Paper Mario Dark Star Edition: The Dark Aspirant with CantWin File Code, Triple Curse (9x)

Zap Tap you fat bastard! CantWin is a File Code in Dark Star Edition that sets you to level 27, gives you all 128 badges, and the 5 unlockable stones immediately (all but Greed, Badge, and Rainbow). However, in return, it forces all encounters to be at least 4.5x difficulty, the equivalent of Super + Mega Curse. Equipping Curse badges does NOT stack with this multiplier, but if you equip Ultra + Mega Curse or all 3 Curses, you will do a fight on that respective difficulty instead of the innate 4.5x difficulty that CantWin forces. When doing the Temple Bosses in the 'intended' order (Dark Rush order), the Dark Aspirant is the 4th fight among them. The Dark Aspirant has 80 Base HP, scaling up to 720 on 9x difficulty, and has 1 Defense. As an Aerial enemy, the Aspirant takes +2 Damage from Throw moves. It's also Electric, meaning direct contact hurts for 1 damage. That attribute also means it takes +2 Damage from Water Attacks, which pierce its defense as well. Its gimmick is that it charges power after every turn it attacks. The charged power lets the Aspirant use stronger attacks. If it charges too much power, it will unleash its most powerful attack. Each instance of damage against the Aspirant removes 1 point of charge. In addition, as its HP reaches certain thresholds, the Aspirant charges more power at once after every round. The base attack stat and charge required for each of its attacks are as follows: Electro Dash: 7, with 0 Charge Lightning Shot: 14, with 1 or 2 Charge Mega Bolt: 21, with 3 or 4 Charge Power Wave: 20, with 5 or 6 Charge Bolt Storm: 12 * ?, with 7 or more Charge With 9x Difficulty, Electro Dash can deal 63 Damage, and all other attacks will deal 99 with no fractional damage reductions active. Mega Bolt and Power Wave both inflict Paralysis if they're not guarded. Power Wave also hits the partner with a base damage value of 3. Finally, Bolt Storm will both pierce invisibility and multi-strike. This fight was always going to be trivial when it comes to beating the Temple Bosses in CantWin. So why is Zap Tap a fat bastard of a badge here? Well, I wanted to beat this fight having a Max HP of 16 here (NOT the 15 that you see in this video). This meant I would've dropped my normal max HP down to 1, and then equipped 3 HP Plus badges. I would've still been able to take advantage of Mega Rush here simply by having P-Up D-Down equipped. I had everything planned down for that. But then when it came time to try to execute it, the cheekiness lasted all of 3 seconds. Why? Because I was a dingus and forgot to equip Zap Tap... I also couldn't really fit it in either since too many other badges were also critical to this fight's build! So yeah, I decided to add 1 level back into my HP and removed 1 HP Plus and P-Up D-Down so I could equip Zap Tap. Just like how it is against the Collective, I can survive by just keeping the Fractional Reductions active. As long as I discharge the Aspirant every turn and only tank Electro Dash, I'll always get all my HP back every round. We do need Mega Bounce here because we need to be able to discharge the Aspirant every round. We don't at all need a very high average to beat this fight; I only intentionally limited myself to 10-11 strikes. And you can even do this with just 10 items by running Mega Rush and Flower Power as your +Attack badges. Perfect Stand and Dark Shield give the reduction, and Zap Tap ensures that I can make contact. Just like with the Collective, 10 Yoshi Biscuits and 10 Ultra Shroom Cakes are what you need for your items. However, you can get through this fight by only having 5 of each. You do need Double Dip though because you have to be able to get your regen going immediately, while still discharging the Aspirant as it starts charging more power at once. As a rule of thumb, it begins charging 6 power in a single turn after falling below 50% HP. Lakilester is the partner to use for Cloud Nine support to ensure we survive. Bow is the main partner during the first 50% of HP of this fight because she can fully discharge the Aspirant up to that point by herself. After that though, you can use other partners to deal damage since only Mario can discharge the Aspirant in a single move. Sushie has the highest potential damage overall thanks to the Aspirant's Water Weakness. You do need a couple Super Guards in this fight so Buzzatrice can use Hustle Spell to allow a refresh of Cake Regen and attacking in a following turn, but nothing unreasonable. I even land another max Tidal Wave in this fight at 15:57! :)