The grinding is finally over!
How did it go? Well... Prepare for:
DR switches to Thief
And learns Equip Crossbows.
Since he has more than enough knight JP, I decide to spend it without permission. DR learns: Rend Helm, Defend, Equip Shields and Equip Swords. This leads to:
He equips bowgun
Let's use him as a guinea pig for testing Errands:
He leaves the team temporarily:
The rest of the team reaches Gariland safely. There are two other Errands available here:
We continue to Eagrose Castle, once again, without random encounters. One new errand in the Tavern:
New items available in the shop. Some of them are known to us: Mythril Sword, Battle Axe, Knightslayer, Ice Bow (those were described earlier). But some of them are totally new:
Javelin: Attack - 8, Block - 20 (Dragoon only)
Barbut: +55 HP
Mythril Armor: +65 HP
Our tanks equip newshit:
And leave the castle. After a while, we bump into 1st random encounter.
Lenalian Plateau
Team: Ramza, Bee, WC, Steve and Ladd
Enemies: two kittens and a deep one
Problems:
1) casters' fragility
2) Seaman's ranged attack (Aqua Breath)
3) Seaman's reaction skill (Nature's Wrath)
Nice things:
1) WC's physical power
2) Arbalest's Doublestrike
We play with the remaining kitty, waiting for Ladd's corpse to become edible. Finally:
Steve devours it and inclines heavily:
Kitty dies moments later
DR learns Aurablast. Moment's later we meet enemies again.
Fovoham Windflats
Team: Ramza, Bee, WC, Steve and Alicia
Enemies: Two seamen and two evil eyes (+ one allied evil eye)
Problems:
1) seamen's ranged attacks
They can also heal using it
Nice things:
1) WC's Aurablast
2) Ramza's Arbalest
3) One of the seamen stepping on a doomtrap and dying a couple of turns later
We wait till Alicia crystallizes
Bee eats her ghost and inclines her newly-acquired Geomancy skills (you can only learn abilities from available jobs):
Steve ends the battle
Ramza learns Lifefont end sets it
Bee checks her new abilities
She learns Recover HP and Torrent
Steve learns Haste. We go back to Dorter and listen to DR's report:
So, DR alone wasn't enough to deal with the bandits...
We continue to:
Zeklaus Desert
Team: Bee, WC, Steve, DR (went back to Aim instead of AoW) and Lavian
Enemies: two bombs, two skeletons and a goat (+ one allied bomb)
Problems:
1) Skeletons' ranged attacks (Anima) were very powerful - fuckers were able to one-shot most of our units...
2) Our units were way too weak to do decent damage
3) One of the skeletons was able to cast Berserk on DR
Nice things:
Thanks to quality commanding (and a lot of luck) we were able to defeat enemies!
But fucking BARELY!
Next step:
Siedge Weald
Team: same as last time
Enemies: two archers, two monks and a blackie (+ allied goblin)
Problems:
1) enemy monks
2) most of enemy units were able to revive KOed friends using items or skills
Nice things:
1) DR
2) Bee's aurablast + critical
Too bad that her regular hits do ~30 damage...
3) allied goblin, who was able to revive units
4) Steve, who again showed inhuman blocking skills
Lavian got killed accidentally...
DR eats her spirit (she was high level thief)
Bee saves some JP by devouring the ghost of enemy blackie
And ends the battle
Bee learns Chakra, WC learns Recover HP
Steve reaches now job
Summoner
Warrior who fight by summoning powerful spirits, known as espers
Requires: Time Mage Lv 3
a) Action abilities (Summon):
1) Moogle (70): heals allies (radius 3h2v)
2) Shiva (150): Ice attack (radius 3h2v)
3) Ramuh (150): Lightning attack (radius 3h2v)
4) Ifrit (150): Fire attack (radius 3h2v)
5) Faerie (200): revives KOed allies (radius 2h2v)
6) Sylph (200): silences enemies (radius 3h2v)
7) Golem (250): protects all allies from physical damage
8) Carbuncle (250): reflects magickal attacks cast on allies (radius 3h2v)
9) Titan (200): Earth attack (radius 3h2v)
10) Odin (200): non-elemental attack (radius 3h2v)
11) Salamander (200): Fire attack (radius 3h2v)
12) Lich (300): Deals Dark damage = 1/2 of target's max HP (radius 3h2v)
13) Leviathan (400): Water attack (radius 4h3v)
14) Bahamut (400: non-elemental attack (radius 4h3v)
15) ???
b) Reaction abilities:
1) Recover MP (200): Recover MP when critically wounded
c) Support abilities:
1) Halve MP (600): Reduce MP consumption by half when using magicks
d) Movement ability: none
Too bad that this stuff is p. expensive MP-wise:
Steve learns Ifrit and switches to his (probably) final job:
Next stop:
Fovoham Windflats a.k.a. How I learned to stop whining and love the DERP
Team: Bee, WC, Steve, Guzu and Sov
Enemies: Two knights, two seamen and a whitey
Nice things:
1) Bee's geo-skills may be weak
But damage is guaranteed, and additional status change may be useful
2) WC's Recover HP
3) Sov's Invigoration
Too bad that it doesn't add stolen HP, like Empowerment does.
Problems:
1) our casters are steel nearly useless
2) summoners with low Faith are bad idea
3) enemies can one-shot our casters without problems
4) seamen's Nature's Wrath is totally imba
After losing most of units, I decided to try again: same stage, same team.
This time things looked much better - only three enemies - seaman, bird and a goat.
But there were some...
Problems:
1) Our magickal damage was still shit
2) Enemies were still able to one(or two)-shot us
3) After Bee being Berserked, Guzu failing her Raise
And WC being turned into a frog
I decided to reload and go full POPAMOLE, by editing the memcard with WinHex.
Took me some time, but I didn't have to use special editor, which makes me:
All units (except WC) had their Brave or Faith edited to 70
The only problematic unit was Sov - when I tried changing his Brave or Faith, I was getting:
Probably some kind of internal check...
Finally, I increased both his Brave and Faith by 10, and it worked:
Steve changed his job to squire (all casters need Knight's Equip Heavy Armor IMO)
And we hit the road again...
Siedge Weald
Team: WC, Steve, Bee, Guzu and Sov
Witness massive INCLINE with your own eyes!
Nice things:
1) Bee's physical power
She's resistant to magick due to low Faith - that's a bad thing (hard to heal) but also a good thing (resistant to black magick).
She can always heal using Chakra:
2) Guzu's spell accuracy
3) Guzu's magickal power (Araise, Raise and Cura):
4) Sov's dodging ability wasn't affected
5) And his physical power increased
6) WC, our only non-edited units kicks more ass with every level
7) Steve was able to use his Axe of Death
Problems:
1) Our casters are now more sensitive to magick
But that's how Faith works...
Our 3 casters play with Bee for a while
Guzu learns Safeguard thanks to enemy spirit
WC does similar trick - he can now become Geomancer it seems
Sov ends the battle using his Staff of Death
Steve learns Equip Heavy Armor & Recover HP and switches back to his target job
Guzu learns Equip Heavy Armor & Shiva and switches to summoner as well:
Sov learns Empowerment, which should make him self-reliant when it comes to MP. Bee switches Geomancy (not always works - not all abilities unlocked) with Items. Ramza learns Steal Heart to be able to actually use his Steal abilities.
It's time for moar!
Lenalian Plateau
Team: WC, Bee, Steve, Guzu, Sov
Enemies: 2 blackies, 2 timies and 2 mystics (+ allied piggy)
Nice thingies - Guzu's magickal power
Sov learns Shell, Fire, Fira and X-Potion thanks to spirit devouring
Guzu is even more lucky - she learns 3 summons for free:
Steve has some luck as well
Guzu tests her new kupofag right away
Steve does the same, proving his superiority over Guzu (bullshit actually - higher Faith of Steve and Sov)
Our casters continue playing with Bee, who has a chance to test her Chakra
WC grabs a free lunch as well
(this shit is ridiculously broken - you can learn ~20 abilities just by killing middle-level unit)
Sov ends the battle by sucking all
HP vital fluids of enemy mystic
Bee learns Shockwave, WC learns Chakra.
Even moar grinding follows!
Lenalian Plateau
Team: WC, DR, Steve, Guzu and Sov
Enemies: 4 kittens, a seaman and an evil chicken
This encounter was quite difficult actually. At some point I was close to reloading!
Nice things:
1) Our casting abilities
2) Recover HP saving our asses a couple of times
Problems:
1) Unit positioning - DR shot WC in the back by total accident
2) Seaman was as powerful as ever
3) kittens were able to slow+poison all of us
And their attacks can stop charging units from performing an action.
4) seaman was countering our attack with powerful geomancy (this shit hits not only attacker, but also units standing nearby!)
At some point, we were nearly beaten - Sov and Steve KOed, WC and Guzu nearly dead. Guzu prepared Araise
Evil chicken tried to get her, but DR stopped
him her just in time!
With MCed chicken on our side, we were unstoppable!
Steve was able to revive Sov just in time to avoid WC's crystallization
Our units were parting hard after Kupofag overusage
Casters played their favorite game with monks, but DR ended the fun eventually
WC learns Shockwave, both summoners learn 'Recover MP', Guzu learns 'Recover HP' too, Sov learns Induration.
DR learns Move+2 and Poach and reaches his next job:
:clap:
Zeklaus Desert
Team: Bee, WC, Steve, Guzu and Sov
Enemies: 2 grenades, 3 skeletons and a blackie
This encounter was damn difficult!
Only a few screenshots since I was certain that I'm not gonna make it so I concentrated on quickloading instead of making screenshots.
But some things can be shown:
WC's Aurablast is now powerful
Same thing with Sov's Invigoration
Skeletons can use Gravity spells
We would be history without powerful AoE healing spells
Our monks+casters combo works well - we don't need ethers to recover MP and kick some ass
Bee learns Revive and Pummel (not much monk's abilities left to learn), WC learns Revive and Aim+3 (he learned X-Potion and Ether during previous battle as well). We can switch their 'Items' to something else now.
Steve learns Lifefont and Golem, Guzu learns Carbuncle. We will be able to protect ourselves from physical damage and reflect magic from now on.
Sov learns Recover HP and Delirium.
I was ready to grind even more, since it's damn fun...
But then I realized that all casters are Lv 12 and other units are ~Lv 15 already.
Our casters are IMO fine - their 'target' job should be either summoner (Guzu and Steve) or mystic (Sov). White magicks as 2nd active abilities. Adding some Orator / Bard / Sage (or whatever Calculator is now called) stuff can be considered.
Tanks are different story - their 'target' job should be one that allows the innate usage of heavy armor. Which means: Knight, Dragoon or Samurai. That way we can spend our Support ability on something useful, like 'Safeguard'.
So I was thinking about something like this:
- Ramza: Samurai
- Bee: Samurai (+some l33t dancing skills maybe?)
- WC: Ninja (highest brave)
- DR: whatever you want as long as he's good at terminating
Martial Arts / Items as 2nd active ability.
What do you people think?
Let's check our MAJESTIC team:
Ramza
Squire: Focus, Rush, Stone, Salve, Tailwind, Chant, Steel, Beatdown, Blitz, Parry, Equip Axes, Move+1
Chemist: Potion, Hi-Potion, Echo Herbs, Phoenix Down, Safeguard, Reequip
Knight: Powersap, Mindsap, Magicksap, Rend Weapon, Rend Helm, Rend Armor, Rend Shield, Counter, Defend, Equip Heavy Armor
Archer: Aim+1, Aim+3, Aim+5
Monk: Cyclone, Lifefont
White: -
Black: -
Thief: Steal Heart
Bee
Squire: Focus, Rush, Stone, Chant, Steel, Beatdown, Blitz, Parry, Move+1
Chemist: Potion, Hi-Potion, X-Potion, Ether, Hi-Ether, Antidote, Echo Herbs, Phoenix Down, Reequip
Knight: Powersap, Mindsap, Magicksap, Rend Weapon, Rend Helm, Rend Armor, Rend Shield, Counter, Equip Heavy Armor
Archer: Aim+1, Jump+1
Monk: Cyclone, Pummel, Aurablast, Shockwave, Purification, Chakra, Revive, Recover HP, Brawler
White: Cure, Cura, Protect
Black: Fira, Thunder, Thundara, Poison
Geomancer: Sinkhole, Torrent, Tanglevine, Contortion, Tremor, Will-o'-the-Wisp
WC
Squire: Rush, Stone, Salve, Chant, Steel, Beatdown, Blitz, Parry, Equip Axes, Move+1
Chemist: Potion, Hi-Potion, X-Potion, Ether, Hi-Ether, Antidote, Phoenix Down, Reequip, Treasure Hunter
Knight: Powersap, Mindsap, Speedsap, Magicksap, Rend Armor, Rend Shield, Counter, Equip Heavy Armor
Archer: Aim+1, Aim+3, Jump+1
Monk: Cyclone, Aurablast, Shockwave, Chakra, Revive, Recover HP, Bonecrusher
Geomancer: Sinkhole
Steve
Squire: Rush, Stone, Steel, Parry, Move+1
Chemist: Potion, Hi-Potion, X-Potion, Ether, Hi-Ether, Antidote, Echo Herbs, Phoenix Down, Safeguard, Reequip
Knight: Equip Heavy Armor
Archer: -
Monk: Recover HP, Lifefont
White: Cure, Cura, Raise, Shell
Black: Fire, Fira, Thunder, Thundara, Blizzard, Poison
Time: Haste, Slow, Stop, Immobilize, Gravity
Summoner: Moogle, Ifrit, Golem, Recover MP
Geomancer: -
Guzu
Squire: Rush, Stone, Salve, Steel, Parry
Chemist: Potion, Hi-Potion, X-Potion, Ether, Hi-Ether, Phoenix Down, Safeguard, Reequip, Treasure Hunter
Knight: Equip Heavy Armor
Archer: -
Monk: Recover HP
White: Cure, Cura, Raise, Arise, Protect
Black: Fire, Fira, Thunder, Blizzard, Blizzara, Blizzaga, Poison
Time: Haste, Slow, Stop, Gravity
Summoner: Moogle, Shiva, Ifrit, Faerie, Carbuncle, Recover MP
Geomancer: -
DR
Squire: Rush, Stone, Salve, Chant, Steel, Parry, Equip Axes, Move+1
Chemist: Potion, Hi-Potion, X-Potion, Eye Drops, Phoenix Down, Throw Items, Reequip
Knight: MASTA
Archer: Aim+1, Aim+2, Aim+3, Aim+4, Aim+7, Equip Crossbows, Jump+1
Monk: Cyclone, Aurablast, Shockwave, Purification, Chakra, Revive, Recover HP, Bonecrusher, Brawler
White: Cure
Black: Fire, Fira
Time: -
Thief: Steal Heart, Steal Helm, Vigilance, Poach, Move+2
Dragoon: -
Sov
Squire: Stone, Salve, Parry, Move+1
Chemist: Potion, Hi-Potion, X-Potion, Ether, Antidote, Phoenix Down, Reequip, Treasure Hunter
Knight: Equip Heavy Armor
Archer: -
Monk: Recover HP
White: Cure, Cura, Raise, Shell
Black: Fire, Fira, Thunder, Blizzard
Orator: -
Mystic: Empowerment, Invigoration, Induration, Delirium, Hesitation
Geomancer: -
Every one of them is a
Guests:
Two pages ago spekkio said:
But it looks like we need two things:
- units with high Brave and Faith - POPAMOLE retries during recruitment needed,
- units with shitload of good abilities - POPAMOLE grinding for JP / enemy spirits required.
I hope you had as much fun reading this update as I had writing it.
It's time to go back to the main business!
We need 3 units for the upcoming battle (should be piss-easy by the look of enemy team). Who wants to go kick some ass?
DISCUSS!