More Final Fantasy

[English Language]

Probably the weirdest FFV challenge idea I've ever read.

I love it.

[Plus C]

Probably the weirdest FFV challenge idea I've ever read.

I love it.

This is the desired response

Update time!

We left Frog after his domination of the Ancient Library, so I went and grabbed the Fire Ship, after stealing ~15 Hi Potions just in case (I forgot I could get them from Ramuh just as easily, not that it mattered). Jachol Cave was interesting; thanks to my high Health, Image and Gaia I was quite capable of taking on Skull Eaters! That was a fun change of pace from my low level runs!

I also grabbed a very special prize for this run... The Toad spell! This was the single spell I can cast in the whole game, and I intended to make use of it. I went looking for an appropriate target for my new power... 5 Mini Dragons? Eat Toad! I managed to peg all 5 in one go and slaughtered them; but that was very lucky, as I learned a few seconds later when I missed all 5 and got slaughtered. Never mind! I manged a to turn up a very handy item though against Crescents

   

Yep, the good old Death Sickle! It works through Toad, so would be a cheese solution to a few enemies.

I have a confession to make regarding the Sandworm fight; I suck at it. My reflexes are equivalent to those of a plank of wood, and as a result this fight took about an hour, since I just kept missing. I usually cheese it with Water Scrolls or Aqua Rake, but wanted to do it properly for once!

Crayclaw was annoying; after about 10 attempts at doing properly I just Death Sickled him, it would actually have taken a lot of luck/ Lightning Scroll cheese to take him down, and I couldn't be bothered for it. It was late :P

Adamantoise is very easy when you have a Main Gauche, Elven Mantle and Image, he got Gaia'd to Death without every having a chance of touching me.

Onto the Launchers! I tried to take on a pair of Flameguns without a Flame Ring, but sadly Magic Shell doesn't work through Toad, and thanks to their Speed they eventually double round me and I just couldn't keep up (without Elixir farming, anyway). I already had the 50k, having very little to buy in the way of equipment all game, so it wasn't a big deal. For the Launchers I just kept the Healing Staff equipped, and Gaia'd my way through.

Onto Soul Cannon; A few Diamond Bell hits took out the launchers, and then I just out healed the cannon, getting in 2 hits every cycle. No need for an Angel ring here, since my strength stat is meaningless anyway!

The Ronka Ruins were a brutal, brutal place. Most encounters were massive luck fests for Frog, so I simply ran from them. I managed to turn up a Dark Bow, and took on a few Ghidras as White did, just for the hell of it. What else am I gonna do with those Phoenix downs?

I attempted Archaeoavis the normal way; Gaia spamming through him, pausing on the Fire form to heal up, then plowing on. But there was a problem; the final forms defences were too high! My bell couldn't get through, and with melee weapons my attack is fixed at 3. No elemental damage from Gaia, he absorbs it all. My only option was to punch him to death and rely on crits for ~50 a piece. That'd take an average of about 600 attacks, plus all of the rounds spent healing. There must be a better way.

There is! Take a leaf from my LLNIS run, and let counter get the kill. One Wind Slash from Gaia did 1580 damage, beautifully setting up a counter attack for the kill; which came on the first attack and blocked the AI routine from spawning the rest of him. Easy!

The Earth Crystal gives use a few new jobs; you know by know how amazing the Chemist can be. I'll avoid Mix when I can, but Drink is on the table, as one of my only sources of Protect and Haste in the game. (Protect can also come from Catch, and Haste can also come from the Masamune, but that's it!). What about the Samurai; will my Toadiness mess up Gil Toss?

   

Oh my. Well, that's an... option

Dance also worked, giving me access to Confusion, via Tempting Tango. I used this to grab Float from a Galeicat for Titan; and check out that sprite!

   

Beautiful

Titan with Float and Image can't hurt you, Manticore got aged and then just out healed. I went in to Purobolos with Gaia, to see if I could avoid using Scrolls... and it worked first time. Gaia just kept kill them; sure they revived, but they only have enough MP to do that twice, and if they self destruct at any point, they can only do it once. Victory secured, and the end of world 1. Frogs dominance will resume shortly

[Plus C]

Time for the next update; and the continuation of Frog's ascension to God Hood. Maybe.

World 2 began hilariously, with a solo petrified Galuf attempting to storm Exdeath's dungeon; shockingly this didn't work. I disabled my cheat codes for a second, Frog'd it up and Gil Tossed Gilgamesh to death.

Snapped a funny shot as Frog broke out of the dungeon too-

   

Solid Snake eat your heart out.

The battles on the Big Bridge were easy; I just spammed Gaia until they all died. Against Gilgamesh I used a strategy I'd been waiting to break out for a while; I aged him with the Ancient Sword, then just Chakra'd away, letting Counter attacks take him down, and never triggering his dangerous AI routine. My bell was doing ~200 damage here, through Shell and trying to out heal and Hasted, jump crazy Gilgamesh would have been too much.
I added the Sleep Sword and Dream Harp to my arsenal, and loaded up on Hi Potions, then headed off. Tyrannosaur died to a Phoenix Down, and Abductor died to Lamia's Harp abuse.

Drakenvale was a brutal place; I had easy answers to every encounter, but if they weren't executed flawlessly, I'd die. It didn't help that the Cave In move of Gaia was glitching out and draining MP with every hit (mine, thanks to the abundance of undead!) instead of dealing damage. Delightful.

I eventually cleft my way through to the Dragon Plant; I went in with Counter and Image ready, and a Dream Harp equipped. Dream Harp is guaranteed to inflict Sleep if it connects, and thanks to Counter I can easily sleep all 5 plants. Image helps with the last few. I then whittled down the main plant to ~200 health, then broke out a weapon no-one has ever equipped; the Wind Slash! A few goes with it and Wind Slash activated and wiped them all out. Done.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu slowly went down to the usual tactics; aged Gilgamesh, Harped Enkidu, healed alot. My offence was really starting to show as weak here; 200 damage a hit doesn't cut it. I could switch over to the Venom Rod, but the randomness of the damage makes it not worth it.

The tower also showed how weak I was; offensively and defensively. Eventually I reached Atomos, put him to sleep with the sleep sword, then used Gaia a lot. Easy stuff.

I managed to snag 3 Staff's of Light going through Guido's cave, which was perfect. If I grab Summon 3 aswell I'll have enough juice there to knock Exdeath down to his easy AI routine. I set to work on this, using Gaia through the random battles as usual.

More rocket tag in the forest of Moore, me spamming Gaia hoping it killed things before I died, then downing Hi Potions.

I was all ready to take on the Crystals in the usual solo way, Harp down to Firaga range and let it heal me up whilst I kill everything else. I needed Counter and a bit of luck to make this happen, but it almost worked first time; until the Wind Crystal started double rounding the Fire Crystal for some reason. On my second attempt I took a Death Sickle to the Wind Crystal's face and then repeated it.

Onto Exdeath's castle then; this was another rocket tag dungeon, but thankfully a few enemies are weak to Wind and Wind Slash took them down.

I managed to grab Summon 3 as needed, and Exdeath hit his weak AI routine as planned. But sadly Image wasn't enough to defend against his melee attacks; he was too quick and got 2 moves per turn anyway. If he broke through Image on one round and then Vacuum waved again, I'd die. This happened a few times, so I broke out the Darkness bow to blind him, and equipped a Main Gauche too. One first try then.

   

And that's world 2 complete!

[T-hawk]

Nice work, keep it coming.

[Plus C]

The start of world 3 went smoothly; Antlion gets aged and berserked, and then Diamond Belled to death. Pretty much everything in the pyramid is toadable, and everything else had easy answers. The damage was brutal if I didn't pull everything off quickly, though.

Melusine gets put to sleep and then Gaia'd, obviously.

Blah blah, went and got everything (Hermes Sandals, Mirage vest, Magic Lamp etc) as always. You know the drill here. Sadly, the magic lamp doesn't work through Toad. That's a big loss, but I don't think it'll matter.

Whilst I was wandering, I bumped into a special enemy; the Istory Lythis, who is special purely for the fact that you can steal a Judgement Staff here; which casts Dispel when used as an item and actually has decent attack power too; plus it should work through toad. I grab one, and it does indeed work. Nice gain

I claimed my first 3 weapons; the magus rod, the gaia bell (the games second bell!!!) and the sages staff, as these are my best weapons for now.

Time to unleash carnage with the Gaia bell, right?

Uuuuh no. For some reason the gaia bell is coded as an axe in the games code; it's not even back row compatible. But to be fair, there are so many bells in the games code, you can't expect them to track ALL 4 of them.

I'm going after the next bell; the rune bell is a rare drop from the Bardandels enemies in the ruins area of the rift. I broke out the ninja here and Lightning Scroll'd through everything. Eventually I get a Rune Chime. Bring on the damage!

   

... Unles of course this one is also coded as an axe. I swear Square just didn't want anyone using things that weren't swords in this game! Blech. Well there's one last bell in the game, the Tinkle Bell. It's ridiculously rare, only being dropped as a rare drop by Twin tania's powerful form. Lucks like I'm plowing ahead through the rift...

Calofisteri is Calofisteri, so she dies to the Bone Mail. Apanda went down to Image and Berserk from the power staff. Azulmagia ate broken Venom Rods from a summoner. Whilst going through the caves I had a poison eagle Float me, so with a reflect ring Catastrophe went down.

Halicarnassus was annoying, constantly un frogging me. So I just spammed Image, only stopping to Dispel her with the Judgement staff when she casted Shell, and let her kill her self with Reflect.



And then on to the main attraction! I broke out Mix for the first time here, there's a Mix "Antlixir", Elixir and Dark Matter, which is basically Death Claw for HP and MP. I used this against the weakened form, then used the Diamond Bell to finish off the more powerful form. Eventually, after about 20 attempts, I claimed my ultimate weapon. What's the damage like?

   

That'll do

Whilst I'm here...

I decided to head into the Void now, and take on Necrophobia, to save resources for my real attempt at Exdeath. I go through a LOT of HiPotions! On the way I encountered 3!!! lots of Movers, finishing off the Ninja job. That's handy! I then popped dual wield on a Summoner, and had him wield a Fire Rod whilst breaking another. 3 mover battles later and I'd mastered it. I couldn't resist making an uber Frog at this point

I guess I need a high vitality job next; but nothing was enough to finish off movers in time on the low magic jobs... But the Samurai could do it on his own with Zeninage! ... Almost. The Hunter is fast enough, and has a high enough magic to do it on his own with Throw, so I grabbed Rapid Fire (I have plans ) and use Equip Bows to boost the Speed of the samurai, who I mastered. I then finished off Chemist aswell, just to pass on Pharmacy. Bring it on Necro!

       

This didn't take long.

Nor did the rest of the third world, actually. Wendigo went down to a Reflect Ring and Ice Shield with Gaia, Minotaur is a wimp when you have Image (and Rapid Fire + Tinklebell and Judgement Staff) and Omniscient went down after being aged and Berserked. All easy so far.

The piggy trio died to 2 rapid fires with the Sages Staff and Tinklebell, and Leviathan...


   

Oh yeah. Bahamaut and Odin died in similar ways. Onto the super bosses, then

[English Language]

Thread Necro?

Thread Necro

So I remember hearing Sofis started an Oracle solo, but I don't know if he ended up finishing it or not. Either way, I figured it sounds fun.

So begins Nostra(damus) the Oracle.

Oracle's gimmick is it's Condemn and Predict abilities. Condemn is all Oracle has access to at the start, so I'll talk about that and save Predict for when I get it.

Condemn has access to all it's spells from the word go. Each spell has you pick a target, then a timer counts down at which point the spell kicks in, acting like the Blue Magic Condemn(heh) that has varying effects.. Currently the timer is at 20, but at the moment the effects are VERY strong. Condemn's effects are as follows fro FFwiki.

Rejuvenation - HP restore
Recuperation - Esuna
Brimstone - Fire damage
Black Frost - Ice damage
Judgment - Thunder damage
Salienta - Frog
Doom(exactly how it sounds, instant death)
Still Wing - Stop

I predict(heh) that I'll be making good use of Condemn through the playthrough.

As for stats...



Strength isn't he worst but could stand to be better.
Agility is about average enough.
Vitality could be better.
But sweet Christmas that Magic.



This is about how much healing Rejuvination does right now. While the 20 timer does sting a bit at this point to the point where I'll still need some Elixirs, that is great.



This is what most of my fights farming for Elixirs looked like. Naturally the Moldwynd ate a Doom right after this shot was snapped. I figured 3 should be good for the time being.

Did the story stuff in Tule, got enough AP to gain second Oracle level to drop the Condemn timer from 20 to 15 and headed off to fight Karlabos. With Condemn's Judgement command, he should be simple....or maybe Judgement won';t take at all. What's with this this?

Apparently Oracle's Condemn doesn't work against anything with the Heavy status, not even the regular spell effects. And since Oracle's can't equip knives, I'm stuck with the terrible Staff weapon. Either that or I powerlevel until I have Predict unlocked. This is turning out well already. Will do this later, not motivated enough atm.

[Sofis]

So I remember hearing Sofis started an Oracle solo, but I don't know if he ended up finishing it or not. Either way, I figured it sounds fun.

I never did finish it, I have an unfortunate tendency to drop projects like these if I get distracted. I was pretty late in the game, I think I had beaten Twintania at least.

While I'm on the subject, allow me to correct myself about something:

After doing some more research, it is my current belief that the Oracle is the most powerful job in the game, and that winning using one is more or less trivial.

This was definitely an exaggeration. The Oracle is powerful, but not that powerful.

Anyway, good luck, English Language.

[English Language]

Ah, unexpected reply. Thanks .

Anywho, after some testing, at level 10, my staff was doing a pitiful 5 damage a hit, so it looks like I'm grinding for Predict already. Such is life it seems.

Merry Christmas everyone.

[English Language]

Welp, now that festivities are done, let's try this then.


Took the time to grind up for Predict, the main staple of the Oracle class, which also dropped the timer of Condemn from 15 to 10. Also grabbed about 6 Elixirs. Was expecting hell for Karlabos.




Above is an example of how !Predict operates. You pick !Predict, choose First, Second, or Third rank prediction, and wait. The rank determines the countdown speed of the prediction. First begins at 5, Third begins at 3, and I assume Second starts at 4. The !Prediction you get is based of the last digit of your MP when you use it. My MP number ended in a 1 when I used Predict, so I got Deluge, which deals water damage to everything on the field, enemy and ally alike, and carries a chance to inflict Toad. For this reason, one has to be careful when using Predict, this could have easily wiped me out. I'll explain future Predictions as I roll them out. Speaking of...

Karlabos was a pain. The first 10 or so fights he killed me before I could get near Predict. Fight 11...




I managed to use Predict Rank 3 before he could screw me over, then the countdown went by at hyperspeed. Cleansing triggers when your last MP digit is 0 and does non-elemental damage to all enemies. I needed one Elixir, but as you can see, once the countdown to destruction begins, it goes off even if the caster is, say, paralyzed, and Cleansing dealt a OHKO to Karlabos. So eat it lobster, your fate was sealed.


Ship Graveyard brought me the first of sadly few weapon upgrades. Not say the Flail isn't welcome, but the inability to equip Knives has been a real pain and there really aren't that many staves. Luckily, they can all be used from the back row at full power, so I have no reason to ever make the jump to the front row.


Anyway, this section brings me to the next boss fight against Siren. Siren also carries the Heavy flag, so Condemn would only be used for Rejuvenation and maybe Recuperation if I feel like wasting a turn. A quick check tot he code, then using !Predict in random encounters set me up for the !Prediction I needed.


Eruption is the fire-elemental version of Deluge, carrying an HP Sap effect.


Unfortunately, Eruption also dealt nearly triple my max health in damage. That'll teach me to just throw !Predict around willy-nilly. I'll be able to use Eruption later for an obvious reason, but that's still a bit away, so I'll just avoid it for now. Let's try something different.



Divine Judgement is a damn good !Predict that triggers on a 5 digit. It deals decent Holy damage to enemies and healed Nostra here for almost 2.5k health and a !Predict outcome I plan to abuse heavily.


Unfortunately, my next !Prediction was Hurricane, the Wind counterpart of Deluge and Eruption carrying the Silence status, dealing a very impressive 4000 damage to Siren, but also dealt an equally impressive 600 damage to me. I !Predict this is going to be an ongoing trend during this run.

Let's see if I can rig something more favorable. A quick check to the Alorithm guide shows....no, beyond Hurricane, the other two ranks would send the next !Predict to either Eruption or Rockslide, the Earth !Prediction carrying no status effects. But...perhaps we can boost Divine Judgement's damage somehow?


That would be a resounding yes, and Siren was obliterated nearly instantly. If I'm reading the Algorithm guide right, the M for Predict's damage is based on the TARGET'S last HP digit. Siren starts off at 900 HP. The even 0 gives Divine Judgement an M of 3, and with a Base Attack of 220, making a minimum of 660 damage(before M.Def is considered). However, a quick whack with the flail for 27 damage takes her to 873 health, the 3 bringing DJ's M up to 12 and a minimum of 2640 damage(again, before M.Def), quadrupling DJ's damage potential. The !Predict you get comes from your last MP digit, the Base Attack for !Predict depends on the !Predict you get, while the M is based on the affected target's last HP digit. Needless to say, going to be quite a bit of micromanaging here, and I'm going to have to keep a calculator handy during boss fights. And in case you notice, why yes, the class with the highest base Magic stat in the game has abilities that don't key off his Magic stat for any reason .

I also noticed Divine Judgement also damages the enemy's MP. I can think of a few places this'll be handy in the future.

More on Oracle later, all this mathmatical know-how is giving me a headache.

[English Language]

Ok, it's later.



That damage. A target's HP digit being 9 gives the largest multiplier and is fantastic in any situation....unless it's your own health, but meh. But yeah, Divine Judgement annihilated Magissa before she had a chance to call Forza.

Grabbed the usual Healing Staff staple, a weapon I can actually USE, and I can finally have a reliable heal that doesn't have a 10 second delay on it. I abused the quicksave feature to grab the Elven mantle from Walse(sue me) and made my way to the tower.

The Silk Robe was a much appreciated upgrade.




Galura was nothing special and taken care of in the usual manner.

Sadly, I couldn't really use anything buyable in Karnak, so I just had to go right to jail.

As for LiquidFlame, it actually involved a pretty complicated plan of attack where I attacked her...


Er...well, first I unequipped the Healing Staff, THEN I attacked her...(ended up attacking twice because the first hit did 30 damage, leaving her HP digit unaffected. She went to hand form, then back to Human and nearly killed me)


then I used !Predict for Divine Judgement...ok, not so complicated I guess. While this didn't kill her, I was fairly surprised when it didn't cause her to change forms either.



Then I noticed Human form didn't have the Heavy flag and just nailed her with Black Frost.
And right before the countdown ran out, I used another !Predict to shift my MP so Divine Judgement is on call again.

Naturally, Oracle can't use the Guardian Dagger, the Ribbon, and already had the Elven Mantle, so I just grabbed what Elixirs were on the way to the exit and called it a win. Death Claw has no Heavy flag and was simply hit with Doom.




Ifrit was a pain, mostly because I couldn't act until I could survive a Fira, which meant leveling up. I went to 16 to avoid Level 5 Doom shenanigans, putting me at just enough take a Blaze and Fira before I needed to heal, though i still healed after Fira to be safe. Still took some tries from Fira, High Kick spam, and after I leveled up where I forgot to reset my !Predict and died horribly.


Then of course, I forget Byblos absorbs Holy and watch as Divine Judgement tickles him.However, Byblos, like LiquidFlame, does not have the Heavy flag.
Also, another oddity, Byblos countered Condemn with...Armor of all things. This game just surprises me every time I play it.