"Journey to perfection"...... blasted cliffs.....

[Misery]

So.  Yeah.   The Journey to Perfection missions.

Does anyone have a good tactic for doing these?

So far, it seems if I hit a point where there's a vertical drop off the screen, where you cant SEE the bottom, I *will* lose.   Nothing I do has stopped this.  Even once.  This is with fall damage negated, mind you.   I drop, and enemies I cannot see, I land on.   Even doing a (really goddamn slow to build) box tower and slowly popping them to go down doesnt work.  I've tried dropping rhinos off of every cliff to run over some enemies that might be down there;  this SOMETIMES kills some things, but..... particular mission area is almost entirely sonic bats, flame bats, espers, and dust storms, so it usually only kills the dust storms.  And these are pretty challenging to begin with as it is, particularly with all of the crazy projectile bats (ooh, those things are DEVIOUS, they are).

These missions are pretty interesting, and I really like the concept.  Very challenging.   But I seriously have no idea what the heck to do about those sudden drops.    .....and why is the map missing during these?

Certainly open to some advice here.

[Martyn van Buren]

Have you got shields?  Also, have you turned on the option to have the camera move with the mouse?  It only goes so far but I find it invaluable in JtP missions.  I haven't yet encountered a situation where I had to make a totally blind drop, but it seems to me that turning on a shield for the drop would give you a fighting chance.  I'd imagine splashback and ice cross would be good to have at the ready as well, in case you do fall smack into the middle of a bunch of mobs.

[Terraziel]

Ok, my personal way of playing these basically uses three things, and this applies even for high-end characters.

Energy Slice (obviously it doesn't matter what tier)
Cloak Of Shadows Enchant
Lots of crates and platforms

With the cloak of shadows enchant you get a head start on the location of all the enemies, as well as it making them more passive, so it's harder for them to sneak up on you combined with Energy Slice which is rapid fire, long range and piercing means you can usually take out enemies before you can see them.

And then there is cliffs, but you have the right idea here, there are two types, ones where there is a background wall for you to use platforms on, and the ones without the background wall where your best bet really is to just drop crates in one spot until you can see them, then shoot the crates to slowly make your way down.

[Mánagarmr]

You should also consider the Bat Scroll to get you down slowly and safely.

[Toll]

I never had that problem myself... but then again, I've boosted projectile speed as much as I can, which means longer range. I pretty much spam Forest Rage whenever I'm in Journey to Perfection, and in the case of cliffs, I generally stand there and fire downwards for half a minute before dropping down a cliff.

[mrhanman]

Every time I've attempted these missions, I've ended up rage quiting. 

I'll try these tactics next time I encounter one.  I will finish one!

[Penumbra]

These are by far my favorite mission type  they play very differently than the rest of the game.  Range and piercing is much more important than damage. Spell's range is based on a "time to live" mechanic, this means that "enhanced projectile speed" also increases the range of your spells, since they travel farther in the same time. Energy Slice has great range and pierces, so it is my go to spell for JtP. 

Miniaturize is another great spell for these, since the increased damage is meaningless, yet the greatly reduced hotbox size is invaluable.

Vision is your most important defense. As was already mentioned, a "reduced detection range" of greater than 25% acts as enemy radar. That, coupled with having the screen follow the mouse should let you much farther than usual.

As for the large cliffs, there is usually a point where they cut back in, and leave some background space you can stick a platform on. Remember that platforms stack, so you can create a "Lemmings Bridge" with them is you overlap their corners. This will stick far out past the edge giving you a purchase within vision.

If there isn't the room for a platform bridge to grab purchase, just start chucking crates  Eventually you'll see them poking out from the bottom of the screen and you can create your bridge from those. Platforms and crates stack nicely, and don't fall over no matter how slanted you make your stack.

Hope that helps, and wasn't too redundant with the others.

[mrhanman]

Thanks for the advice! I like the idea of these missions, but I guess I wasn't leveraging my enchants sufficiently to complete one.

[Professor Paul1290]

When I want a quick controlled descent down a I usually turn into a bat.

Lacking that option, I use crates. I drop a tower of crates, I jump on top of the tower, then destroy the crates to descend.