Sea of Stars (PC) - Final Boss and True Ending

Time to defeat the Fleshmancer.
Ending Requirements:
Finish the game once to get the Normal ending, then complete all the other sidequests including finding all 60 Rainbow Conches (don't need to complete the Wheels minigame).
Strategy:
Aephorul is tricky and will demand that at least you are good enough at timing your own attacks. He has around 7500 HP, and has accelerated turns (can cut off your turns before all your characters are done acting). Besides a fairly mean physical attack that does fixed 200 HP damage (150 if timed block), he also possesses some other tricks, which you can tell from the amount of locks he uses:
If there's 5 locks, he'll use Maw: moderate party wide damage.
If there's 6 locks, he'll use an unnamed attack that deals damage equal to a percentage of a character's HP and summon Seed adds (amount of adds depends on how many locks you broke, and if you timed block the previous attack. Can be as high as 3).
If there's at least one Seed add in the field, the next 6 locks he'll use Throne of Flesh, turning the Seeds into Appendages, each with a different color representing a weakness (grey = sword; brown = strike; orange = Sun, blue = Moon; purple = Arcane; green = Venom). You can check their weaknesses if you have an Eye of Yomara equipped. As long as the Appendages are alive, you can't target Aephorul anymore. They have around 1200 HP each and very poor defenses specially against their weaknesses, and can do a triple sucking attack on a single character.
The strategy that I like to use is to abuse turn delays with Seraï's Disorient skill, and Resh'an's Ultimate skill. That should give you a lot of extra turns to shut down his attacks. Maw can be relatively ignored, but pay extra attention to his 6 locks and do your best to break them. 5 locks tend to have a Sun+Moon weakness mix, so I like to save at least 2 Combo points to do Zale and Valere's Soonrang, which is a powerful attack and can easily break those. His physical attack is highly deadly, it's hard to block and deals too much damage, so be careful. Make sure you are stocked up with healing items (Legendary Feast is the best, no reason not to have a full inventory of it), and use them in a pinch - the game doesn't remove the items you use here.
Once you deplete 4K of his HP, you'll be forced into that Shumup section. The sphere you are controlling (yellow for Zale and blue for Valere) is the only one that can be hurt, the other is invincible. You can duck under attacks with X, making you temporarily invincible. It's not too difficult, but you must complete it or else you'll go back to the battle and he'll be able to do that again (not entirely sure if he replenishes his life if you fail).
After that stage, it's back to the same with Aephorul. Just keep doing your thing and you'll eventually win.
My Setup:
Everybody with the best possible equipment for NG. I like to abuse turn delay so I give Seraï the Blue Leaf, and Signet of Clarity. Spirit of Ninja is vital to bring your Combos online faster, and Eye of Yomara is useful to check the Appendages' weaknesses. Also, I have a full stock of Legendary Feasts and a few Poutine (100% revival), just in case. Magic Pocket is awesome and allows you to use one item per turn without expending your character turn.
I'm also playing with the Double Edge (massively increases enemy defenses when they have locks, increases damage by 1.5 without) and Dubious Dare (enemies do 40% more damage) Relics just for an added challenge, and the Sequent Flare to make timed hits more obvious.
Sea of Stars
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