A second permanent Reflectrial has landed in Limbus Company! Part of the content to tide us over until the delayed Canto 10 drop, we’ve got a rematch against the Tiantui Star himself, 4th Capo of the East Thumb, Lei Heng!
If you’ve only joined Limbus recently, you may have heard whispers of the mythical “pre-nerf Lei Heng”, his original, arguably overtuned form from Canto 8. While modern teams can brute force the battle fairly easily, this Reflectrial calls upon some of that lost strength.
Think you can handle Lei Heng without the mandatory Morositas at the start of the fight? Allow me to go over the battle, Reflectrial Lei Heng’s new gimmicks, and the best team to take him on and earn the 18 turn limit rewards on hard mode.
Reflectrial Lei Heng – New Effects
Lei Heng’s battle is now split into two distinct phases, specifically pre and post Savage Tigerslayer Rounds. The Shade of Reflection Effects grant additional damage to Rupture and Gluttony Skills in phase 1, while phase 2 hones in on Burn and Wrath. All allies also lose their first Stagger Threshold.
Additionally, you start every team phase with bonus SP, Offensive/Defensive Levels, and EGO Resources. You’ll need each and every benefit, but don’t try too hard to fit into the slots the effects lay out. We’ll go over the best teams for each phase later, and the answers may surprise you.
Lei Heng maintains his standard effects that empower him the lower his HP dips, but his new additions are mandatory to play around. The first is Severing Slash, a buff Lei Heng always has that sets the Slash Resistance of anyone he attacks to 1.5 no matter their normal resistance.
Chosen Prey
Lei Heng’s Prey debuff is much stronger in the Reflectrial, applying to whoever dealt the most damage to Lei Heng on the previous turn. The Sinner marked as Prey loses 5 Clash Power, deals 50% less damage to Lei Heng with attacks, and takes 75% less damage from Lei Heng while using a Defensive Skill.
Lei Heng will put extra priority on the Prey Sinner, dealing extra damage and debuffing the entire team if he manages to kill or stagger them. If you can, try to avoid clashing with the marked Sinner, or use Defensive Skills to minimize incoming damage.
Lei Heng’s Counterplay – Inner Strength, Ammo, and Bind
A few of Lei Heng’s mechanics require careful counterplay if you want to keep your team on their feet, each of which took a bit of figuring out. Reflectrial Lei Heng feels even better than the original to fight in my opinion, as long as you understand how to swing and where.
First off is Inner Strength, a new buff Lei Heng gives himself via unopposed attacks and successful clashes. Whenever Lei Heng clashes with a Sinner, he’ll gain a stack, losing all stacks gained in the Clash if the Sinner wins it. Lei Heng gains extra stacks on unopposed attacks, consuming them every three turns to enhance either “Tanglecleaver” or “Savage Tigerslayer’s Perfected Flurry of Blade”, his nuke Skills.
On turns he isn’t using either of his final attacks, Reflectrial Lei Heng will use “Blasting Shatterslash” and a series of weaker attacks. The final coin of Blasting Shatterslash deals 50% extra damage if Lei Heng still has ammo to spend, and any Sinner can Clash with it regardless of speed.
Lei Heng will start every turn with 6 of his unique ammo, Tigermark Rounds. Beating his weaker attacks in a Clash will cause him to lose extra ammo, on top of the ammo normally spent by his Skills. As long as you force him to waste 6 Tigermark Rounds before “Blasting Shatterslash” goes off, you can seriously cut his damage down.
Optimally, have a slow member of the team clash with “Blasting Shatterslash” after others already meet Lei Heng head on, or use a Defensive Skill on the Prey marked Sinner cut the damage by 75%. You can further lower Lei Heng’s damage by applying Bind, stopping him from gaining Slash DMG Up from his Chachihu passive.
Meursault’s base EGO, “Chain of Others”, applies a massive amount of Bind on the next turn, allowing him to heavily cut down incoming damage. All in all, Bind is great to run in any way you can find it.
Durante – Which and When to Use
Like all endgame content, you’ll get two casts of Durante over the entire battle, with a single time use for each individual effect. Generally Morositas is a great pop when you really need to win a clash, or when tagging in team 2.
Your team will need a turn to get started, and Lei Heng only gets strong as his HP lowers, so the second team is honestly in a scarier place than the first. Ira is great when a massive attack needs to get through, especially for the kill shot.
Best Reflectrial Lei Heng Team Lineup – Middle Envy into Tremor Scorch
You read that right, even with the special buffs to Rupture and Gluttony in phase 1, it’s far more effective to just open with everyone’s favorite Syndicate, the Middle. The Middle are easy to pilot, generaly extrememely powerful, and have great EGOs to back them up.
With a perfectly optimizing lineup, including “Electric Screaming” on Middle Meursault, “King in Binds” on Ricardocliff, and both “Scissors” EGOs, you’ll be constantly empowering the entire team’s damage. The icing on the cake comes from Gloom Boy himself, Lamp EGO Gregor.
Lamp Grego’s power has been praised before, but it can’t be overstated. He always goes last, he can clash with anything, he’s tanky, and his fantastic “Garden of Thorns” EGO is exactly what the team wants for extra damage and HP.
This opening lineup really is that simple, run all 6 Middle units alongside Lamp Gregor, Clash wherever you can, using EGOs on the weaker members, and spam those counters. When fully optimizied, this team can handle Reflectrial Lei Heng all on their own. If you, like me, don’t quite have all the Shards to fully optimize the team, we can rely on the extremely powerful Burn/Tremor team to clean up.
Here we’ll be running the Dawn Office trio, alongside Thumb Rodion, Heathcliff, and Meursault. The seventh is largely up to preference, but I had successful runs with both Magic Bullet Outis and Blade of the House of Spiders Ryoshu backing the main 6 up. The goal here is to close the battle out, but it’s going to be messy.
Lei Heng doesn’t go down easy, so pop Morositas if you still have it to give the team some breathing room. Thumb Rodion is great at clashing with “Blasting Shatterslash”, as she can dodge the unbreakable follow-up after winning.
Keep chipping through Lei Heng, and you should have more than enough time to cut through the 18-turn limit. Congrats, and enjoy your mountain of rewards!
