More Final Fantasy

[English Language]

So wanting an excuse to play FFV:A again, but didn't feel like running a Solo game again(and a normal game!? Perish the thought). So I took a page from the Frog game that was running and decided to run a party of people statused up the wazoo.


Here is our motley crew of the day, all statused from Codes provided from the link Plus C has in his initial Frog write-up.

First up is Thog who, though it doesn't come across in the screenshot, is our Berserking protagonist, under permanent Berserk status.
Second is Lenna, our zombie princess. Under permanent Zombie status.
Third is Old Man Galuf who appears to be losing his eyesight in his old age. Permanent Darkness.
Last but not least is Faris, the littlest pirate of them all. Under permanent Mini status.

However, there's a twist for this run! This game shall be done using the Custom Classes mod I posted above, so a few things might be a bit different in the game. First up, we need to decide the classes each of our gang is going to be using. So I don't overwhelm myself, I'm limiting them to 3 classes each for the game, and no repeats.

Thog will obviously have the Berserker class, being a match made in heaven with an already permanent Berserk. Also tossing in Monk so he can punch things to death like a real man, rounding things off with Gladiator so his Agility isn't total crap.

Next we'll pick for Galuf. Being blind, I COULD go for Ranger for !Aim so I can negate that, but I'll just use him for my offensive Mages, so Black Mage and Summoner, then let's go with..Dragoon I guess so I can restore my MP as needed.

Now for Faris, I'm going to want Samurai for that innate Elf Mantle effect the class has. Since Mini sets armor to zero, I want to focus mainly on Evasion. beyond that, White Mage and Thief, so she can be my utility party member.

Now for Lenna, she's going to be a slight issue. As a zombie, all she'll do is whack me team. So I definitely want her to be an Oracle for high Magic when I eventually put the Healing Staff on her, and for one other reason I'll get into much MUCH later when it's relevant. After that, Ninja so she goes faster and heals me more often, followed by.....Necromancer I guess, not like it matters much.

I will also put hack a stock of Holy Waters into my inventory, but only for the sole purpose of using them to Unzombie Lenna just long enough to change her equipment and Job/Abilities.

Now, I go to change into my first jobs when I notice Monk is no longer part of the Wind Crystal classes. Looking it up, it got pushed back to the Water Crystal classes. What the Wind Crystal DOES have is...

Knight-Thief-Dragoon-Black Mage-White Mage-Time Mage-Summoner-Blue Mage-Dancer-Bard

Interesting starter jobs. Bartz is going Freelancer till I defeat Galura, but other than that everyone else can start getting situated..well, Faris and Galuf at least.



Karlabos easy as always. Needed to Cure Bartz once with the boss whacking him, then Lenna smacking him with her Knife.

More on this silliness later.

[System Error]

So avid read of these solos and sites here. I was curious as to how the Solo Cannoneer would play out. T-Hawk was written that you guys were unsure about what to do about its ammo. Well, I looked at it, and figured I'd see exactly how the class would do, stripped of one of its commands for most of the game. Though there's no use worrying about it too much anyway - given that their !Combine skill comes later on.

I believe I saw a mini report written here in the thread somewhere, but it was quite small and didn't really go into much detail. With a fellow here having done and documented solo Oracle, I decided to experience the other class the two GBA ones not gone over for myself.

The Cannoneer look like pirate captains. It was tempting to just use Faris for this task, but I figured this being my first solo, I'd rather not futz around with trying to do Antlion with underleveled characters. I figured to name my soloist after Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Because why not? Nothing else, besides Kirk and Captain Murasa from Touhou, really came to immediate mind.


Stat-wise, Cannoneer is a somewhat average class. Strength is about the same as Red Mage (+9 vs. +8), a +6 in Agility and Vitality, and a +4 in Magic. It gets knives and swords for weapons, and is also capable of equipping shields, Like the Chemist, it can equip both light and casting armor. The job command of this class is Open Fire. Let's see what it can do for us.


Well then. That's something. So this command is akin to !Dance or !Oath, in where there are four possible outcomes. Each of these does heavy physical damage. Here's the lowdown from the GBA Algorithms guide.

- Odds / Status \ "Att-Def"
- 104/256 / Blind \ 115
- 62 /256 | Poison \ 115
- 60 /256 | Confusion \ 175
- 30 /256 | Insta-Death \ 215 (kills undead)

This means...something? I'm not exactly sure what damage formula it uses. 2E is possible. The gist of it though, these are very potent attacks, each of which sets a status on the enemy if possible.


I took Picard up to about level 10 before taking on Karlabos, by fighting the monsters in the Torna Canal who were of no threat to him (another reason why I didn't just use Faris). The fight with the lobster was trivial, as he was wasted by a pair of Open Fires. A death shot would've done it in one.

During the ship graveyard, I learned the consequences of going into a dungeon solo with too few potions. Ended up having to make a few tactical retreats. Well, it's a learning process I guess.


Siren and Magisa were both shot up, the former dying in two blasts and the latter in one. In-between, I rectified the problem I had before by buying a full stock of 99 Potions. This made the North Mountain more a hiking trip than anything else.


Picard managed to retrieve the Elf Mantle from the Walse Castle basement!! Open Fire at its finest could do enough to take out a Jackanapes in a single hit. He only had to face two. He blew away the first, and with the cape protecting him from attacks, ran from the second. It took a few tries before the deathshot showed up, but succeeded on the second encounter on the first try.


It finally hit me in the tower to send Picard to the back, as Open Fire is not subject to row. I picked up a habit of blowing away the most dangerous enemies first.


Garula was hit with a confuse shot, and proceeded to take no further action. A quirk/oversight in action. Confusion works by having the monster select attacks from its !Control list to use, with enemies and allies reversed in targeting. No attacks in the control menu = the enemy does nothing while confused. The next blast finished off the freaky elephant/mammoth.
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The !Combine command uses mixing ingredients and drinks as some of its ammo. That means that these Chemist materials have a use later on. Much much later on. I got the Mythril Sword I'm probably not going to use as Picard's cheap item in Karnak. I suited him up in the best of the armor he could equip after the festivities in the castle, and sent him into the Steamship.


Open Fire is unblockable, so Flash from the Crew Dust was a non-issue. Much like the rest of the dungeon.


Liquid Flame I thought was going to be the first troublesome boss. However, I found all of its forms were vulnerable to Confuse, and luck happened to be on my side. Had to drink a Hi-Potion in order to avoid a potentially fatal Fira, but that was about all.

Picard had more than enough firepower to loot all the chests in Karnak, including the chests I had no use for. I switched him to the front row as well, using the Mythril Sword I guess I am using after all to save animation time against lone Cur Nakks and Gigases if they weren't killed in one hit. Not that it was needed, as I escaped with 4 minutes left anyway.


I fought Iron Claw for the novelty of it. Three shots blew him away.


Level 20 before the Ancient Library is a bad idea. I could've easily grinded up...but I charged in anyway and just ran from everything, believing that Picard could easily defeat the two bosses waiting within. The encounters here are awful in their worth anyway.


Ifrit ate two Open Fires, the second of which was instant death.


Byblos proved a bit trickier. I had Picard equip the Knife so that Confusion would not be an issue. Losing the Guardian Dagger's weapon block might be a bad thing...but Byblos is vulnerable to blind. The Open Fires were Death, Blind, and Poison - the latter of which he is vulnerable to as well.

After a few tries, I managed to inflict the Poison and about 2000 damage before he Protected up, I could just sit back and watch his life bleed away. Which is a good thing, as the counter-Drains just barely edged out the damage from Open Fire after Protect.


Sandworm took way more blasts than average for bosses, but is otherwise not worth writing about. Picard got his class's second ability after the battle. EXP Up does exactly what it says on the tin, and is certain to reduce the grind!


I got cocky on Crayclaw and just tried to shoot him to death, hoping for an eventual killshot. That never came, but thanks to evasion and his repeated use of Tailscrew, he didn't manage the kill.

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Adamantoise was gibbed by a deathshot, which was good, because the weaker attacks were only doing in the neighborhood of 230~ damage. Luckily, even if that never came, it was hit with a darkness attack and rendered nearly helpless.


Then came the defense systems. Unfortunately for the Rocket Launchers, Open Fire is not used when confused. Defeating them was as trivial as equipping the Knife and blasting them to bits. Unfortunately for the Flameguns, I rerolled every encounter into Rocket Launchers. Who needs a Flame Ring?


Picard then had to deal with Sol Cannon. Even after all this, I'm still not sure what the exact formula for Open Fire is, but I'll tell you what it doesn't involve: base stats. Sol Cannon learned this lesson the hard way, as Picard was hit with the aging missiles, and proceeded not to care, blasting him with his cannon, alternating it with Elixirs every other turn, until he ran out of Elixirs and died. Whoops?


The speed disadvantage could've been overcome with more of them, but I simply chose to deal with the problem with Magic Evade, much like the solo Red Mages did. Remember, the Cannoneer can equip casting armor. A single Confuse or Death blast would destroy a Launcher. Without the speed drop from their rockets to worry about, this was less draining on Elixir resources.

The game wasn't exactly on my side. !Open Fire just kept giving me darkness and poison shots, which was mildly irritating. A Coral Sword slash did more damage than either, but not enough to justify using it when the confusion and death shots did so much more. I used 6 Elixirs in the fight, but got it done. So with neither ring in hand, Picard made his way into the floating fortress. The encounters in the ruins went okay. Picard retreated from fights I didn't feel were worth fighting, which primarily consisted of larger groups of enemies.


Archeoaevis. With a Golden Shield, Main Gauche, and Elf Mantle, Picard was well-protected from the physicals. His cannon tore through the fossilized dragon's five forms with ease. It landed a Maelstorm, but it was too little too late. He won this encounter on the first try.

I thought about sticking around for more encounters after this to take advantage of their massive EXP output, but I had run out of potions by this point. Could've backtracked I suppose, but didn't feel like it.


The Purobolos were dealt with in the standard (painful) way for characters who can't target more than one opponent at once: blast down their HP with a single Open Fire and hope for the best. The deathshot would unfortunately trigger the same self-revival quirk as Lucius. The poison shot was interesting - they're vulnerable to the status, and if they died from it, they did not do their death counter.

Eventually, everything lined up, and I was down to three as above. Picard weakened the two that were not poisoned. There were three left as shown about. One of them blew up, the one died from poison, and then the last one went boom. That was finally it. Never want to do that again, dear lord.


Titan was easy as always, after he didn't use Earth Shaker on round 2. Which he did three times in a row. No need to mess around with Elixirs. I neglected to heal for Manticore, but landed a death shot.


So it's looking like so far, the Cannoneer is an extremely powerful class even without its !Combine ability. Part because of the sheer power of Open Fire and part because of my playstyle, I blasted through the first world in under four hours. Will the easy times last through World 2? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

[English Language]

Yeah, Cannoneer is a very powerful class. At one point during the solo I did a long whole back, I remember testing a bunch of different weapons, including Chicken Knife, Guardian Dagger, and fists, and found none of them affected !Open Fire's damage, just levels, so I generally stuck with the Guardian Dagger unless I really needed a different weapon. That said, the Sleep Blade will be a godsend later, since !Open Fire doesn't wake up sleeping enemies.

Looking back, I managed to beat Neo ExDeath at level 50, and with Cannoneer getting the EXP Up ability, the grinding needed for the class should be minimal.

[T-hawk]

Hey System Error, welcome to RB, and glad you found an interesting place to contribute.

Pirate captain - Morgan comes to mind. Guess Jack Sparrow doesn't fit.

Anyway, I'm now pretty convinced that Square had in mind the possibility of playing the new classes from the beginning of the game. The Cannoneer and Necromancer each have an ability that's weak and out of place late game, but is just what they need to get by until they can get the job's real power.

[System Error]

That said, the Sleep Blade will be a godsend later, since !Open Fire doesn't wake up sleeping enemies.

Looking back, I managed to beat Neo ExDeath at level 50, and with Cannoneer getting the EXP Up ability, the grinding needed for the class should be minimal.

Yeah. I basically did none at all throughout World 1, aside from Karlabos and for a bit in the ruins for the hell of it until I ran out of healing items.

Hey System Error, welcome to RB, and glad you found an interesting place to contribute.

Pirate captain - Morgan comes to mind. Guess Jack Sparrow doesn't fit.

Anyway, I'm now pretty convinced that Square had in mind the possibility of playing the new classes from the beginning of the game. The Cannoneer and Necromancer each have an ability that's weak and out of place late game, but is just what they need to get by until they can get the job's real power.

Thanks, T-Hawk. I have another variant in mind after this one too; after that, who knows? And yeah. Blackbeard doesn't either. I suppose I could've gone with Long John Silver or maybe Hook, but I didn't like the former and the latter only just hit me.

It would've been cool if one of the rereleases had a new game+ feature that let you start with all jobs from the beginning, so there would be no need to futz around with codes for these purposes, but oh well.

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After analyzing it, I didn't bother grinding up cash for a Flame Ring before heading to World 2. Just didn't think it would be necessary, and had a few things in-mind for those instances where it might be wanted. An Angel Ring might have its merits, but I felt I could go without it as well.


I don't think I've ever seen any solo talk about the Abductor boss at the beginning of World 2. The outcome is the same win or lose. Though maybe this isn't the solo report to talk about it with, as it died in a few Open Fires like everything else - even getting confused.


Samurai Galuf decided to take a vacation, and so glitched Cannoneer Galuf stepped up to the plate!! Main Gauche + Shield + Mantle + blind meant he couldn't touch the invisible man. Open Fire put up its predictable heavy damage, and he ran in three rounds of combat.


Didn't have to face much on the Big Bridge, and what did show up to fight was of little consequence. Against Gilgamesh, Picard took out the Ancient Sword and hit him with the aging debuff, as well as blinding him with an Open Fire. He needed to drink a few Hi Potions and an Elixir after the buffs went up and Gilgamesh began his jump barrage, due to having no practical way to prevent them from going off.

I picked up the Break spell in order to prevent zombie troubles in certain spots from here on out. It was awfully difficult having them survive long enough to inflict the status, though!! Thankfully, it shouldn't be needed that often. I also got new equipment for Picard to use.


Since things were getting a little dull, I decided to try taking on some formidable foes. First, Picard could kill the Shield Dragons in Kuza Castle! They were vulnerable to poison (as well as blind for defensive purposes). I could inflict the status with a blast, then watch it die. Had to use some Hi Potions to make sure I didn't get killed from high-rolled Zombie Breath, but this was a simple affair.


Outside, the Kuza Beasts lurked. These enemies have a simple AI script: ????. They have 5000 HP and 1000 MP, so ordinarily, these are dangerous encounters. Picard's confusion blasts worked on them, and caused them to use ???? against themselves - which was as expected hilarious. A killshot also worked. Though of course, anything else spelled disaster for Picard. He could take one ???? after one weak Open Fire, but that's it.


Back in time to take on some more challenging random encounters in the other world. The Mini Dragons outside Istory were easy to take out, even without the benefit of a Flame Ring. One or two cannon blasts could wipe them off the map, and that was that.


And wandering the southern islands is this mechanical monstrosity, Prototype. While not as intimidating as the real deal, with 5000 HP, 100 in each defense stat, and the following AI script, it is a force to be reckoned with at this stage of the game.

{Missile,Mustard Bomb,Blaster}
{Fight,Specialty,Emission}

Mustard Bomb would do around 300 damage, and Emission just under 200. More than survivable, even with just under 1000 HP. Fight and its Critical Attack speciality were of little concern, especially given the robot's vulnerability to blind. Blaster was the real problem. Paralysis wasn't that big a deal, but death was...well, death.


Nothing fancy about this encounter. Simply blast away, drinking Hi Potions and Elixirs as needed, and hope for a lot of confusion (500~) and death (700~) shot compared to the weakish other blasts seen above, and no instant death. Picard had to sit through a paralysis. But eventually and after about ten tries at the fight, the robot was scrapped.

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Back to the quest, the random encounters were uneventful. An Open Fire or two took down all comers. Tyrannosaurus got a lethal Open Fire to the face - he's vulnerable to the status.

The moogle we save warns us to stay out of the desert. Obviously with what we just did, we must go through the desert and take on what lies within!!


The Cacti dropped in one deathshot or two of anything else, unable to do much. The Sandcrawlers were more interesting. Picard hit them with poison shot, hit them with the Sleep Blade (dodging the physicals all the while), and let their life leak out of them. A deathshot also worked, as they have no resistance to the ailment.

The Abductor outside Bal Castle landed Hurricane on its first turn, then died to a fatal Open Fire. I decided to try something a bit different in Drakenvale...


Picard could've well taken out the Dragon Pod with the usual Open Fire, using the typical strategies for any class able to equip the Bone Mail, attacking Flower #4 repeatedly and fishing for an instant kill. But nay, I say we must humiliate it for all of its transgressions against solo classes!!


From behind Frog status, inflicted by the Koronga enemies outside, Picard was able to send the paralysis flower to dreamland with the Sleep Sword without killing it off. He repeated this process on the other flowers, aged the Pod for no particular reason, used a Maiden's Kiss, and slashed it to death with the Dancing Dagger and Sleep Sword. He then turned his cannon on the sleeping flowers to finish them off.


On a side-note, Open Fire worked as a frog, but did very little damage. Hm. Well, that meant that Picard couldn't fight on the way up. But it was worth it.

Picard collected a few Dragon Fangs on the way down the mountain now that he was able to do damage to enemies. He made a note to return here in World 3 in the likely scenario he would need more, because they're also part of a Combine attack.
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Gilgamesh on the ship was shot up from behind aging and the Bone Mail. He was hit with a deathshot after Enkidu was summoned, who went down in three blasts.


Nice Coral Ring, Yellow Dragons. I decided to go after this accessory for the hell of it - they would be guaranteed in the Blood Sword chest two encounters after reloading thanks to the English GBA version's buggy RNG (these encounters had Reflect Knights in them, helping grind for the Reflect Ring, which didn't show up). Picard beat these with a combination of evade and blinding. Their Lightning did fixed damage, which could be outpaced with Hi Potions, and though the death effects were stubborn to show, they would instantly dispatch them. I went and saved after this and went up the tower.


Then these guys went a little crazy due to Picard being level 36, I forgot to heal, and Picard was killed by the next encounter. Whoops. Sometimes, I'm in too much of a rush and stuff like this end up happening. The good news is, even though I had to walk all the way back, the next Reflect Knight from the subsequent reset gave up the ring.


Actually...yes, it is that easy! Picard hit Atomos with the Sleep Sword. As I was able to check earlier on the Sandcrawlers, Open Fire does NOT dispel effects like a normal physical attack. So a good hit from the Sleep Sword, and it was game set.

By the way, I had Galuf petrify himself there to show off an interesting quirk. Petrified party members do get dragged by Atomos, but don't count as dead in regards to his rampage check. So if all three were petrified, Atomos would attack with Comet.


Atomos was an easy opponent, so let's try something significantly harder...


First, the setup. I used Tempting Tango (from the Dancing Dagger) and an Ether (if the confusion succeeded) I had no other use to attempt to gain Float status off these Poison Eagles in Drakenvale. Them using Beak on Dragon Zombies is funny. Using Float on me while I'm wearing a Reflect Ring is not. Oops. Luckily, I got perfect results the next time the battle played out.


So Gil Turtle. This is an adversary that I've only seen Daniel take on solo, and he had the luxury of whichever combination of jobs he pleased. Arguable as one of the game's superbosses, this dapper fellow lies in a cave near the Big Bridge protecting a tunnel of Gil. He has a massive 32768HP, 40 Defense, and 40% Evasion, He's invulnerable to basically every status except Slow, gets inherent Protect and Shell, is Undead and Heavy, is immune to all elements but Holy (absorbs) and Ice (weak), and every time you damage him he counters with his Turtle special, which is two hits that inflict blind and poison. He also casts a massively damaging Earthquake upon death, essentially necessitating the use of Float. Which thankfully, those Poison Eagles can provide.

It's much like Prototype in how it's far more powerful than anything else up to this point, unless you've specifically prepared for him. I'm not sure which solos could actually take it on and win. Mystic Knight and Black Mage should be able to do it, as should White Mage. Chemist would have to use Shadowflares, Dark Breath, or Hi Potions to damage it, but should be fine. Monk would need to maximize its HP to deal with its final attack. And I felt as though Cannoneer could as well!


Picard tried his best. He maximized his speed with the Green Beret and Ninja Suit. Blind/poison shots would do 250-300, confusion shots around 500, and death shots around 750. Gil Turtle's own attacks, be they Turtle or normal, did around 600. Thanks to all that evade, the attacks were infrequent, but...


...it was just too much. Between a lack of resources and power, there just was not enough to carry the day. Oh well.


Moore, as seems to be typical for solos, was a relaxing place. The only problem were these Mini Magicians, who could make Picard's life miserable by inflicting mini on him. Which like the frog status from before, hampered the damage from Open Fire. He made sure to make these little guys priority targets throughout the forest.


Picard has no Flame Ring, but that's because I figured this fight would be more than doable without. And indeed, behind his evasion from equipment, backed by mini status from the mages to increase it further and reduce the damage from Open Fire to prevent it from doing actual damage and pushing them into their rampage spells, Picard shot the crystals until the instant kills went off. It took a while to get the air one, but Picard was never in any danger.
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A plethora of cutscenes and events later, it was time for Exdeath's Castle. Open Fire required 2-3 blasts to kill most things here, but remained the option for attack. Picard made his way through the castle. Confusion shot raised some havoc with enemies like these Magic Dragons, causing them to cast Level 2 Old on themselves.


Oh, but not so fast. Not ready to go and put the stamp on this world just yet! The Ice Shield from Exdeath's Castle gives an extra 40% evade, more than the 30% from the Golden Shield Picard was using in the first go at this fight. With the extra levels and that slight bit of added evasion, I figured I'd try to take on Gil Turtle again. This time, with 99 Antidotes, 99 Hi-Potions, and 15 Elixirs (gotten from Cure Beasts) in-stock. I thought Icebrand would've been an option to heal, but only Knights and Gladiators can equip it. Bleh.


Open Fire seems to increase in damage based on level, so the blasts were doing more damage than before. This was a confusion blast doing 700 damage. If I calculated it out correctly, Picard had 73% evasion. The boss only attacks physically, aside from its death counter.

Still, Gil Turtle wasn't going down without a fight. There were several points where he would land several hits in a row, which would outpace the Hi Potion healing. Picard had to use 8 Elixirs and a gallon of Hi Potions over the course of the battle. The battle was a tense affair, and about 3-4 times Picard was threatened with death if another hit landed...only to make the next dodge. But in the end, over half an hour later...


The turtle flopped over and died before I had a chance to get a screenshot of its dying move.

I also streamed the fight for the hell of it; the video can be seen here. You uh...might want to mute the sound, though. Don't know what was up with it.

On the subject, fun exploit - you can abuse the quicksave feature to get through the tunnel without ever fighting the turtle. This may only work on the US version.


Back in Exdeath's Castle, Picard found he had to wear the Bone Mail and Aegis Shield to protect against these guys' spells. The Dragons were at least simple, with Open Fire able to tear into them. I switched over to the Reflect Ring at that point, to prevent Atomic Ray from killing Picard.


Gilgamesh was dealt with in the usual fashion for a Cannoneer. Needed an Elixir and some Hi Potions to counter accumulated damage and a Hurricane. Incidentally, the float status from the Gil Turtle debacle seemed to be preventing some of the status from being inflicted on Picard. Like, Rocket Punch hit, yet did not inflict Confusion. Wasn't the Bone Mail either - I had to leave it off due to healing.

That brought Picard to Exdeath, with just over 9 hours on the game clock.


Open Fire did around this much at its strongest, and around half at its weakest. I was worried that this was going to be a frustrating experience, as it is for many-a solo. But with his damage output, which did thankfully scale up (was wondering if it would), Picard only needed to dodge two Condemns to make it to the second part of Exdeath's AI script. The float status came into play again, rendering an Earthquake useless. Exdeath actually has 100 Gs in his AI script to foil this, but it can be reflected. After that, it was only a matter of time...


...and that's World 2.

[T-hawk]

From behind Frog status, inflicted by the Koronga enemies outside, Picard was able to send the paralysis flower to dreamland with the Sleep Sword without killing it off. He repeated this process on the other flowers

That's beautiful. Still finding new tricks on this game.

Rathma the Necromancer also soloed Gil Turtle, although not in world two, the one in the bonus dungeon, and he was a considerably higher level by then. But yeah, there's no real need to ever actually fight that boss. If you really need cash, Drakenvale or Moore Forest are easier pickings.

[English Language]

Hey System Error, welcome to RB, and glad you found an interesting place to contribute.

Pirate captain - Morgan comes to mind. Guess Jack Sparrow doesn't fit.

Anyway, I'm now pretty convinced that Square had in mind the possibility of playing the new classes from the beginning of the game. The Cannoneer and Necromancer each have an ability that's weak and out of place late game, but is just what they need to get by until they can get the job's real power.

It seems that way. That's another reason I love the custom classes mod I linked to last page, it actually gives those bonus classes during the time you'd get the others(a few are re-arranged as well).

I was going to elaborate on that in the statuses thing I was doing above, but I played it a bit more and found it wasn't too interesting to write about. Berserker guy hits, zombie attacks us with Healing Staff, and the other two function normally. Maybe I'll try to find something more interesting to show off the mod in.

[System Error]

Rathma the Necromancer also soloed Gil Turtle, although not in world two, the one in the bonus dungeon, and he was a considerably higher level by then. But yeah, there's no real need to ever actually fight that boss. If you really need cash, Drakenvale or Moore Forest are easier pickings.

Yeah, that's true. I more fought it for the glory of doing so. The money wasn't needed, the challenge of fighting the turtle itself is its own reward - much like Omega, or the hard randoms.

Speaking of Rathma, he for that reason probably best exemplifies what I mean by being underprepared at that point. He didn't have the Lamp, or more importantly Deep Freeze in World 2. He could've still had confused the Eagle (everyone but Monk and Oracle can), but would have problems with damage output.
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Entering World 3 and the Pyramid (Antlion isn't worth talking about). It's not exactly true that Picard had no way of damaging both Gargoyles at the same time. Poison status allowed for this. Made for a creative way to deal with them, but of course, Sleep was the better choice. He'd deal with the later ones in that fashion. Dark Matter, like the other three mixing ingredients, is of use to the Cannoneer. So Picard had a lengthy trek through this place on his hands to gather up all the goods.


He soon found himself in this precarious spot. Not facing the snakes and Mecha Heads meant they couldn't initiate the encounter, so he eventually escaped...only to be trapped again. Deciding to fight, he set to work and rolled some confuses on the robots, making for amusing results when they used ???? on themselves.


Zombie status is stupid. So is the game refusing to let you run. I had to retreat out at this point due to only having one Holy Water in stock, Esuna and Tents don't heal the status either, nor does the Oracle's healing, and you can't even petrify the offending zombie! I took the opportunity to get the Chicken Knife, and proceeded to let it sit in Picard's inventory without fully powering it up.


Melusine was worthless. Reflect Ring, and I even forgot to use the Sleep Sword until she was basically dead (and had to wait for her to shift out of her physical form), but it didn't matter. With her out of the way, Picard proceeded to pick up the usual goods for a solo character, including the Hermes Sandles and the Magic Lamp.


The Solitary Island Shrine was an uneventful place, where Picard mostly ran from the encounters - especially the obnoxious birds with their 33090HP. I'm not exactly sure what was up with the fight against Stalker, also known as Wendigo, also known as allegedly unbearably hard solo by that one guide writer but actually stupid easy. Sleep Blade could be used to make it fall asleep, and could also target the false images.

He managed to sleep the back two, but the front two remained awake. And unlike with Merlin, it continued to move around - occasionally into one of the sleeping targets, but would eventually move out of them. He won in the end anyway, but had to poke the last image awake so it could die. Weird fight in how it played out, but not a hard one.

_____________________


I think it's time we taste it too. The only thing interesting about Minotaur (a simple fight for every solo) was my curiousity as to how much his dying Holy would do, if I gave him an Ether so he would actually be able to use it. The results were...disappointing, to say the least.

Useless piece of trivia unrelated to the challenge: the Fork Tower actually does explode if you take too long to start the Omniscient fight. A nice touch, but kind of silly in light of the strategies melee classes employ against him. Regardless, our second Cannoneer (with her poor level of 4, but behind the Bone Mail/Reflect Ring) decided to be a little more proactive.


So here's a neat trick/bug I've never seen any solo exploit: using an Ether on an enemy. What's the point of this? Well, enemy MP is supposed to be capped at 9999. Use an Ether or Elixir when they have more than that, and that's what it'll be dropped to. Saves a lot of time waiting for a boss to run itself out of MP! She needed to wait for Omniscient to lock his spells out so he would not cast Reset, but got it done.

Despite this, Krile got impatient and decided to be more proactive. She could attempt to inflict Aging status on Omniscient after he bounced a Stop or Silence onto himself. The odds were low because of the level difference (maybe I should've reset and let Picard do it, instead of going with the same philosophy as the White Mage solo?), but she eventually got the job done - reducing the healing from Omniscient's Regen and making him liable to kill himself.


Then she decided to be even more proactive. Omniscient had bounced a Haste off himself onto Krile, and a Slow spell off her onto himself. Combined with Aging debuff (which had lowered his level and thus raised the odds of statuses landing), Krile could get 6 turns to Omniscient, and get in two blasts of Open Fire after bouncing a Silence off her wall with the Mage Masher. What is this, a Time Mage game?

The Great Sea Trench was not a fun place. The blob enemies in particular could take as many as five blasts to die from Open Fire, and without a way to multi-target yet, Picard decided running was the best option. The three little pigs were, by contrast, ridiculously easy. The Bone Mail, the Flame Ring, and the Ice Shield caused all of their spells to be absorbed, and swipes from the Sleep Blade rendered them helpless. I used Open Fire, turned on the autofire, and relaxed until they squealed.


I'd neglected to get any of the legendary weapons so far - given the only one Picard could use was the Assassin's Dagger - and getting them all is a requirement to unlock the GBA jobs (and thusly, the Cannoneer's ammunition). In another neat detail/piece of consistency, any of the tablet bosses you've already defeated, including this red guy we never actually fight, won't be in this cutscene. (If you've beaten them all before using your first tablet, the cutscene simply won't happen.)


Istory, Istory, Istory. Aquagels startled me a bit with that damage output on that back attack, but it was still as much of a breeze as I expected from reading solo job reports. Even the Tonberries couldn't do much with the blind and confusion shots around to mess with them.


It probably wasn't the wisest of ideas to try taking on Leviathan without a Coral Ring, just to see if I could do it. Also unwise was leaving on the Bone Mail and having Picard use an Elixir on himself. Despite all this stupidity on my part, Leviathan only used four Tsunamis throughout the battle, two of which were blocked by the Aegis Shield. His physicals were rendered moot with Main Gauche and blind (so many bosses and notable encounters are vulnerable to that...). So Picard won anyway. Comedy of errors, this is.

_____________________

And now the moment we've all been waiting for...


Cannoneer unlocked for real.


To use Combine, you pick an ammunition and a component. It then deals damage to all targets on the field. Picard stocked up on these and other supplies from Moore. He also went back to Drakenvale to stock up on Dragon Fangs, as well as a Dark Matter on the side thanks to the Thief Knife. Taking a page from White's playbook, decided to test his new abilities and these fangs on a worthy target.


Wait, what? Well, this is underwhelming. That's only around 1000 more than Open Fire is doing with a confuse shot. Much like that itself, Combine scales with level and deals damage independent of stats. It counts as magical damage, but deals it as a physical attack. Here's the damage formula from the GBA Algorithms guide.

Attack = Base Attack + (0..(Base Attack/8))
M = (Level*Level)/256 + 4
Damage = Attack*M, max = 9999

The shot I'm using, and the reason for gathering those Dragon Fangs, is known as Dragon Cannon (Blitzshot + Dragon Fang). It has a base attack of 215, and M gets doubled if the target is a dragon. The problem is, Bahamut isn't classified as a dragon by the game! Weird.


So Picard turned to another attack: Slow Shot (Buckshot + Turtle Shell). Using the weakest ammunition, this has a base power of only 65. But true to its name, it has a (flat) 75% chance to inflict Slow on anything vulnerable. Picard proceeded to use Open Fire to bore a hole through the legendary not-dragon with the infamous 4-to-1 speed advantage.

Why not use the stronger Blitzshot? Quite simply, to save on money/resources. While cheap, using the ammunition in every battle does add up. Since these status-inflicters do their status at the same rate regardless of which ammo you use, it's more cash-efficient to use the basic Buckshot if you simply want to inflict the status. And especially since they otherwise don't have much use, being far weaker than Blitzshot and even Blastshot.


And because beating up on one optional summoned monster wasn't enough, I decide to throw down with another. Fuma Shruiken goes into a Combine much like Dragon Fangs (this one being called Killer Cannon), but with M doubling if the target is human instead - of which Odin qualifies. Still, with only one in stock, Picard decided against using it, and after a reset brought out his melee fighting skills for the first time since Karnak Castle. His cannon attacks take animation time, so the Chicken Knife (which had only 106 power...again, he didn't bother to actively power it up) was the best option in this fight.


Into the Rift. Picard continued to use EXP Up through most of this, instead of Combine. The fans in the Ronka Ruins section were notable, due to being able to steal Turtle Shells from them. There was also a hilarious moment where - because of confusion - the Level Checkers hit themselves with Level 2 Old, followed by Level 5 Death when their level lined up just right. This infamous combo is sometimes called Death By Math in some circles, and is used to instantly kill many-a boss in speedrun settings.


Calofisteri was as always, trivial with the Bone Mail. Picard didn't even bother with Combine. For Apanda, he once again broke out Slow Shot, then proceeded to destroy the boss with Flame Cannon. This, along with its cousins the Water and Spark Cannon, are used with Ninja scrolls. Among the most efficient price-wise, they happen to have the second-highest base attack of Combine at 220, yielding only to the Hero Cocktail's holy-elemental Divine Cannon at 225.


Picard employed a bold new strategy against the dangerous Apocalypse/Azulmagia...





See ya, nerd. Didn't feel like taking him on and playing with his irritating AI routine, so he can stay in jail.


You may have noticed that Picard was floating. I picked up the status by having him Tempting Tango a Gaia Cat on the North Mountain. This along with the Reflect Ring made Catastrophe a snoozefest. Yet it _still_ managed to troll, by giving him a rare Cottage steal instead of an Elixir. What a jerk. For most of the encounters in the dimensional castle, it was Picard causing the enemies grief with confusion from !Open Fire (especially amusing with the Death Claws), or just killing them with damage or instant death.


Halicarnassus was hit with a Slow Shot, then blown away by repeated Water Cannons. Like Open Fire, Combine works from behind toad status. Unlike Open Fire, it does full damage from behind toad status (not to mention looking hilarious). She never got to use Holy.


Really game? Really? The rare drop?


For Twin Tania, Picard went in with Main Gauche, Ice Shield, Bone Mail and Coral Ring to essentially block all of the danger. His own blasts of water did over 7000 damage to the beast, whereas all one of its own healed him. He got to the Giga Flare charging portion of his AI routine, but never got it off.


Picard nicked the Genji Shield from Gilgamesh, then broke out Chaos Cannon (Dark Matter + Blitzshot) against Necrophobe's barriers, killing them instantly with its Death effect. This Combine is infamous for its not triggering counterattacks in scripts, although there are several others that work as well. With Golem from the Magic Lamp, a Slow Shot, and blasting with an elemental cannon, Necro signed his will to his next of kin.


Out of the void to recharge the lamp. And to do some leveling for very special purposes. Picard found it was actually faster to equip Combine and kill everything in one round, than collect the bonus from EXP Up.


Since he was training in the area, he decided to go up and down Phoenix Tower to break up the monotony. The only enemies of note were these Kuza Beasts. Recall their script: ????. While they have other options in their appearance here, Picard didn't feel like dealing with this potentially lethal blow. So he turned to the Power series (Power Drink). It inflicted Berserk, and he was in no danger.

One problem: the cutscene at the top heals your party. Oops. I was working under the impression that Float blocks certain statuses, including confusion. I'm not sure if it actually does or not, but it really didn't hurt to pick it up either way, Picard made sure to get the status back at North Mountain for possible use against Neo Exdeath's Grand Cross - until it gets dispelled, that is. On the other hand, the whole point of this grinding I was doing is to kill it before it even fires, as I calculated it should be able to. Can we do it?

_____________________


First, Exdeath the tree. Everyone's favorite Aegis Shield made White Hole a non-factor. He was vulnerable to slow, so out came Slow Shot. Now, he is actually classified as a human! So with Killer Cannon, Picard chopped it down to size. On a side-note, remember what I was saying about Chaos Cannon? If you use it, or any of the other attacks that don't trigger counterattacks to deal the final blow to the tree, the fight against Neo Exdeath never triggers. Much like the Kiss of Blessing bug, which was partially patched out of this version.


But Picard will be fighting Neo Exdeath all right. Magic Lamp wiped out the back part. Like Shadow the Ninja, the onslaught of high-damage Dragon Cannons meant that the Grand Crosser's AI routine was constantly reset. Not a single one went off in the battle.


The other two parts put up only marginally more resistance, and found resistance was futile. The Almagest part was neutered by Aging from another Combine - the Silver Cannon, which involves a Speed Shake. The physical part is vulnerable to slow, as well as blinding. In order to keep their damage in sync, Picard pulled out the rarest Combine - Dark Cannon. This involves Ash, of which I believe there are exactly 7 in the main game (1 in Moore, 4 as rare drops from the crystals, a rare drop from Apanda, and a steal from Apanda).


Then one of them died before the other. Despite this scare, Picard finished the other off with another cannon shot before the Meteors could come, and that was that. Victory on the first attempt at the final boss.


Picard finished the game at Level 63, above the baseline for solo classes, but in my opinion well worth it to stop the hassle of Grand Cross. He needed only one Elixir in the battle, to heal after the Grand Crosser had died. The Cannoneer is an extremely powerful class, with Open Fire pumping out high damage from start-to-finish, the variety and multi-targetting of Combine, and the various status it is able to inflict with both attacks (including the nasty Slow, and Blind which a surprising amount of enemies are vulnerable to).

All in all, doing a solo playthrough for myself was quite the enjoyable experience, I must say. I'd go as far to place Cannoneer on the level of Samurai or Chemist in terms of ease, if not slightly below. With all the nasty status stuff it brings, along with the protection from shields and sword use, plus the ability to hang out in the back row without concern, there's very little the enemies can do if you play your cards right. Not having ammunition for Combine early on wasn't that big a deal - it could've made the Purubolos and Dragon Pod easier as well as bringing out Slow, but Picard got through without perfectly fine. It was almost too enjoyable, and it's a little disappointing for it to be over so soon.

So...shall we try to seek out more difficult foes for Picard?

[T-hawk]

I think it's time we taste it too. The only thing interesting about Minotaur (a simple fight for every solo) was my curiousity as to how much his dying Holy would do, if I gave him an Ether so he would actually be able to use it. The results were...disappointing, to say the least.

This is the silliest thing ever.

Yes, I've had Fork Tower explode on being slow to click on Omniscient. On the real GBA so no rewind to fix it.

So here's a neat trick/bug I've never seen any solo exploit: using an Ether on an enemy. What's the point of this? Well, enemy MP is supposed to be capped at 9999.

I hadn't heard of that one, where did you find it?

I'd neglected to get any of the legendary weapons so far ... In another neat detail/piece of consistency, any of the tablet bosses you've already defeated, including this red guy we never actually fight, won't be in this cutscene. (If you've beaten them all before using your first tablet, the cutscene simply won't happen.)

Huh, I didn't know that was possible. Could have sworn that redeeming the first tablet was necessary to gate something, like the island tower or Fork tower opening, or the submarine. Guess not.

Yes, Leviathan is easy even without the Coral Ring. He doesn't use Tidal Wave often enough, and a solo character at level 50-some easily withstands it with the higher HP than a 30-some full party.

So...shall we try to seek out more difficult foes for Picard?

Nah, he's done plenty, we don't want to see if such a solo can take on any bonus superbosses. Right?

[Plus C]

So here's a neat trick/bug I've never seen any solo exploit: using an Ether on an enemy. What's the point of this? Well, enemy MP is supposed to be capped at 9999. Use an Ether or Elixir when they have more than that, and that's what it'll be dropped to. Saves a lot of time waiting for a boss to run itself out of MP! She needed to wait for Omniscient to lock his spells out so he would not cast Reset, but got it done.

That... is an amazing discovery. I took the liberty of drafting a list of enemies this works for, in the spoiler below. I just know that'll be helpful somewhere

Sandworm & The Holes (Sandworm has no magic of his own, the holes would work too but they're untargetable, I think. A shame, they'd be useful.)
Atmos (Oh boy, I bet White and Jesse feel silly now!)
Seal Guardians (This is really handy, you can MP stall them without having to actually trigger the dangerous phase!)
Exdeath (vs. Galuf) (This could be a funny one, wouldn't save him though, sadly )
Carbuncle (1st Form) (A purely magic based boss, so this'd be helpful. Doesn't work on form 2, [the defencive form] though)
Exdeath (Obvious usefulness here, combine with Level 2 old!)
The Pig Trio (Are these guys immune to ANYTHING?)
Omniscient (End of the battle here, watch out for the Reset counter, though)
Gogo (Ha! This'll make fighting him properly much easier!)
Bahamut (Not much magic, but this helps)
Omega (Can help block Delta Attack, Circle and Emmission, and cheaper than Dragon Kiss!)
Azulmagia (Screw that AI routine!)
Catastrophe (Has no magic anyway)
Twintania (Both forms) (Very handy, blocks most of his attacks)
Shinryu (Doesn't block much, though)
Necrophobia (Blocks Death, but 40 MP is probably enough to cover all of his castings anyway in one battle)
Every Exdeath part and stage (Obviously useful to block all of the Dispels, the caster, all the comets and Meteos and Almagest, not Grand Cross, though)
And every single bonus dungeon boss!

So...shall we try to seek out more difficult foes for Picard?

Bonus dungeon <3?[/code]