More Final Fantasy

[Wild Halcyon]

I've been having fun doing a FFV run with 4 berserked party members - berserk is the second ability all the time, and I've been posting my progress at gamefaqs. I figured you all would have some decent advice in terms of some of the later bosses. I do hope to do most of the Sealed Temple, and Shinryuu will go down easily enough, but I'm not so sure about Omega. He may just have to live.

Unfortunately because of Sandworm I don't think it would fare any better as a solo challenge than a berserker solo for the most part. There are no weapons that can exploit Sandworm's weaknesses. I'd consider skipping past the fight with a solo just to make the rest of the game more interesting - much like Sulla does with his solos to get around Atmos.

The rest of the variant is pretty fun, and I think a solo berserked character would have a fun bag of tricks with a decent restriction. The 4-person party has been pretty much a cakewalk after Sandworm. I haven't been doing any running away either, although the GBA version does allow Berserkers to run away. The only interesting bosses so far have been:

Liquid Flame: Actually killed my berserkers due mostly to unlucky rolls of getting the human form too often. I ended up grinding a little to get the berserk ability and changed to monks.

Byblos: Compared to how easy Ifrit died, Byblos refused to die. Since I could only use physicals I was guaranteed to get him stuck in Armor status. Later on he counters physicals with Drain. The problem here is that he was draining just slightly more than a single monk punch (by far my highest damage output option at the time since I hadn't mastered Two-handed yet). I got a string of single-punch hits against him resulting in him healing close to 500 of his HP back.

Sandworm: As I mentioned, this battle is just evil. Back-row status and only 1/6 chance to hit the right target results in an incredibly painful battle. On several attempts I scored exactly 0 hits on Sandworm. 14 straight misses. The chances of that happening are about 8% - so roughly 1 in every 14 attempts ended in failure. I'm playing on an actual physical cartridge (GBA version), so those kind of odds really hurt. I ended up grinding to get Two-handed for this fight. Although Sandworm has 0 defense he's constantly in back row status. But two-handed effectively doubled my 'zerk's damage output, and berserk further multiplied it by 3/2. And it was still incredibly difficult. I had leveled up to 27 grinding for the Two-Haneded ability. At that level I needed 5 successful attacks to win the battle. I ended up getting three in a row right at the start of the battle. After that it was still close, but I got fortunate and finally two more hits landed.

Sol Cannon: Interesting just in comparison to how tough this fight usually is for berserkers. If Berserkers could wield swords this fight would be over before it even started.

Puroborous: I used a bunch of ninjas with mage mashers. I couldn't prevent them from using Exploder, but I could prevent them from using Arise. I felt like it was a smart solution to an otherwise incredibly tricky boss.
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Tyrannosaurus: A rather difficult boss since I don't have the use of phoenix down in battle. I ended up bringing 4 monks and punching my way to victory, but it took a couple tries after he abused ???? too much. Actually, the harder part was the random encounters. Kuzar beasts are incredibly hard-hitting, and the slimes in the river had a tendency to use Vampire when they weren't outright killed every round - and if they were in the back row they had an annoying tendency to take two hits to kill.

Atmos: 4 Knights with Sleep Blades. He got off a single comet, killed one character, then slept through most of the fight.

Seal Guardians: Went back to my usual Berserker bag of tricks and used 4 Death Sickles. I actually screwed up this battle several times trying to over-think it. First I went in with the best attack weapons I had and died against a constant barrage of everything. Then I went in with 4 Freelancers with Two-handed and Death Sickles. Although I probably could have won that way given enough tries I failed miserably when the Death Sickles refused to proc on the Water and Fire guardians, but it brought them down to low enough health that they started spamming Firaga and Aqua Rake. In the end, the win came from just using 4 Berserkers and 4 Death Sickles with nothing else added. If I hit too hard and the 'zerks don't get enough chances to proc death on each guardian before they go crazy.

And that's where I stand now. My next goal is to farm a Power Rod, then get Carbunkle (I've been trying to tackle all the sidequests except for a certain annoying turtle) and beat the two bosses of the castle. I don't think anything else in World 2 will be a problem. But I do foresee some difficulties in World 3.

Omniscient: I plan on having my fastest character use the power rod so he gets berserked immediately.

The Great Trench: Yeah, the whole dungeon. The random encounters in here counter !Fight commands, and unfortunately berserkers know of no other command. I'm thinking I need to take them out quickly, by exploiting their weaknesses. My current plan is to go in with a trio of 4 wielding: The Sage's Staff, Apollo's Harp, Excalibur, and the Holy Lance. I'm not sure that they have the physical prowess to actually cause the damage however.

Shinryuu: I'll steal 4 dragon lances and buy some coral rings.

Gogo: Oh god... Not really useful, but it would be fun to have the mimic class unlocked.

Omega: Ooohhh... god.

[T-hawk]

Great Trench: Only one type of the enemies responds with Encircle, and that only removes one party member. I think you'll be okay. If nothing else, you can abuse the GBA quicksave trick to avoid all random encounters.

Shinryuu: How long does stealing 4 dragon lances take with only the one Thief Knife and no emulator speedup?

Gogo: IIRC, a missed attack doesn't trigger responses. Maybe go in with only one warrior alive, blinded and wielding an inaccurate weapon (Drain Sword), and maybe that can wait him out?

Neo Exdeath: got a plan here?

[T-hawk]

EDIT: And it's up. An analogue to T-Hawk's Brawlers, these are the Spellslingers. Only MAGIC and RUN allowed. I won't post it here, for not-clogging-the-thread's-sake and not breaking up this report a second time.

Please, clog the thread. I would have never seen this if not for happening to scroll back up in replying to Wild Halcyon.

Good stuff. Yes, magic-heavy parties can also work; the problem is always the low HP. The story of beating Warmech at 1 HP and then Tiamat solo is awesome. I would've let that stand without going back again later.

For leveling, yes the Mummy spot in the Waterfall is fastest and easiest. In large part for its accessibility in a single-floor dungeon rather than eight levels up in the sky. You can just buy Houses for magic recharges and walk back in in a couple minutes.

[Wild Halcyon]

Great Trench: Only one type of the enemies responds with Encircle, and that only removes one party member. I think you'll be okay. If nothing else, you can abuse the GBA quicksave trick to avoid all random encounters.

Shinryuu: How long does stealing 4 dragon lances take with only the one Thief Knife and no emulator speedup?

Gogo: IIRC, a missed attack doesn't trigger responses. Maybe go in with only one warrior alive, blinded and wielding an inaccurate weapon (Drain Sword), and maybe that can wait him out?

Neo Exdeath: got a plan here?

Great Trench: That seems like a good idea. From reading the descriptions of what went on down there I thought there was a lot more instant death. My plan should be pretty solid with the weapons I plan to bring. I only bothered to farm one Light Staff since I won't really be using staves at all in this playthrough, and I don't think they do elemental damage anyways.

Shinryuu: A long, long time, I imagine. 6 would be better. My current - possibly overkill - plan is 4 mirage vests, 4 Hermes Sandles, 6 dragon lances. Bartz gets masamune and power rod. He goes first and berserks Shinryuu. The other three characters do double-dragon berserker attacks. The mirage vests should prevent some damage from coming in quickly enough that I can get in enough attacks. I may only need 3 dragon lances with two-handed. I need to get in 6x 9999 hits to win. I think its do-able.

Gogo: Great idea! I'll work on that strategy. Where in the third world can I find someone who casts blind readily? I can't use the headstones on North Mountain since they need an ether.

Neo Exdeath: I'm still working on my plan a little. Depending on how things come together I will be relying a lot on some luck. I'll have ribbons equipped to protect against most of what Grand Cross can dish out.

One character will have the Assassin's Dagger for instant death against the part that's vulnerable, but that relies so much on luck that it might not be worth it. The character needs to attack the correct section with the dagger and have the fairly low odds of success trigger. But this whole battle will be a lesson in frustration. I'll definitely be taking out Necrophobia to take advantage of the final save point.

I'm thinking of having a character master Oracle and give them 2x Gaia's Hammer for magic power boosted quake attacks, another character using the Fire Lash, another character with the Wind Slash - basically taking advantage of all the equipment options open to a Freelancer. These multi-target special attacks offer an opportunity to boost my damage considerably against all the targets.

[T-hawk]

You get the impression of so much instant death in the Trench because we talk about solo characters so much here. Encircle ends the game against one character but is only an inconvenience against four.

Getting blinded for Gogo, I don't know offhand, but check the algorithms guide of course.

Shinryuu is properly immune to Berserk in the GBA version, I think? Or was that fixed only for Kiss of Blessing?

Triggered multitarget effects against Neo Exdeath, that could be interesting, hope to see your results.

[System Error]

EDIT: And it's up. An analogue to T-Hawk's Brawlers, these are the Spellslingers. Only MAGIC and RUN allowed. I won't post it here, for not-clogging-the-thread's-sake and not breaking up this report a second time.

Please, clog the thread. I would have never seen this if not for happening to scroll back up in replying to Wild Halcyon.

Good stuff. Yes, magic-heavy parties can also work; the problem is always the low HP. The story of beating Warmech at 1 HP and then Tiamat solo is awesome. I would've let that stand without going back again later.

For leveling, yes the Mummy spot in the Waterfall is fastest and easiest. In large part for its accessibility in a single-floor dungeon rather than eight levels up in the sky. You can just buy Houses for magic recharges and walk back in in a couple minutes.

Thanks!! And heh. Well, was going to repost it at the top of whenever my FF6 Nudists make enough progress to update. All they've done since the last one has been Holy Dragon and the GBA Espers. That said, here's two more writeups: with accompanying preview images to make them easier to spot for people browsing through.


First, a solo monster challenge in FFL2, or as much of it as the game would allow, with one forced exception and two optional exceptions made to preserve my sanity. Guess them before reading and win a prize! Maybe.


And a solo human nonchallenge in FFL1, which I did in the span of 6-8 hours today. And yes, that's actually the allegedly invincible Suzaku getting wrecked, not the one you fight proper.

[Wild Halcyon]

I'm now up to the Fork Tower. Everything so far has been a cakewalk. Currently level 37. I haven't gone out of my way to level other than AP in the ocean.

Omniscient is pretty evil. He hits ridiculously hard when berserked - doing well over 2K in damage per hit, which I absolutely cannot survive at this level. I only have one mirage vest, and I'm not sure I'm willing to invest in more, but that might get the job done if I can get lucky. I do about 2K per hit back at him (Faris does less, she's dual-wielding the power staff), with three characters a piece. So they need to last 4-5 rounds. May be doable with some lucky dodges from elven capes to replace the hermes sandles. Not sure if aging from the ancient blade would help either. I might try that too.

[T-hawk]

How'd you do world 2 Exdeath? Farm up reflect rings?

Omniscient is vulnerable to Aging and yes it does cut his berserked damage by a lot, so go for that.

I don't think you want elf capes over the haste shoes. The shoes get you twice as many attacks, the cape only dodges 1/3.

[System Error]

Remember that shields are also an option. As for cape vs. shoes, the cape would theoretically be better if you could roll a lot of dodges, but shield dodges should work just as well. You're definitely going to need to balance the offense and defense carefully. Besides Ancient Sword, maybe also try some other weapons that could proc spells, like Fire Lash and...well, mostly that if you have it.

Would be curious to hear any thoughts on the two variants I posted above, by the way~

[T-hawk]

Shields are the same deal as the elf cape. Half your effectiveness (from giving up a dual-wielded or two-handed weapon) but less than half the defensive power.

Can't add much on your two variants. I never played a monster in FFL2, or any FFL1 much at all. But they were well written and entertaining. I always assumed you'd need an intricate guide of meat transforms to do much of anything with a monster.