this stage, there are three of them in total. In the beginning where there are 20 enemies in-screen, it'll not be at all easy to drink them. However, they may serve as a distraction.

A good strategy might be to run away from Julian and attack the enemies far from Julian. But whatever you do, kill the enemy soldiers first. Julian have 2500 HP.

All the follower characters make appearance here. None of the enemies have infinite reserves, and there are 56 in total, not including Julian. If you can kill all of them you can then fight one on one against Julian, which should be relatively much, much easier.

You might want to beat up some enemies that come from the left first before Julian arrives.

Enemies:
- Bandit x12 [3x4] [From Behind]
- Hunter x12 [3x4] [From Behind]
- Sorcerer x6 [2x3] [From Behind]
- Jack x6 [2x3]
- Justin x6 [2x3]
- Monk x4 [2x2] [From Behind]
- Mark x4 [2x2] [From Behind]
- Knight x4 [2x2]
- Jan x2 [1x2]

There's no extra bg or anything in it, just a stage file, so all you need to do is to download it, then replace your stage.dat with it.
Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?enb4an6736diew6

If anyone actually beats stage 5 I'd like the lfr so I can watch. I can't beat it myself. Even with FPS Changer.