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51

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2022 Round 1: Blood in the Pools, and Thieves in Light

« on: August 23, 2022, 06:52:41 AM »

Only two I can vote on...

Edge vs Worker 8:  If it weren't for mages inflating the damage average, I could see Edge killing off the bot before its second turn with a flurry of Throw.  As it is, Worker 8 will live to get the two turns needed to KO Edge with Work (which ignores Image).  It might not survive the second attack but since damage to target resolves before backlash damage to itself, this sees Edge go down first.  Double KO.

Thief (FF5) vs Palmer:  Thief's damage is awful and it can't heal off Palmer's middling damage.  Palmer having some evasion is just extra insult in this slapfight.  Way to go Thief, losing to someone Amy (PS2) can beat.

52

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2022 Nomination Thread

« on: August 09, 2022, 03:22:57 AM »

Thought about going for a common theme but mostly decided to drop the idea.

Making nominal effort to match divisions but I'm not really sure and don't care enough to parse a ton of data.

H/G range

Yunalesca (FFX)  A token "can vote on this" nom and also a total dick in combat.
Ryu (BoF4)  Shares a name with Capcom's most prolific fighting game character.
Millenia (Grandia 2)  The original of course and not the rerelease where Spellbinding Eye got nerfed.
Zero (MMX: CM)  Is in a fighting game that's seen at tournaments and used at high-level play.

M/H range

Meliadoul (FFT)  Interesting dueler with a terrible win record.  Maybe the format will give her a chance to put on a better showing.
Nikki (MK)  Wrietup bait
Sabin (FF6)  Being heavily inspired by fighting games of course he's getting in.  I know I'm not the only one who's named him Guile.
Guile (CC)  Is actually named Guile, good enough even if nothing like the fighter with the flattop.

L/M range

Regal Bryant (ToS)  Feels most like a fighting game character to control.
Wilbell vol Ersleid (Atelier Ayesha)  Maybe not eligible but worth a try, no big deal if ineligible.  Besides, she's the type inclined to seek personal glory.
Ken Amada (Pers3)  Well if there's a Ryu, gotta have a Ken.  Just stick him in a red gi and a blond wig and no one will notice the difference...  ok, maybe that won't work out as well as believed.
Mia (GS)
Malak (FFT): Part of a pair as I'm fantasizing about them going up against each other.

53

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: August 04, 2022, 05:36:31 AM »

Altima: the final punchout (0 resets)

  Before going into the writeup of the final fight, a summary of the loot from treasure boxes dropped from defeated enemies in Orbonne.  3 Light Robe, 3 Feather Mantles, another Black Costume, a Gold Staff, and a Wizard Rod.  All meaningless to a team that speaks with their fists but an amusing statistic.
   Back to Earth Clothes on all.  Jin, Axel, and Captain Falcon also trade their Germinas Boots for Bracers.  The intent is that they speed things up and those three have good compat with Virgo so might as well prioritize buffing their damage.  I figure the drop from 4 to 3 Move isn't that important when Altima uses Teleport 2 to get around.  Lastly, the increased damage from my team lets them take down two Ultima Demons before they move instead of one.  Balrog and Kenshiro stick with Germinas Boots.  They're meant to focus more on supportive roles.  Balrog is designated for attending to Alma.  Hamedo on all.
    At the beginning, Alma charges MBarrier on herself and Altima clobbers her midcharge.  I send Balrog to Revive Alma while the others batter the high level Ultima Demons with two Earth Slashes apiece taking them out.  Stay about 3 to 4 panels away from each other to discourage Grand Cross, of course.  Demons go.  Hurricane on Alma and Balrog, smacking Alma down again.  Other Nanoflares two punchboys.  Altima goes for a physical on one of the Nanoflared.  "Oh no you Hamedon't."  From here on it's routine.  My 9 Speed monks get two turns before the living demons get their next turn, more than ample chance to reduce them to not-living.  After a few times of Alma getting smacked down and Revived, her Speed advantage finally lets her resolve MBarrier.  Punch Altima when I get the chance; use Earth Slash if I feel I need to heal someone other than Alma.  Use Chakra to keep Alma's MP up and those MBarriers coming.  Altima 1 stands no chance.  I was lazy and didn't keep my CT synced with Altima so Grand Cross did show once.  Kenshiro gets hit by Berserk, Confusion, and Sleep; the other punchboy I moved out of the effect area.  Stigma Magic removes all three ailments.  I did notice the first two demons getting close to crystalizing but got that last 208 damage Wave Fist in before Altima could snag any crystals and undo the damage I'd done.

    Not that I would have been in danger of losing.  I'd just be annoyed on principle.

    The first several turns from form 2 were a mix of Despair 2 (to dispel MBarrier buffs) and physicals (could oneshot the good compatibility punchboys if they didn't have Protect status).  Hamedo stops most of the physicals, even one where the counterpunch whiffed from height difference and Altima floating.  And Chakra makes Alma's MP a non-issue so she keeps on tossing out MBarriers.  At some point, Altima fixated on Kenshiro trying to take him out with All-Ultima.  It would have done enough to oneshot him but MBarrier (oh no, only 95% success rate) landed first and brought it down to survivable.  Earth Slash from across the deck undoes most of the damage.  Altima goes for All-Ultima again on Kenshiro.  This time, Kenshiro gets a turn while it's charging and redirects.  Redirected All-Ultima finishes off Altima 2.  A bit anticlimatic the final hit wasn't a punch given the theme of the playthrough but a victory is a victory.

  I'll write up some concluding thoughts later.

54

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: July 05, 2022, 07:58:04 AM »

Did end up doing a bit of leveling for Monk SCC.  Not a lot but enough.  An extra level or two was enough.  Still might split up the last set of writeups depending on my attention span.

UBS4 (1 reset):

    Earth Clothes and Germinas Boots with Hamedo as reaction.  Enemy priorities are the lower leveled Monk and the Archer.  The other Monk is a Ninja and will almost always favor regular physicals for Hamedo to block.  Earth Slash to get around evasion with a dash of Secret Fist if it ever comes up to only having one punchboy free to attack a full HP enemy.  Secret Fist didn't really come up in practice as the enemies tended to line up when advancing so I was Earth Slashing multiple foes often and thus anyone close enough for Secret Fist was already hurting.
    Had a loss due to something silly.  Could have healed an ally with Chakra or Earth Slash.  Went with Earth Slash because it recovered more HP.  What could go wrong?  How about it criticaling and knocking a monk off a high drop.  He survived the fall damage but was stuck on a panel with no level ground next to it.  Generics KO him and I'm not able to win in time to prevent crystalization.  Reset.
    Actually played this multiple times trying various approaches on Balk 2.  The attempt I kept, I got the Yoichi Bow from the Archer.  Not usable within the confines of the challenge but still an entertaining trophy.

Rofel again (1 reset):

   Rofel's AI is such that if there are no valid targets within his range on his turn, he will retreat.  My strategy is to bait him to retreat, take out the support, and deal with him after they're gone.  One reset because I didn't set up the PBF correctly to have Rofel retreat.  So he came forward to charge Petrify and I was not in position to maximize my damage.  Didn't feel like punch past Defense Up and auto-protect with the mage support battering me and gave up instead of playing it out.
   Next attempt, I set the PBF properly and he retreats as intended.  Time Mage Hastes him, which would be scary were it not for his AI setting and he wastes the status retreating for the back faster.  Meanwhile, I pound down the support, careful to stay 10 panels away from Rofel no matter what and recovery as needed.  Even with Hasted mages and me forgetting to set HP Restore, I still overcome them.
   With the support down, next comes Rofel.  Being a physical class trying to get past Defense Up and auto-protect, it takes a lot of pounding.  When everyone is in position, bait Petrify and nail him with 4 Earth Slashes and Repeating Fist from the one punchboy who can get close enough.  Then it's just hit with everything I can and endure all the broken armor.

   Like the previous map, I played this out multiple times.  The first winning battle, I had an oopsie using Kenshiro as Petrify bait.  Petrify hits and while I can fix that with Stigma Magic easy enough, it does slow down my offense and Rofel Shellbusts 3 people before reducing his HP to zero.  The winning attempt that I kept, I remembered HP Restore for the reaction.  Also did a bit of positioning trickery that when I baited Petrify from him (this time remembering to use a low Faith punchboy), sneaked in two Earth Slashes yet he couldn't get into Mighty Sword range.  Another Petrify from him.  Couldn't stay out of Mighty Sword reach this time so swarmed him.  Got a good roll on Repeating Fist and by the time Rofel got a Shellbust off, he was at 63 HP.  So finished him off with only one broken armor.  Maybe it would have been possible to lure him around to win with no broken gear but I wasn't clever enough to find such a way with 10 PA Monks.

Kletian fails again (0 resets):

    Still with Earth Clothes and Germinas Boots.  Set Hamedo.  Kletian is smart enough to retreat if there's someone with spell range on his turn.  So I didn't get to punch him out on round 1, not getting enough punchboys able to reach him.  Plus I'm spending turns keeping Kenshiro alive and dealing with annoying Samurai sniping people with Kikuichimonji.  Rely on Hamedo to keep me safe from Ninjas.  My poor PBF placement isn't enough to save Kletian and I do eventually reach him with enough units to punch him out.

    Played this fight a few times as well in the process of trying to find a winning strategy for the fight after this.  Moving Ramza 3 panels away from where the game initially places him on the PBF will draw Kletian forward, leaving him bait for midcharge Punch Art beatings.  This makes for the fastest victory and I would have done this more if I already had the Lv 38 Speed point.  For more EXP though, murdering the support also works.  Ninjas are the first target's to prioritize.  Once they're out of the picture (dead or critical and out of their threat range) there's very little risk of losing.  Lancer Time Mages are laughable and tend to offer themselves up to Hamedo.  Samurai can be annoying but don't have the offense to endanger a party of Earth Clothes Earth Slashing Monks who also pack revival.
   Kletian using Flare is very comical.  2 casts and he's out of gas.  His AI is more defensive and isn't inclined to approach with his staff unless someone's within his movement range.  Either snipe from afar with Earth Slash or come closer and bait him into Hamedo, either way he's a joke on his own.

Balk 2 (4 resets):

    This battle I was worried about being able to clear coming in, especially without the Lv 38 Speed point.  With Earth Clothes and Germinas Boots, my punchboys only do 60 damage to Balk with Earth Slash so trying to rush him isn't likely to work.  Will probably need to take out some of the support before I can focus on Balk.  I am relieved it took this few attempts; was mentally prepared for a much higher number of attempts.  HP Restore as reaction since Hamedo is useless here.

Attempt #1:  Balk shoots Kenshiro for 133.  Chemist has good compatibility with him and high enough Faith to kill him off.   Kenshiro never gets to act as he's highest on the unit list so he doesn't get a turn after being revived, just getting shot down again before his turn comes around.  The monsters are closing in and I haven't really made a significant dent in the enemy forces when I give up.
Attempt #2: Balk gets a Bolt 2 for 171 on Kenshiro.  Chemist finishes him off.  Plays out like the previous attempt with Kenshiro never getting to act.
Attempt #3: Axel and Captain Falcon put on Rubber Shoes and go with Kenshiro in the first group.  Bolt 2 from Blast Gun again and Kenshiro is face down again.  Whatever, if the trap strat works, it will be over before the countdown expires.  I have someone in team 2 move to exactly 8 panels away from where to trap Balk to bait him.  On his second turn, Balk does not move to the trap panel instead opting to Arm Aim one of the trappers.  Oops, forgot he could do that.  Reset.  Punchboys can't guard both lightning and Snipe so I don't have a reliable means of setting up a trap strat.
Attempt #4: I have 3 units with the 11 PA point so I give the Bracers.  Maybe can get something going with the extra damage.  With 14 PA and Earth Clothes, Earth Slash damage goes up from 95 to 175.  112 to Balk means that rushing Balk down looks more viable if (and it's a big if) I can line up enough units.  With sluggish 3 Move Monks.  (cough)
    This time, Balk opens with an Arm Aim on Kenshiro.  Miss.  Chemist shoots Kenshiro.  Manageable.  Just got to see that he's in the path of an ally's Earth Slash.  My opening wave of attacks puts the Hyudra into critical as well as inflicting hurt on various other enemies (and Balk though that damage isn't going to stick).  I was careless with my initial positioning though and the Hydra fries two units.  Balk and the Chemist finish them off.  Crap.  Being down 2 punchboys proves to be too much to recover from.  The Dark Behemoth makes it to my team and starts murdering people.  I was down to one punchboy under Arm Aim when I conceded defeat.

  For the winning attempt, everyone but Axel reach their Lv 36 PA point.  Those 4 get Bracers.  Axel sticks with Germinas Boots and I primarily focus him in a medic role with offense as a secondary priority.
   Battle starts with Arm Aim missing again which is welcome and Chemist shooting Kenshiro.  I'm more defensive with my teams positioning now.  Got off one free 175 damage Earth Slash on the Tiamat due to starting PBF.  Enemies go.  Arm Aim misses again.  Hydra attempts a Triple Flame, whiff.  Hyudra attacks the punchboy Hydra tried to fry.  Balk shoots someone and triggers an HP Restore.
   All three flying monsters are lined up for Earth Slash when my team gets their second set of turns.  I might have a chance now.  Thanks to the increased damage from Bracers, I get in enough damage to KO all three fliers.  Too early for victory laps.  Chemist has Phoenix Down, there's still frequent Balk doubleturns which can easily result in a dead punchboy, and also Arm Aim to fight off.  Stigma Magic can deal with Snipe status though it still takes away turns from offense.  And the Dark Behemoth is still in play.
    So the Chemist was fixated on reviving the Hydra.  Because chemist move-acted on round 1 but the Hydra only moved, it always came back at 20 CT.  One of my units would smack it down again before it got a turn.  Chemist would re-rez it and the cycle went on for the remainder of its existence.  Meanwhile, the Dark Behemoth was closing in and it was decision time.  One option was going all-in on trying to blow through Balk's HP.  But if that failed, I would lose all my progress up to that point.  And the three remaining enemies are quite capable of wrecking a member or two of my team.  The other path was to focus on getting the behemoth out of play.  The Bracers provide enough offense for that to be doable.  Decided my chance were better with removing the Dark Behemoth even if it take focus away from the other enemies.  And I came dangerously close to losing it.  I had carelessly left Jin on a panel inaccessible to Revive when ganging up on the behemoth.  Had it opted to kill him, it would have been a sure loss as my chances of breaking through Move HP-up and Defense Up down a unit were grim.  Lucky me, it went after units that I could reach to revive, killing two before it was brought down to critical.
    It was a tense situation: down two units.  Was a scramble to get them back up while still keeping that Hydra neutralized and dealing with Balk.  Also got to watch my positioning so I don't lose anyone to the behemoth when it runs for a corner.  The Chemist does get a doubleturn wiht his 10 Speed to my team's 8.  But he revives the Tiamat on the doubleturn, it's too far away to harm my team, and it retreats for a corner.  Seemingly ages later though maybe just 3-4 rounds, everyone is back up and I start moving them across the gap to where Balk and the Chemist are hanging out.  Behemoth is too far for the Chemist to support so it's a non-factor.  All the while still dealing with smacking down the Hydra every time it's revived and dealing with the constant Balk doubleturns (and his over 60% chance of murdering Kenshiro on those doubleturns)  And not letting the enemies pick up any crystals.  Felt so relieved when I could get my sluggish 3 Move punchboys into position to bring down the Chemist.  Also opted to kill off the Tiamat and the Dark Behemoth.  Did not want to get Balk down to critical only to have the Tiamat decimate a unit or two right at the end.  Even with all the other enemies down, it still took a while to chase down Balk and batter him with enough Earth Slash to bury him.  I got the Chemist's crystal before that happened, the Mime crystal a mostly wasted gesture in an SCC.  Balk did wander towards the gap and I suspected he intend to cross but I landed the killblow right about then, sparing an even longer goose chase.

   One upshot of this drawn out fight was that everyone but Axel reached their Lv 38 Speed point.  Even if I don't think I need it for Hashulam, it's still welcome given the large speed gap.

Graveyard of Airships (0 resets):

   After that last long, drawn-out sandbag-fest this was a very straightforward battle.  Black Costumes and Germinas Boots because Hash has Spell.  HP Restore on Kneshiro and Jin; Hamedo on the others.  Battle begins with my entire team rocked by Quake.  From here on out, it's focus on survival and getting in what attacks I can.  Oftentimes found myself using Chakra more often than attacking.  Try to stay spread out yet close enough for support actions.  Routine Monk stuff by now.  Hash mostly pummeled 3-4 units at a time with magic.  Couldn't really make damage stick to a team of low Faith SCC Monks.  And the highest Faith units have bad compat with him.  Saw some HP Restores go off which reduces the pressure.  He did try for a few physicals on weakened neutral compat units but that's what I set Hamedo for.  Hamedo went 2 for 4; the last one getting the kill and denying me a kill bonus.  It's alright though.  Axel got enough actions to reach the Lv 38 Speed point.  Going into the final battle, the team is in the Lv 38-40 range all with 11 PA.

55

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: June 10, 2022, 08:23:58 AM »

More punching their way across Ivalice aka Monk SCC

Igros (0 resets):

   Another long fight like Zarela.  Earth Clothes and Germinas Boots on everyone.  Jin gets HP Restore and I give the others Hamedo.  I feel the power loss over Power Sleeve is worth it here as Earth Slash allows me to heal off swordskill damage without bunching up.  And I absolutely do not want more than one person at a time getting hit by swordskills.  Dyce goes after my team with Stasis Sword which is preferable.  Zalbag gets two attacks in before the knights beat him up.  Counters from Zalbag send one Knight into critical, taking him out of the fight.  The rest I'm going to have to eventually deal with as my team slowly makes their way under the arch.  It's the best I could do while keeping them spread out.  Many, many Earth Slashes were used (along with the occasional Chakra) both to heal up from whoever last got hit with Stasis and to pound any Knights that got close.  Sometimes both.  Dyce procced one or two Stops which slowed down the advance but didn't endanger my team.  Knights thankfully didn't have anything in the way of secondaries that threatened my chances.  Ninja Knight had Throw but with only 3 range, simple to bait physicals which Hamedo would deny.
   Seeing Shellbust would have been a reset but Dycedarg never had any targets in the HP range where he could kill someone with it so it never appeared.  I did end up killing/criticalizing nearly all the Knights before Dycedarg got into a position I could finish him.  A punchboy did fall but it was from a Knight whack and not Shellbust so carried on.  Opted to zero out Dycedarg's HP and planned to revive the fallen monk when it was Adramelk.

   Goat king is up.  He's capable of status hell but as long as I don't bunch up for Loss, it's manageable.  Stigma Magic can undo his status anyways so I don't fear Seal.  Since I'm prioritizing bringing back the fallen punchboy, get off only one attack before his first turn.  He puts up a fight even though it's 5 on 1 pummeling groups with Bahamut and sometimes opting to oneshot Kenshiro with Holy.  I was constantly on the defensive with revival and recovery only getting the occasional chance to attack.  That 11/12% C. Evade kicked in quite a bit so I saw a number of misses too.  And even then I was constantly watching the AT list to make sure Greater Goat could never drop Loss on multiple units so I sometimes gave up attacking for safety.  After 5 Bahamuts and 2 Holies, he went for a physical on a 150ish HP Kenshiro.

"Oh no you Hamedon't"

  Hmm, interesting.  Got in what further hits I could while intentionally not healing Kenshiro.  (I think his MP was depleted but didn't consider that in the moment)  Adramelk obliges my manipulation and goes for another physical on Kenshiro.

"Oh no you Hamedon't"

The counterpunch does the remaining damage to win the fight.  Everyone gained about 2 levels from this and I'm entering Morund at about Lv 30-31 on everyone.

Outside Morund (0 resets):

  Still going with Earth Clothes and Germinas Boots.  HP Restore for all as nearly all the offense on the enemy side ignores Hamedo.  Gusty Wind lands Slow on Kenshiro.  Summoner locks Ramuh on Kneshiro for 92.  Ninja Geomancer was the only melee threat on the field with a Rune Blade and didn't get to do anything.  Couldn't do anything on turn 1 and I opted to take him out first with 4 Earth Slashes.  Jin went after a Mediator who had wandered within attack range to shoot him.  My team is synched up CT wise with the Summoner so it wasn't long before he got close enough to bury him with fists midcharge.  Tried for a Secret Fist on Geomancer, miss.  I didn't get any kills on round 2 but on round 3 things were clearly swinging my way.  Summoner went down to a fatal fisting.  (not that kind, head out of gutter)  Kenshiro hadn't died to summons + geomancy so wasn't losing turns to dead punchboys.  Jin was holding his own on the Mediators even with the Priest trying to help them out with recovery.  One Mediator soon fell once I got punchboys on the roof to help out with damage.  Meanwhile, the Mediators were just unlucky.  Because trying to take down a punchboy with 260 max HP and Move HP-up takes too long with gunshots, they tried Talk Skills.  Death Sentence, miss.  Death Sentence, miss.  Mimic Daravon, miss.  Ya know, when a giant mech is smashing you with oversized fists, maybe trying to talk it to death isn't the best strategy.  3rd or 4th Death Sentence attempt actually hits but it was too late to matter.  Only the Priest and one Mediator were still standing and both were downed before the death counter expired.  Not that would have been an issue with 5 people with revival.

  I think the Priest didn't have Raise.  All that would have done would delay the inevitable though.

Halls of Morund (0 resets):

  Swap to Power Sleeves except for Kenshiro who removes his armor.  Hamedo on Kenshiro, others don't matter.  I set the PBF so that the opposition cannot Mighty Sword anyone on their first turn.  Vormav walks forward to 3 panels away from Kenshiro and does nothing.  Rofel goes to carve up Kenshiro; "Oh no you Hamedon't."  Kletian moves behind Vormav and locks Dark Holy on Kenshiro.  Only two punchboys can get in range to Wave Fist Kletian but it's enough.  Kenshiro Earth Slashes all three Shrine Knights just because he can.  Axel and Balrog get their punch power on and drop Kletian with midcharge Wave Fists.  Enemies retreat.

Zombag (0 resets):

Kenshiro goes with Earth Clothes and 108 Gems.
Capricorns get Earth Clothes and Germinas Boots.
Last two punchboys go Power Sleeve and 108 Gems.
Capricorns set HP Restore while the others set Hamedo.  Though if all goes well, only Kenshiro's will be relevant.

  So how does trying to take out an opponent with Defense Up and Move HP-up with physicals sound?  With two people with worst compatibility with the boss and one with bad?  Yeah, my group has issues with damage output.  Move HP-up I neutralized by AI manipulation and surrounding Zombag but there's still the low damage output.  Kind of lucky I only saw Speed Save go off once.
  Open up with taking out both Archaic Demons with two Earth Slashes each.  Hurt the Ultima Demon with Kenshiro.  Ultima Demon Almagests three people including Kenshiro.  Zombag goes for a fatal physical on Kenshiro.  "Oh no you Hamedon't."  With the danger of death averted, it's a routine matter to take out the last demon and heal the wounded; generally with Earth Slash doing both.  This just leaves Zombag.
   Zalbag's AI is fixated on Ramza if he is alive and within reach.  I exploit this to draw him to a place where Kenshiro and the two Capricorns surround him and to draw physicals which are usually blocked by Hamedo.  From the beginning, I had planned Ramza's Zodiac so that those Hamedo punches would do more damage.  Zombag's evasion was on a roll though.  Out of the first 10 Hamedos I triggered, I think one actually got through.  So I opted to attack and hope that I didn't trigger lots of Speed Save.  If Kenshiro's Hamedo fails (which it did occasionally), I have Balrog and the Capricorn on Zombag's opposite side toss Earth Slash at Zombag and Kenshiro.  With damage ranging from 30 to 84 a hit depending on who's attacking and what they used, it took a lot of hits to wear down Zombag.  Was fortunate that the RNG didn't screw me over in some way.  Like Kenshiro dying and Zombag escaping the trap.  A Blood Suck strategy might have been more reliable and faster but eh, I won.

Levels are at about 32-33 for the team with Orbonne open for the final descent.  Leveling a bit is probably the safest thing to do at this juncture.  Life will be much easier with the Lv 38 Speed point and there's also a PA point coming up, though not as impactful on its own.  10 to 11 is not a big jump in Earth Slash damage.  Which will be my main go-to for all the mantle wearing enemies in the final set of fights.  Doesn't mean I will stop to level though, gotten this far without intentional leveling and tempted to go the distance.
   I buy 3 sets of Rubber Shoes and 5 extra Earth Clothes in preparation for the fights to come.  Every other key piece of gear I might want I already have.   A 5th Bracer would have been a decent investment and I had the funds but I forgot.

56

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: June 05, 2022, 05:59:25 AM »

Monk SCC takes out a Sephiroth lookalike.

  Pick up 5 Black Costumes which I intend to use in Limberry.  Also grab 4 more Angel Rings, bringing my total to 5, and 3 more 108 Gems.

Germinas Peak (0 resets):

   Opted for HP Restore on everyone planning to take out Ninja and Thieves first.  The Ninja was smart and stayed far enough away that I couldn't take him out on the first round.  And when I finally do land enough attacks to send him to critical, he's still tossing Kikuichimonjis at me for 165.  This complicates my survival and slows down beating down all the enemies.  Quite a lot of Revive and Chakra to deal with the enemies' offense.  Some timely HP Restores helped out. The extra EXP is probably for the better overall as it gets my team closer to their next PA point.

Poeskas Lake (0 resets):

   The undead units were annoying but I wasn't really in danger of losing.  HP Restore on all.  Take down the ghosts first, then bait some of the other enemies closer before going after them.  The undead Oracle whiffs a 39% Paralyze and does nothing else before dropping.  Summoner leaves itself open for midcharge Wave Fists.  The Archers prove to be obnoxious being smart enough to retreat while my 4 Move punchboys try to catch up to them.  One drops and I've got the other under half HP when one of the ghosts leaves a box.  I make the crazy choice to grab it which of course lets the other enemies death countdowns expire.  Second ghost crystalizes.  Oracle and Summoner both revive but get beat down with midcharge fists when they go for magic.
   None of my team actually died.  Fairly liberal Chakra use and timely HP Restores kept them going.  Finished right around Lv 26 for everyone.

Gates of Limberry (2 resets):

   Kenshiro gets a Black Costume.  Two other punchboys get them as well.  Stick to boots for everyone the first time.  I set up the PBF intending to draw Lede for an Ultima so that I can pile on a bunch of midcharge hits.  Celia locks an Ultima on Kenshiro.  Lede goes after Kenshiro with another Ulitma.  I can't reach either of them with my team.  Well damn.  I try to get someone to Revive Kenshiro taking shots at any Apandas that wander within reach.  Disaster strikes soon after my second turn with one punchboy eating a Stop Bracelet, two more getting petrified by Bio 2, and the last getting charmed.  Letting things play out, I saw to my horror just how much trouble a charmed monk can cause.  It Revived the one Apanda I'd taken out and also Chakra'ed another who had depleted its MP.  Lede has Time Magic and Haste for added insult.  Another Bio 2 ended the last one before Kenshiro crystalized, meaningless as it is.

   Next try, only Kenshiro has a Black Costume.  Everyone else sticks to Power Sleeves.  I come up with a strategy where if one Monk Earth Slashes Kenshiro, his HP will be in critical after the first Ultima goes off.  At which point HP Restore can save him from death.  I'm also more mindful of my positioning to not allow Stop Bracelet to sneak up on me.  Kenshiro's HP Restore fails and he dies.  Apandas get really lucky with the Bio 2 and make 3 of my punchboys into statues.  Last punchboy is out of positon to help any of them and succumbs to Shadow Stitch.  Reset.

   This time, 3 of the punchboys get Angel Rings to ward of Stop Bracelet.  I also set Hamedo on them with the intent of baiting physicals from Lede.  One sticks to Germinas Boots to reach an Apanda with Wave Fist right away.  Try the same plan as before and this time Kenshiro's HP Restore activates so he lives on.  The only status that lands is a Slow on Kenshiro and one Undead from Bio 3.  Celia comes down to ground level to Ultima Kenshiro again helpfully leaving herself open for Earth Slashes.  Lede Shadow Stitches someone.  The other four units get turns before Ultima resolves and pile on enough damage to Celia to get her to retreat.

Elmdor (0 resets):

  This one I was worried about in planning trying to do it with only 9 PA.  Earth Clothes on all.  Balrog and one other get Bracers and the other 3 equip 108 Gems.  Opt not to go with HP Restore to raise my chances of drawing Ultima.  I want to pile on enough damage in one round as I'm not liking my odds of living through two rounds of enemy attacks.  I think I have enough damage if all 5 punchboys get turns but it's certainly not a guarantee since I'm wide open for Shadow Stitch.  Elmdor will Muramasa 3 units on his opening turn and Balrog will always be one of them.  Lucky for me, the Assassins see weakened units they can pick off with Ultima and use that rather than Throw.  With some crafty positioning, I'm able to line up Earth Slashes to heal those injured by the opening Muramasa and move those targeted by Ultima next to Elmdor.  Due to a lucky critical from one of the punchboys, I can do enough damage to take Elmdor to zero HP.  Have the last punchboy hurt an Assassin because I can.  Lede's Ultima goes off.  207 damage to Elmdor finishes him.  No deaths on my side, hooray.

Zarela (0 resets):

   Black Costumes are a must otherwise Zarela will unload Spell on my team.  The fight might be doable with Germinas Boots because of access to revival.  I opt to make this as hassle free as possible and go with Angel Rings on all.  Hamedo on everyone.
   This fight takes ages because of only 9 PA on the punchboys.  65 damage Wave Fists aren't taking Zarela out very fast.  Not helped by Zarela grabbing a crystal off a crystalized undead Knight and recovering the 350-ish damage I'd done to him up to that point.  It's not safe to leave sleeping Monks alone either as Zarela's physical oneshots a sleeping Balrog and comes close to murdering anyone else (225 out of about 250 max HP).  So failure to Stigma Magic a sleeping punchboy usually results in a dead one.  Another reason to wake up the sleeping is that they're bait for the undead knights and Armor Break hitting is horrendous.  Zarela mostly flits around dropping Nightmares though if he spots a weakened unit, he will swoop in for a kill with a physical or Flare 2.  Saw Confuse 2 once but only Balrog got hit and Meliadoul decided that snapping him back to sanity before he lost any turns with a 72 damage sword whack was worthwhile.
   Meliadoul came with Phoenix Down so that helped take out the support faster than planned.  Played very defensively prioritizing keeping HP up (otherwise Flare 2 takes out the weakened) and staying spread out to avoid bunching up for Nightmare.  Kind of tricky with only 3 Move.  Neutralizing the support was more important to me.  Only one Armor Break got past Hamedo and it thankfully missed.  Bone Snatch was obnoxious and kept coming back to life, costing me turns to put it down again.  I forgot that Stigma Magic can miss and had at least one instance where Jin or Kenshiro failed to wake the other from slumber.  Meliadoul died once from Flare 2 and I opted to bring her back into action just to have an additional unit pursuing Zarela. (trivia: her 90 damage swing actually outdamages my team's damage output)  By the time I finally ground down the last of Zarela's HP, Balrog and Kenshiro had lost their Reraise and everyone had eaten dirt at least once.

Most of the group reached their next PA point and on the way to Igros, got into a random and got enough EXP from it for the last holdouts reached the 10 PA benchmark.

57

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: May 30, 2022, 02:51:43 AM »

Monk SCC punching through Chapter 4:

   On my way to Dogoula, I pick up 5 Earth Clothes and 3 Germinas Boots at Yardow.  Stuck to the Power Sleeves for the PA boost though.  Also got into a routine random at Yuguo.  More EXP means closer to next PA and Speed points.

Dogoula Pass (0 resets):

    Routine fight.  Hamedo on everyone.  Because I'm still at 7 Speed on everyone, close Wizard goes for a high level spell and dies to two midcharge attacks.  Priorities are other Wizard, then Lancers, then everyone else.  Chakra as needed, Revive anyone who falls.  Mostly used Earth Slash to get around evasion.  Hamedo mostly failed but worked enough to prevent a loss.
   Turns out there's one spot on the PBF the Knight can reach if it starts with Germinas Boots.  As long as Hamedo goes off though, he's merely an inconvenience.  Jin reaches Lv 21 for a PA point right in time for the next fight.

Bervania (1 reset):

  So I have a plan to assassinate Meliadoul without her breaking anything.  PBF is as follows for team 2; the first group is immaterial.

____
__
_C
T___

T is my Taurus punchboy.  C is the Capricorn with the highest PA.  With this setup, the Ninja will go first and Throw something at the Taurus.  Meliadoul will move onto the box.  Taurus goes and punches from the side for 160.  Capricorn will punch from Melly's front.  As long as both attacks hit, it's enough to get her to run.
   First attempt, Ninja moves onto the box and throws something at Captain Falcon.  Um, oops.  Ninja was an Aquarius and thus went after the unit she could do more damage too.  Reset.  Next attempt enemies move as predicted.  I was prepared to reset until Meliadoul's evasion fails and it happens on this very attempt.  The first group might as well use Chakra if any arrows hit them; they can't get close enough to help.

Finath River (0 resets):

   HP Restore or Counter?... went with HP Restore as I felt it more relevant for the most dangerous enemies.  4 yellows, 1 red, 1 Uribo.  My high level is 22 so not very dangerous.  The red's HP is low enough that ganging up on it with 3 punchboys takes it out and Chakra > yellow Chocobos.

Zeltenia (0 resets):

Maybe would have made sense to use some Earth Clothes here as there were times I couldn't line up an Earth Slash without hitting my own teams.  Help Delita batter the two close Knights.  Delita puts some hurt on Zalmo at one point and when Zalmo goes for a Raise 2 on one of the downed Knights, he leaves himself in range for two of my punchboys to remove the rest of his HP.

Kenshiro and Captain Falcon have reached Lv 23 here and its Speed point.

Bed Desert (0 resets):

  Power Sleeves and mobility boots as usual.  Kenshiro and Jin get HP Restore, others set Hamedo.  Yeah, I misremembered and it's Axel who has 40 Faith.  Jin is second highest of the five at 49.  PBF setup -

__M__
SM_MR

R is where the game initially places Ramza, S is my other 8 Speed Monk with Stigma Magic learned.  Balk will start by shooting Ramza.  Gee I wonder why.  Kenshiro Chakra's himself and moves one space in front of the empty space in the first row (bottom row on the diagram).  8 Speed Monk gets the next turn, moves behind Kenshiro, and uses Stigma Magic to remove poison from the whole group.  Generics go with the Wizard coming forth to nuke Kenshiro with something.  This is intended as two of my punchboys get close enough to Wave Fist him midcharge.  The last punchboy isn't able to get close enough to attack anyone so shrugs and Chakra on Kenshiro.
   From here on out, the strategy is to keep Kenshiro alive, take out the Archers, and only deal with Knights if they start to get in the way.  As long as Kenshiro is alive, Balk will always go after him.  One or two punchboys stay within 4 panels of Kenshiro at all times to attend to him.  He still dies a lot no thanks to Ice3 shots doing more than his max HP, Balk doubleturns, Archers picking on him, and HP Restore either failing or being blown past.  As for the Archers, Jin gets close enough Secret Fist one and takes out the other through direct damage eventually.  They mostly busied themselves with picking on Kenshiro or the other punchboys before succumbing to repeated Blodia Punches.  The Knights caught up and Hamedo didn't always work so I spent even more turns on revival and recovery.  Eventually killed one and sent the other into critical.  Got chests and crystals from the Archers and Wizard before I was able to land enough 50 damage Earth Slashes to send Balk down.  Last Knight in critical survives the fight to bear witness to what happened.  Being a 3 Move melee unit, he was nowhere near enough to endanger any of the punchboys when Balk was down to critical.

Before this fight, Kenshiro was leading the group in EXP.  Since he spent the whole fight soaking up gunshots and using Chakra on himself when he did get turns, Jin passed him as the EXP leader.

Maybe it would have been better to give Kenshiro Earth Clothes instead.  I wasn't using him for offense and the extra HP would have enabled him to survive an Ice3 at full HP.

South Wall Bethla (0 resets):

  Routine fight for the punchboys.  Set Hamedo on all.  Take the Ninja out first then the Archers though the Thief gets punched out before them.  Landed a Secret Fist on one Archer so left him doomed and went after Knights.  Got a few boxes even though I wasn't intending to draw out the fight (ninjas crystalize fast yo).  Everyone has their Lv 23 Speed point after this battle is complete, right in time for the sluice.

Bethla Sluice (1+ resets):

  Hamedo on the Ramza side punchboys to fend off Knights.  Other side goes with HP Restore.  Wizard locks a Fire 4 on team 2's side.  Only one of the punchboys can get into Wave Fist range and it isn't enough to take him out.  I reset out of gamer rage.  Spend several more resets fiddling  with the positions of team 2 on the PBF so that both can get into Wave Fist range as the AI is very good about positioning Wizardboy in the most out of reach spot it can manage.  Finally get a positioning where both punchboys are able to midcharge the close Wizard on their side and I can play the map.
   On Kneshiro's side, it generally takes more than 3 Earth Slashes to critical a Knight unless one of the punchboys gets a good critical and/or Hamedo activates and gets through the evasion.  So got to be careful about positioning when battling down there since arrows are also raining down from above so there's a real risk of people dying from enemies ganging up on them.    Sometimes opted for Secret Fist on Knights if I didn't have many attacking turns available.  Though the winning attempt, I played a bit risky and ran someone up both sides to catch the Flash Hat Wizard in an Earth Slash crossfire.  Conveniently both switch Knights can be hit by one Earth Slash though I still ended up killing everyone on the map.  Axel learns Spin Fist from a crystal, pointless as it is.  He's the last of Kenshiro's companions to do so.  (actually everyone but Kenshiro picked up Spin Fist from crystals)

TG Cid joins.  For this challenge, his only relevance is the Bracer he comes with.  Also amusing to note that the next armor upgrade is here and I not once used the 5 Earth Clothes I bought.

58

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: May 29, 2022, 02:47:40 AM »

Monk SCC delivering beatings.

   Finally, Power Sleeves.  This is one of the most gratifying points in the game to be a Monk.

Grog Hill (0 resets):

   The batch of deserters is the first to feel the increased power of Team Punchboy.  Took a few rounds to catch up to them to score kills though.  Balrog gets sniped down by the Chemists and Archer so it takes turns to Revive and heal him.  And one Chemist had X-Potion and used it a lot because I wasn't able to focus enough damage on any one unit for a kill in the first 3-4 rounds.  After the Thief and a Squire went down though, momentum was very much in my favor and it was just a matter of chasing the Chemists down and introducing them to multiple punchboy fists.

Yardow (0 resets):

   This is the easiest battle at Yardow I've ever had in any playthrough.  For the opening, one Ninja throws something at Rafa, miss.  One Ninja throws something at my team, miss.  The goddess of evasion was definitely blessing my side.  Rafa charges a Heaven Thunder on the two Ninjas on the ground and runs away and Malak goes for Un-Truth in her direction.  My turn.  The closer Summoner has best compat with Kenshiro so his Earth Slash takes off 110.  Axel follows it up with another 90 damage Earth Slash for a kill.  Balrog Wave Fists Malak and takes him out.  The last two units are free to lob Earth Slash at the Ninjas Rafa targetted, taking them both to critical.  Heaven Thunder goes off and in a rare display of Rafa competence, finishes them both.  Other Summoner Hastes herself.
   Surviving Ninja gets the next turn and throws something at one of my team for 99 damage.  Summoner gets next turn before my team and locks a summon on someone.  Too bad for her I can take her out in two midcharge hits.  Chakra on the Monk who was hurt, two more attacks on the Ninja.  Ninja goes and attacks but fails to kill.  Not that it would have mattered since one more attack finishes it off.  If I hadn't bothered to heal, the battle already would have been over but it's OK.  Velius is coming up and extra EXP is favorable to me.

Kenshiro has enough JP to master Monk so I do so.  Get Rafa outfitted as a Chemist.  After some deliberation, I splurge on 3 Bracers in anticipation of the Velius fight.  This pretty much bankrupts my War Funds.

Yuguo Woods (0 resets):

   HP Restore on everyone.  Earth Slash is useless here.  Still, I've got Power Sleeve Monks with low Faith so even Hasted ghosts are at most an annoyance before they go down in two attacks.  Or even one with good compatibility.  Simple matter of ganging up on anything that draws close enough. At one point, both undead Wizards locked magic onto Kenshiro then positioned themselves where he hit them both with a Spin Fist midcharge, the first time I've used Spin Fist all game.  Didn't kill either but weakened them enough that the first spell finished off the Wizard charging the second magic.  It was over before any of the undead enemies' death counters expired.

Riovanes Gate (0 resets):

   HP Restore on everyone as Archers are going to be a factor a lot longer than Knights.  Leaving Rafa a Chemist had the Archers taking her out on round 1.  Oops or smart?  Because it does get Malak out of the way as well.  Team 2 starts off by sending the far left Knight into critical with 3 Earth Slashes.  Kenshiro's team could only safely land one Earth Slash on the Knight there so they were less productive.  Earth Slash is useless on Feather Boots Knight but I land enough damage through the evasion to send it running and it only lands one 70 damage sword whack when I tried to Secret Fist him.  Lots of getting shot by Archers, Chakra usage and the occasional revival, and sniping the other Knight with Earth Slash when it came over.  Several HP Restores went off which eased the healing load.  Getting up on the parapets was a risky affair since I'm trying to keep people with level ground next to them.  And there's only one path up for my 4 Move Monks that keeps them adjacent to level ground.
  Of course, once I do get someone up there things shift.  It becomes easier to send someone else up after the first one since the first punchboy is inflicting damage.  After dropping Earth Clothes Archer, I send two of the punchboys after Feather Boots Knight who has been left alone to run into a corner all this time.  I do stall some hoping for Earth Clothes but it drops 108 Gems instead, which is at least useful later.  After the battle, Captain Falcon is at Lv 21 and has crossed the next PA point threshhold.

Velius (3 resets):

    Kenshiro must have HP Restore or Wiegraf is impossible.  I also set HP Restore on Balrog and Hamedo on the other three.  The Capricorn and Taurus punchboys get the 3 Bracers while the other 2 stick to boot for the movement increase.
     Kenshiro has 188 max HP with the Power Sleeve.  Lightning Stab does 140.  One won't put him in critical but after Chakra and moving a second one will.  I go with this since I'd rather not give up the Power Sleeve's PA boost.

Attempt #1 - HP Restore fails.  Wiegraf uses Lightning Stab.  Ramza dies.
Attempt #2 - HP Restore fails.  Wiegraf uses Lightning Stab.  Ramza dies.
Attempt #3 - Wiegraf criticals with the second Lightning Stab blowing past the critical range to trigger HP Restore.  Ramza dies.
Attempt #4 - By now I've worked out how to position Kenshiro so that Wiegraf will Stab and retreat on his second turn.  So in case HP Restore fails, I can Chakra and retreat and live to get another turn to Chakra again about 140 HP.  This time HP Restore is perfect so I get turns to attack.  Still had to be cautious and watch the AT list so I don't get bowled over by a Wiegraf doubleturn.  The 4th Earth Slash puts Wiegraf into critical.

Velius time.  Kenshiro gets the first turn and I have him retreat.  Velius goes and locks a fatal Cyclops on Axel.  Axel gets off a 315 damage punch but no one else can get close enough without walking into Cyclops' kill zone.  Demons do nothing.  I shuffle the other punchboys around and wait.  Kenshiro goes next and Wave Fists from the side for 90.  Velius moves down and clobbers Jin with a physical.  Demon locks a fatal Dark Holy on Kenshiro.  My turn.  Balrog Revives Jin.  I misplay here with Jin and have him attack the demon charging Dark Holy.  Should have either hit Velius or Revive on Axel.  Demon survives with 11 HP and nukes Kenshiro.  Captain Falcon punches Velius for 260.  Demons finish off Jin and drop a Giga Flare on the two still living punchboys.  Velius pounds Captain Falcon next.  "Oh no you Hamedon't."  260 damage and battle is won.  It's a relief to get past this even after my mistake as this was a fight I was worried about not having the oomph to win.  When Cyclops could oneshot 4 out of 5 of the punchboys at max HP, having a drawn out fight is not good odds for my team.

Riovanes Roof (1 reset):

     Haven't touched FFT in over a year or two so forgot how damaging Lede is.  I had set HP Restore on everyone and she proceeded to take Kenshiro from full to zero HP with a physical.  Celia Shadow Stitches Balrog.  Elmdor had landed Confusion on Rafa and she went for Heaven Thunder next to Balrog (before he was Stopped).  Try playing it out with the other two flinging Wave Fist at Celia for 108 each.  Lede kills another punchboy; Celia Stop Bracelets Balrog.  I only have one more turn, can't reach Celia, and then Elmdor finishes off Rafa.
     Lesson learned, this time it's Hamedo on all.  Kenshiro gets a Bracer.  Elmdor Muramasa on Rafa, no confusion.  Rafa uses Truth in front of Elmdor and retreats.  Lede goes to kill Kenshiro like before.  "Oh no you Hamedon't."  Kenshiro punches her face for 210.  Celia goes for a Charge +1 on Rafa.  Well sure.  I suppose if I hadn't already taken off over half of Lede's HP already, the other three punchboys would be more than capable of taking Celia down midcharge.  Kenshiro goes before them and ATATATATA on Lede taking her down to zero HP.  Battle won.

End of chapter sees my team at about Lv 20-21 range.  Kenshiro and Captain Falcon have picked up their next PA points.

59

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: May 22, 2022, 07:56:43 AM »

More Monk SCC wrietups:

Golgarand Execution Site (0 resets):

  I put the two Capricorn punchboys with Kenshiro and Jin and Balrog go in squad 2.  This will become my standard distribution when the game asks me to split teams.  With only 7 PA, I don't really count on being able to take out Gafgarion fast.  So I don't bother and focus on thinning out the support.  Gaf comes over towards the first squad and Night Swords Axel.  Kenshiro Chakras Axel and I move him towards the gate keeping him 9 panels away from the Time Mage.  Axel lobs a Wave Fist at the closest Knight while leaving a clear lane for Captain Falcon to Earth Slash both Knights on the ground.  He does so and moves just far enough away so the Knight can't reach him.  Balrog snipes a Knight with Earth Slash while Jin advances without attacking anyone as that would put him where a Knight could smack him.  Knight comes so whack Axel... "Oh no you Hamedon't."  Close Time Mage Hastes herself.  This turns out good for me since she ends up with a turn before my Monks get their next turn.  Goes for a status spell on Kenshiro.  Since he has best compat with that Time Mage, he goes Hokuto Shinken on her and takes out all her HP with one midcharge punch.  It a long drawn out slow wearing down of the enemies.  At least none of my monks died.  Kenshiro stays up on the gate to attack the other Time Mage and the Archer who had climbed up there.  Other than the Time Mage harassing him with Slow, they ignore him, the Archer preferring to rain arrows on the punchboys on the ground.  Lots of Chakra usage and kiting the hell out of Knights; they never got close enough to attack other than one worst compatibility hit.  I collected a bunch of crystals and chests before swarming Gaf.  Jin picked up Spin Fist from a crystal; underwhelming as it is, it's still free.  It took more than one volley from the team due to Gaf evading.  The dragged out fight at least has the benefit of EXP and JP.  Jin and Captain Falcon both have enough for Hamedo.  Kenshiro finally reaches the 8 PA benchmark.

Lionel Castle gate (1 reset): Hamedo on 3 monks comes just in time for this map, where I'm crazy (and cheap) enough to try to do this with Battle Boots instead of Rubber Shoes.  The rough plan is to knock off the Summoner and Archers first while letting Hamedo protect from Knights.  Due to the group's low damage output, executing this plan turns out difficult.  Kenshiro has Move-HP up and HP Restore set.  Chakra heals him for 60 which is slightly more than what Gafgarion does so he heals only when he's missing 60 or more HP to use less CT.   Summoner lives long enough to launch two Titans at my team.  While this doesn't result in defeat, it means more turns spent on Revive and Chakra and not many free to attack.  Meanwhile, thanks to Move-HP up, Kenshiro occasionally has a turn where he can attack so he flings the occasional Earth Slash from his side.  I lost because I left Kenshiro too close to where generics went after him.  Archer and Knight cut me off from getting Axel over to him and he crystalizes.

  Next attempt, Summoner only gets off one summon before being brought down.  However, Geo Knight has Elemental.  Carve Model is what worries me but she didn't roll that.  Did Quicksand two Monks though and lands a Death Sentence on Jin.  Troubling but actually recoverable.  This is because my turn order is Axel, Jin, Balrog, Captain Falcon.  So when Jin does succumb, Axel can Revive him and he has a turn to do something productive.  However, more trouble strikes when Gafgarion double-turns Kenshiro when I thought he was safe.  Kenshiro had 107 HP before the double-turn.  Night Sword hurts for 54.  Do the math.  When I do get Axel over to Kenshiro, Revive misses.  Then Gaf kills him.  It was a close one getting Jin over to Revive Axel, then making sure Axel was healthy enough so that he could Revive Kenshiro.  Succeeded with Kenshiro's death counter at 0 and 83 CT.  Taking out Gaf is still a slow process as my team's damage isn't any better than the last fight.  But afterwards, everyone has reached 8 PA.  I spare 200 JP on Jin to teach him Stigma Magic in preparation for the next fight.  Everyone learns Hamedo after this and set it for the next battle.

Queklain (0 resets):

PBF used   X_MX
                  X___
                      R

R is Ramza's starting position.  Jin must not be in the spot marked M.  With this PBF, Queklain will start off by tagging Ramza and the unit in spot M with Nightmare.  One Sleep, one Death Sentence.  Jin uses Stigma Magic to wake up the sleeping punchboy.  Only Kenshiro is able to get in range to Wave Fist Queklain without bunching up too much for more Nightmare.  Next comes a Bio 3 hitting 3 people and turning Captain Falcon undead.  Kenshiro gets a Chakra and attack with everyone else I can get in range without bunching up too much.  Next comes a physical on Captain Falcon, no Hamedo.  Ended up not reviving him and lobbing more Wave Fists to win.

Chapter 2 finished at Lv 13-14 for the team.

Nothing on the shopping list at the start of Chapter 3 so went directly to Goland.

Goland (0 resets):

    Olan is smart and uses Galaxy Stop on his first turn.  Thief steals his hat, which is annoying.  Mediator uses Persuade on him which is hilarious because Olan had just gotten his turn so his CT was low and because it's not like Persuade will delay the incoming Galaxy Stop.  Judo Outfit Thief lands a 81% Charm on Jin.  Yuck.  For once, the worst compatibility between Kenshiro and Jin works to my favor as Kenshiro snaps him out with a 24 damage Earth Slash.
    The rest of the battle is mostly tossing out Grand Uppers, Dash Punches, Falcon Punches, Blodia Punches, and ATATATATATATA at immobile enemies.  I do stall hoping for a Judo Outfit drop (at one point Chakra-ing the Mediator) but get two crystals and a Twist Headband instead.  Should have gone with HP Restore rather than Hamedo here as knife stabs are less of a threat than gunshots.

Lesalia (0 resets):

   One downside of making a Scorpio Ramza is that MBarrier from Alma is no longer 100%.  It drops to 95%, oh no.  Part of my plan is to keep a Monk (not Kenshiro or Jin) around Alma to feed her Chakra for MP so that I can take advantage of MBarrier goodness all fight.  Low Faith makes this somewhat less effective though.  I also went with HP Restore on most of the team with only Kenshiro and Jin getting Hamedo.  Idea was to not Hamedo Alma if she tried to help with Healing Staff.  This was a completely unneeded precaution given a party of Monks with Chakra.  Rest of the battle plan is routine: stay out of enemies' attack range unless I can gang up on them and avoid getting ganged up on.  Balrog snipes Knights with Earth Slash.  I end up taking out both Monks before Zalmo is close enough to take a few swings at.  He goes to heal himself considerately staying in range of two of my team to nail him midcharge.

Finally, Judo Outfits.  The bump from 8 to 9 PA isn't that big of a jump in damage output but I'll still take it.  At Lv 14-15 for the group, the next PA point is still quite a ways off.  I teach everyone who doesn't already know them Earth Slash, Revive, HP Restore, and Move-Hp up.

UBS2 (0 resets):

    Move Ramza from his starting position and place my units so that no Lancers can poke someone on their first turn.  Those Time Mages toss out some Haste spells.  I'm not able to kill the closest Lancer even with all 5 of my units attacking it due its 270 HP, Lancer evasion, and my lowish damage.  Well that's not good with all three Lancers in attack range and one or two Hasted.  They go and one Monk is dead after the next set of enemy turns.  And that Chemist undid some of my damage with a Hi-Potion, argh.
     But I have 5 Monks with Revive, Chakra, and Hamedo.  So they can sandbag like hell.  Which I do, taking shots when I can afford to do so.  I did get sloppy and Jin got too close to a Time Mage who tags him with Don't Move.  One Lancer goes for a fatal Jump on his immobile self.  Now my team will get turns before that Jump resolves so apparently the AI didn't see him as doomed and the other two Lancers went after him to make sure Jin was extra dead.  One goes to his right.  "Oh no you Hamedon't."  Other Lancer tries for a spear poke on his left.  "Oh no you Hamedon't."  The combined efforts of my team send both those Lancers into the ground without them getting any more turns.
    For added insult, one Time Mage had attack Summons and was sniping Kenshiro with Ramuh.  He had bad compatibility though and after 2 57 damage Ramuhs, didn't have enough MP for a third.  Kenshiro was hurting though since I had used his turn for Earth Slashing the Lancer on Jin's right rather than heal.  Still alive Lancer kills Jin then goes for a fatal strike on Kenshiro.  "Oh no you Hamedon't."  With two Lancers down and the Summoning Time Mage under 24 MP, the opposition no longer has the means to pressure 5 Monks with Chakra, Revive, and Move HP-up.  Hasted Chemist and his Hi-Potions hangs in for quite a while before I can successfully gang up on him.  Last Lancer tries for another attack on Kenshiro.  "Oh no you Hamedon't."  Only 42 damage from the counterpunch due to worst compatibiliy but still free damage.  Just a simple chase down the remaining enemies and grab any chests/crystals which appear during the process.

UBS3 (0 resets):

    I've been sticking with Battle Boots the whole time and was too cheap to pick up Germinas Boots.  Would have mattered here though since I would have been able to make the Summoner dead instead of allowing him to blast 4 of my units.  I felt smart here with my positioning otherwise getting in as many shots of Earth Slash to Izlude as I could without hitting any of my own guys in the process.  A Knight had Spike Shoes and was tossing rocks at me from turn 1 but he never got a chance for a sword whack.  Ramuh only did about 40-50 so I don't feel the need for Chakra.  Kenshiro and Axel finish off the Summoner.  The others lob more Earth Slash at Izlude.  I feel clever remembering to place someone within Izlude's move range so that he's baited into Hamedo on his third turn instead of jumping.
   Or I could hit him with enough Earth Slash that he runs before his third turn.  That works too.

UBS1 (0 resets):

    After looking at my monks' max HP, give Axel HP Restore and the others Hamedo.  Because Axel's max HP is such that he will be put into critical from full by Stasis Sword.  I also teach him Repeating Fist since he has spare JP.
    One thing I do appreciate about Monk compared to other SCCs is that something can go wrong and the situation is often recoverable.   I have enough damage to one-round Wiegraf if all 5 monks land Wave Fists through the evade but I don't expect the game to let me gang up on him with all 5 right off the bat.  Set up the PBF so no more than two units can be hit by anything Wiegraf tries.  He opens with a Stasis on Balrog an Captain Falcon landing Stop on Balrog.  Archer picks off Captain Falcon.  Wizard has Summon and plants a Shiva that will be fatal to the stopped Balrog.  So I'm down one unit with another on the way before I get a turn.  Sigh.  Kenshiro Revives Captain Falcon who gets a turn to Chakra himself and spreads out.  For the other two, I have Axel move behind Wiegraf and Repeating Fist.  105 damage, better than Wave.  Jin goes to Wiegraf's left and after a bit of thought, I have him Earth Slash for a guaranteed 64.  Shiva goes off and nukes Balrog.  Enemies go.  Wiegraf uses Stasis on Axel and Jin.  HP Restore from Axel; Jin gets Stopped.  Wizard goes for fatal Fire on Jin.  Knights do nothing but move.  Archers take shots at people, no deaths.  Axel oneshots the Wizard with a high rolling Repeating Fist midcharge.  Punchboys on the ground busy themselves healing up with Chakra not really able to get into good attacking positions without bunching up for swordskills.  And I want them spread out because when he can only hit one unit, Wiegraf will opt for his Two Hands physical which does enough damage to oneshot everyone on my team.  He goes after Kenshiro.
    "Oh no you Hamedon't."  Kenshiro lands a critical through the evade for 114 and Wiegraf is down to about 40 HP, low enough for one Earth Slash to finish him.  The generics kill off Jin and Axel and I don't bother trying to save them instead completing the Wiegraf kill.

60

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: May 16, 2022, 09:24:50 AM »

Monk SCC punches on:

Drop off Agrias and Ovelia and then it's a quick detour to Zeland for gear upgrades.  Got into a random during the trip there and back which is still welcome as I'm hoarding JP for Hamedo.  Changed Mustadio into a Chemist with Snipe secondary.

Zigolas Swamp (0 resets):

  Mustadio has Seal Evil so this was always going to be a joke fight.  He's a Chemist for spillover JP just because I can.  Ended up with only one statue since I kept leaving low HP enemies around when Mustadio turns comes around so he opted for direct gunshots.

Goug (0 resets): Took a while to kill anyone due to my 7 PA and those Summoners.  It got off to a good start with Mustadio disabling a thief and the other thief having worst compatibility with Mustadio so he only ate one 15 damage stab.  This draws both Archers to him instead of my team as the 5 Speed Summoner blasts 3 of my monks with Ifrit.  Still hadn't killed any enemies after round 2.  But the slow Summoner only had enough MP for one attack Summon and the other only knew Moogle.  So with the enemy damage so low, it's just a matter of careful positioning and liberal Chakra use to keep anyone from dying.  Eventually wore them down.  Got 3 crystals/chests even though I wasn't stalling since 40 damage Wave Fists and 30 damage Earth Slash is low offense at this point.

Shrugged and taught Kenshiro HP Restore and Move HP-up since I plan to use them both at Lionel.  It does delay Hamedo learning but this felt more urgent.

Baraius Valley (1 reset):

   Jin and Balrog go with Kenshiro in the first squad while the two Capricorns go in the second squad.  (This is dumb as the only unit with Revive in the first squad has worst with Kenshiro)  Lost the first time as the Lightning Bow Archer had best compat with Kenshiro procced a Bolt 2 which took him from full HP to zero.  There was no level ground by him and he crystalized.
   Even the winning attempt was messy.  It took a while for squad 2 to off the Wizard as the Archer kept feeding it Potions to undo my damage plus he dodged a few attacks while gleefully pelting them with 36 damage Bolt 2s.  Even though I wasn't screwed over by wacky random zodiac comptat, Kenshiro's squad still need to be careful with positioning as both Knights attacking the same guy is a kill.  (I hadn't picked up Hamedo yet).  Agrias did more damage per attack than my 7 PA punchboys.  Balrog got to close to Knight sword stabs and dropped at one point but succeeded in keeping Jin safe enough and got him back into action eventually.  It was a slow win with Jin cornering the Archer on the elevation and slowing punching her out at 50 a shot while Kenshiro and Balrog spent more turns using Chakra than attacking.

Axel had the 1200 JP for Hamedo after the battle and is the only unit with it going into Golgorand

61

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: May 14, 2022, 04:51:39 AM »

Monk SCC punches on

  Delita turned up about 100 JP short for Equip Armor.  Darn.  So I leave him in Knight with Guts secondary.  Axel still hasn't gotten his next PA point like the rest of the team.  Jin has the JP to learn Chakra so I teach it to him.

Fort Zekaden (0 resets):

  Balrog sits out and I take all the Capricorn/Taurus punchboys.  Axel starts on Kenshiro's side.  The close Wizard locks a Fire 2 on Kenshiro and a midcharge punch would only take off 75 out of 80 HP.  And Axel is too far away to help.  I could walk up and attack and have the redirect finish her off but then Kenshiro would be within reach of a Knight who would likely finish him off.  So opt for a midcharge Wave Fist instead which keeps him out of Knight melee range.  Algus is smart and shoots Delita from a position that Delita cannot hit him with a physical.  This is what I want since that means Algus is more likely to come close chasing Delita.  Delita climbs on the fort and chucks a rock.  Auto-Poiton.  Oh well, it's only 5 damage erased.  Jin and Captain Falcon come from behind the fort to help out.
   Things get dicey when Knights gang up on Axel and KO him.  Uh-oh, the race is on.  Algus is so dead set on Delita he leaves himself in reach of two good compatibility Monks.  Captain Falcon punches his back.  60 damage, no Auto-Potion.  Jin reaches him with a Wave Fist.  48 damage, no Auto-Potion.  The other Wizard has caught up and fries Jin and Delita as well as the Knight that smacked Jin and now Jin is down.  But Captain Falcon can get close enough to Algus to Falcon Punch past the evade for the kill.

At the end of the chapter, Axel is still at Lv 4 and 6 PA; everyone else hit their 7 PA point.  Kenshiro is the high level member at 6 and the others mill around at 5.

Dortor 2 (0 resets):

   Gafgarion, Agrias, and punching anything within reach.  And lots of Chakra.  Since my punchboys are still at 6 Speed, that gives them chances to midcharge Wizards if they can get close enough.  Individual enemies don't do lots of damage so as long as I take care not to have both Wizards get spells off on the same guy, I feel safe.

Buy armor and with no reason to shop at Igros, head straight for Araguay.

Araguay Woods (0 resets):

  Wave Fist > goblins  I don't think I took any damage here.  One goblin was dueling Gafgarion but kept getting denied by shield before dying.  And Boco was smart and didn't let the Black Goblin corner him.  Only bit or strategy used was having a target available for Agrias each time her turn came up to let her rack up as much JP as I sanely could.

  Take off Gaf's sword and accessory before the next map.  Looking back, I wish I'd removed his shield too just so Ovelia could club him better if he ever catches up with her.  Agrias becomes a Knight with Holy Sword secondary.  I actually downgrade her to a Long Sword in the hope she'll get more actions to unlock Monk.  (this is also why I let Gaf keep his armor)

Zirekile Falls (0 resets):

  Joke fight, of course with most enemies more interest in attack Delita or Ovelia than chasing my low HP Monks.  I killed maybe 2 Knights myself and leave the rest for Agrias and Delita.  I wanted to Chakra Ovelia so she could contribute MBarriers but between my lack or mobility and her often staying off level ground, didn't get much chance.  Agrias came up a bit short on Knight JP finishing with 198.  On the plus side, she did get enough spillover base class JP to pick up Move +1, a welcome aid for Zeland.

  But before I go there, it's back to Dortor for armor upgrades and then a hike to Igros to get a stronger sword for Agrias.  I run into the overlevelled Archer at Araguay and after a tense fight of trying to keep anyone from dying, kill it off.  Got very lucky and it dropped its Wizard Outfit.  Yay, extra 6 HP for someone over the best buyable armor.  I got into several more randoms going to and from Igros, which are welcome for JP and EXP.  Kenshiro has saved up enough to pick up Earth Slash and I do so even if it's not that powerful at 7 PA.  Everyone has Wave Fist and Chakra by now.

Zeland (2 resets):

  Choose to save Mustadio since I have Chakra and want the extra Brave.  Balrog, Captain Falcon, and Jin are the recepiants: Axel is already at 70 Brave and going from 70-72 makes less difference than going from 68-70 (Balrog) or 72-74 (Captain Falcon and Jin)  Kenshiro and Jin have their Lv 8 Speed point whereas the other two do not.  This suits me fine as it provides the possibility of punching Wizards midcharge.

Attempt 1: Mustado goes left.  Kenshiro Earth Slashes a Wizard through the wall.  Jin Wave Fists the other Wizard as I do not want them bunching up.  Both Wizards lock spells on Kenshiro and run.  I'm not able to kill off either of them and Kenshiro dies.  And I haven't taught anyone Revive.  Well, crap.  Was able to reach one with a midcharge Wave Fist but it wasn't enough.  My 7 PA punchboys... don't punch all that hard with 7 PA and Kenshiro crystalizes.

Attempt 2: Mustado goes right.  Geomancer Knight nicks him with Hell Ivy.  Wizard takes off the rest of his HP with a good compatibility, high Faith, Ice Rod boosted Ice2.  Ouch.

At this point, I think maybe it's time to stop hoarding JP and teach someone Revive.  Forgot to do so before making the next attempt.  Mustadio goes right and this time the Wizards go after different targets.  Hooray, I can play the map now.  From here on out, main focus is keeping everyone alive with offense as a secondary priority.  Kite the hell out of the Knights, Wave Fist through the wall a lot. don't try to hit Archers if it puts someone within reach of one or both Knights.  Got a few crystals/boxes since 40 damage Wave Fists don't finish things that fast.

Despite how drawn out this became, Axel still don't reach Lv 8 for the Speed point.  Heh.  My units have enough JP for Earth Slash or Revive but not both.  After some thought, teach Axel and Jin Revive and Balrog and Captain Falcon Earth Slash.  Agrias class changes into Knight for the extra PA, buy Mustado better equipment for HP and off to the next map.

Baraius Hill (1 reset):

   Kenshiro and Captain Falcon have 7 Speed so they go before the generics.  Kenshiro lobs an Earth Slash at the left Summoner while Captain Falcon takes an Earth Slash potshot at one of the Archers.  Enemies go.  Knights can't reach anyone; one Archer shoots Captain Falcon, the other starts charging on Mustadio.  My other two Monks get their turns now; they land two midcharge hits on the charging Archer and drop him.  Summoner launches Ramuh at Kenshiro and Mustdio, no kills.  Lots of scrambling for survival in the next set of moves.  The second Summoner snipe Balrog  down.  I almost forget to get Axel over to him while dealing with the Summoner and when I do remember, Revive misses and Balrog crystalizes before I get another chance.  Reset.

  On the next attempt, I move Kenshiro's companions a bit to far out on the hill and the left Summoner tags all three.  It looks like I'm headed for another reset when a Knight takes a swing at a weakened Axel.  He dodges the fatal deathblow at 80% and lives on.  This time, the second Summoner eats Stop from Stasis Sword and my punchboys are able to finish her off without any Summons being sent my way.  Got a few crystals/chests while slowly wearing down the last of the enemies.

62

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: May 12, 2022, 02:56:34 AM »

Team Punchboy punches their way through Ivalice:

     Turns out coming up with silly theme names for the team was enough to get to start a Monk SCC.  Hopefully I don't put myself into a corner later in the game while rushing through.  Ramza gets named Kenshiro who is known for punching things hard enough to make them explode.  I guess I could have used his actual birthday but was too lazy to look it up.  Anyways made him a Scorpio.  I know I didn't want Capricorn or Taurus as that makes Lionel Gate more difficult than it needs to be but didn't want bad compat with Gemini and Sagitauras which show up often in assassination missions.  So my usual Virgo Ramza is no go.  Plus Scorpio gets good compat with Zombag who's going to be baited into Hamedo.

Gariland: Yep, this gets a writeup.  I stalled it out so that Delita could gain enough JP for Throw Stone for future use.  Got a crystal for Ramza and two boxes before ending the fight.

  Time to hit up the Soldier Office.  I'm looking for male units with 67 or more Brave and anything 50 Faith or below.  Zodiac I'll settle for anything.  This goes faster than I had anticipated which is welcome.  Recruit Axel (Capricorn), Captain Falcon (Capricorn), and Jin (Taurus)  I settle for 66 Brave on Axel planning to use story fights to make up the difference.  Other two I rolled lucky with 70 Brave on both with Jin having the perfect 70/40 for a melee class SCC.  This bankrupts my War Funds.  Last recruit will wait a bit until I'm less broke, plus I can only bring 3 into Mandalia.  Teach all 3 recruits and Ramza Throw Stone and nothing else.  Yes I am living dangerously.  I give Delita Item secondary.

Mandalia Plains: Even though I don't need Algus alive, I want him around at least long enough to pick up Throw Stone.  This can be troublesome as Algus seems to be suicidal charging into the biggest concentration of enemies.  I didn't stall for crystals/chests though looking back it may have been better to do so given how broke I was.  Anyways, all 4 of my units reach job level 2 to unlock Knight.  Ramza also has enough extra Squire JP for Gained JP up so I teach him that too.

  The money situation is felt hard here since I don't want to wander into a random with 4 naked Knights.  I sell some of the starting consumable items that aren't likely to see use and some extra weapons and scrape up enough to get two sets or armor and a second Long Sword.  The first random I only bring in Ramza and Jin as shieldless Knights with 3 of the starting generics.  They get enough actions to unlock Monk during that first battle.  Turn them into Monks, Axel and Captain Falcon's turn to go through Knight.  Pick up what gear upgrades I can after each fight.  2-3 more randoms later, I feel I can finally spare the cash to hire the last punchboy.  Balrog (Libra) is the last member of the SCC team.  3 more battles before he unlocks Monk and at this point, I remove all non-Monk skills I had been leaving on the others.  This process netted enough JP for everyone but Balrog to pick up Wave Fist.  I also have just enough cash to get up to 6 sets of Battle Boots though I am short a Leather Outfit.  Feel I can get away with cutting corners and move on.

Sweegy Woods: Jin sits out having the highest EXP out of the SCC group besides forced Kenshiro.  Delita and Algus are both Squires with Throw Stone and Item secondary.  Between here and Dortor, I plan to have Delita scrape up enough Squire JP for Gained JP up so I do stall a bit after 2-3 enemies have died to let them get more actions.  Finish with Delita about 20 JP away from Gained JP up which is close enough.

Could go back and buy more armor now that I have cash but choose to cut corners and press on.  Surely that 5 HP won't matter?

Dortor (0 resets): The first map of the challenge.  Same group as the last battle and same setups.  Kenshiro and Balrog advance on the ground while Axel and Captain Falcon go up towards longbow Archer.  The longbow archer gets one turn and a pair of Wave Fists down it before it can get a second.  Knight has Defend, nearby Wizard does not.  So Wizard is lured into casting a spells and gets oneshotted midcharge by Balrog's fist.
   Now I goofed because the second Wizard had Defend and I failed to stay in sync with its CT.  So it moved after Kneshiro had punched someone and fried him.  Wasn't able to get him to safety and he fell.  Monk offense, Delita, and Algus were able to finish thins before the countdown expired.  Balrog has enough JP for Wave Fist now so no more suffering with skillless Monks.

Sand Rats (0 resets): Lots of Wave Fisting enemies through walls.  Delita is in Knight with Guts secondary and Gained JP up with the hope I can get him enough Knight JP for Equip Armor before the end of the chapter.  Despite Algus being the only source of restoration, wasn't really difficult.

Got into some randoms between here and Thieves Fort which is welcome for the JP.  No one with Chakra yet.

Thieves Fort (0 resets): This time it's Captain Falcon who sits out.  I had considered giving Algus Move +1 for this but forgot and just played it out.  Black magic Priest stayed close enough to Wave Fist it midcharge and dropped a Thief as well in the first round.  Other than needing to keep Balrog away from Miluda after she hit him once for 36 of his 72 HP, didn't have any trouble.  The other Priest tried to Raise someone but it missed and she didn't do anything else before falling to punchboy fists.  Kenshiro picks up Chakra after this.  He's also the only one at Lv 5 for the next PA point.

Lenalia Plateau (0 resets): First round is about taking out the mages.  An ill-timed critical pushed one Wizard out of reach from the second Wave Fist that would have finished him off.  This is made up for by a second critical which oneshots the Time Mage when normal damage wouldn't have been enough.  After that, it's just careful positioning so that no one gets ganged up on.  The terrain makes it difficult to get people to flat ground for Kenshiro to heal.  Anyways, with three people having good compatibility with Virgo, only takes a few Wave Fists to finish off Miluda.

Delita has over 300 Monk JP from spillover so I teach him Move-HP up for giggles and general survivablilty.  Hike back to Gariland for new armor and Igros to upgrade Delita.  Got another random which is welcome as I'm still hungry for JP to learn more abilities.

Windmill Shed (1 reset): First attempt, Delita gets Stopped.  I try to save his hide with Chakra.  That was a bad idea because Kenshiro gets gangbeaten.  I'm not able to reach Wiegraf with enough Wave Fists before crystalization.  Next attempt, I'm wiser and willing to leave Delita to his fate if it comes to hit.  No Stop proc this time and I don't bother trying to heal him yet knowing he'll get a turn to retreat to safety.  Boco needs to go down first and I also end up taking out the Monks before really bringing my attention to Wiegraf.  Kenshiro is on heal duty first and attacking second.  Although Axel gets one-shotted by Crush Punch ID, this time momentum was enough in my favor to land the 3 Wave Fists I need to send Wiegraf running.

63

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: May 11, 2022, 01:30:42 AM »

Lufia 2 boss crush:

  So after a long stretch without substantial boss battles, Lufia 2 dishes out several in quick succession.  This is where paying attention to its battle mechanics sees payoff.  Fights were done in the 40-45 range; I didn't intentionally seek out levels.

Venge Ghost was always a breather boss as it wastes half its turns doing nothing.  This time I had 3 party members outfitted to hit its light weakness and the only reason I didn't have a 4th was because I didn't want to spend the cash.  Wasting half your turns doing nothing will not end well when the fight is over in 4 rounds.  Preying on the light weakness took the fight from "easy win" to "obliteration."

White Dragons: OK, this is a regular encounter but tied to plot and has boss music.  The only difficulty was setting up my party to one-round it.  Unless all 3 use Cold Stream, I think my team will be fine.  Spent the 20000 to give Selan Firebird for this only for it to turn out unnecessary as Artea with Fire Ring does enough to enable my one-round win.

Fire Dragon: That humble Pearl Brace from way earlier in the game is Selan's best shield for this fight thanks to its unlisted fire resistance.  This boss pretty much only uses fire damage (yes the physical is fire element).  Other preparation include giving Selan the Ice Ring along with teaching her Ice Valk, Artea sleep immunity, Maxim the Dragonslayer, and Guy the Fly Ax.  Artea is on heal duty, everyone else is hitting a weakness.
  I kind of goofed with my preparation where the boss was faster than everyone and I had no Agility buffing on my team.  But the fight ended before anything bad happened due to the Agility woes.  Selan is doing 600 a cast and the muscle men were do over 1500 with their weapons IP or around 500 with regular physicals.  So that 7500 HP went down in about 4 rounds.

Ghost Ship: Hahaha, undead boss.  Selan and Guy used healing IP that did 3964 damage to its 10,000 HP.  Valor from Artea hits for 934.  It was down in two rounds.  Only reason I didn't one-round kill is because I was too cheap to pick up a Tough Hide for Maxim as its healing IP is good for maybe 2000 (didn't check this game).

Tank: OK don't really have much to say about this one.  I didn't have that many options on hand for exploiting the armored trait and even then they weren't that powerful.  Maybe the patch removed that attribute.  Just made sure Artea was silence protected.  I remembered to teach Artea Fake before coming but I don't think he needs the Agility for this one.  It will be relevant on the next fight.

64

Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

« on: May 09, 2022, 09:16:13 AM »

FFT Special skillsets as secondaries - the last batch of thoughtdump

Meliadoul

  Like Agrias and Orlandu, she's looking for high amounts of PA and WP to power her skillset.  It's even more important that her swordskills are strong since they can only be used a limited number of times per target.  On top of that, a desirable carrier is able to function without Mighty Sword in the event she joins a battle and there are only monsters on the opposing side.

  Knight is good against humans but it's very awkward on monsters.  On monsters, all she's got is Attack and whatever Battle Skills she learned to work with.  In a game where every monster has innate Counter, being limited to range 1 attacks that trigger counters is not a good position to be in.  Geomancer carries Mighty Sword better as it's less helpless on monsters.

  Magical classes all suck as carrying Mighty Sword; she's unlikely to finish off anything with swordskills alone.  On the physical side, Ninja and Samurai are alright but can get expensive to sustain.  Though money generally isn't an issue that late in the game and even less likely to be a problem if one has trained enough to unlock one or both classes on her.  Monk's skillset lets her contribute on monsters without setting off Counters once she can snag Wave Fist (or even Spin Fist if desperate enough).  Lancer can kind of work with Level Jump 2 or more.  The speed makes it harder to connect Jumps though most monsters won't outspeed it too badly.  Not likely to be able to Jump on Thief Hat wearing humans but they're human so smash with swordskills.  Dancer is kind of stuck for non-Mighty Sword damage but I suppose one can use it entirely for debuffing.  Archer and Thief are both terrible at carrying Mighty Sword.  It's a chore to train her Move +2 since she has all that speed but little to channel it towards.

  Score: 15/85  I'm not penalizing the score for how far out of the way it is to unlock Samurai, Ninja, and Dancer on her.

Cloud

  Requiring a Materia Blade to use Limits is an immediate strike against the transferability of the skillset.  And he probably wants Short Charge or forget about hitting anything with Meteorain and Omnislash.  (Cherry Blossom is so slow it's a task to land it even with Short Charge.)  Desired carrier stats depend on the Limits available/focused on.  Cross Slash will probably be the first significant Limit and it's powered by MA.  Blade Beam just wants high max HP.  Climhazzard and Finish Touch are stat independent and only mobility matters for their usability.

  Knight really is not a good carrier.  Subpar MA and the Materia Blade requirement cuts Cloud off from knight swords and the Rune Blade (which he really could have used).  Probably Cloud's best option for a Blade Beam carrier though I don't put much worth in Blade Beam.  Materia Blade also gimps attack damage in a class that's dependent on it.  Geomancer I really like.  Less offense than Soldier but gets 4 Move and shields in exchange which can really help his survivability (or toss on an Aegis Shield to help make up the MA difference).  And Geomancy lets Cloud do something in those awkward moments where he's not getting a Limit off. (be it risking getting midcharged or all available targets being able to move away before a Limit resolves)

  As for classes where he needs Equip Sword to use Limits, the physical classes other than Knight/Geomancer all suck  Well Thief and Ninja can work as carriers for the stat independent Limits but that's limiting his options.  And if Cloud is spending time in Ninja, I'm more inclined to toss a pure generic setup on him.  Samarui is lackbuster since he can't use Rune Blade and Limit at the same time in the class.

  Limit shows more promise on the magical side of the job tree.  Priest is OK.  Could be stronger but the skillsets don't duplicate each other.  Wizard is all about powerful Cross Slash and Black Magic will go mostly unused save for better range (and less often, being able to lock it on units).  Time Mage does well enough with the high MA and Time Magic providing functions that Limit doesn't.  Melee damage will generally be worse than a staff but by the time Cloud joins, Time Mage melee isn't really significant anymore.  It had its day in the sun and that's long passed.  Summoner, I guess.  It feels like it would be a Rafa situation where Summon eclipses the special skillset.  But Limit is more predictable in when it will hit.  Chemist/Mediator lack the MA to support Cross Slash and don't offer anything substantial towards the other Limits.  Plus it would require giving up guns.  Similar drawback with Oracle and its good weapon options.  Calculator is hopeless as expected.  And Bard?  Yah, requiring a PA based weapon in a class with game-worst PA isn't ending well.

  Score 18/85  Tossed in a pity point for Thief/Ninja combined.

Ramza

  Guts ended up being a mental block to evaluate which is why he's at the end of this thoughtdump and not the beginning.  Most of the key skills its hyped for are stat independent.  For the ones that aren't, Dash/Throw Stone are not going to be used for damage output, Wish is strengthened by high max HP but makes little sense to build around, and Ultima late Chapter 4 when the game is more than 80% over.  Instead, I choose to evaluate Guts' transferability based on how much I feel its utility skills can benefit each generic class.  More Speed and Brave are universally useful so for the most part, I won't be factoring that into my ratings (with a few exceptions)

  Monk most directly benefits from Accumulate thanks to the quadratic damage formula of fists and Punch Art.  Monk also can use Yell to catch up Speed-wise to their hat wearing allies.  Ninja and Thief skillsets benefit directly from Yell though Guts takes double the uses to benefit their weapon strikes.  Lancer likes either or both depending on the Speed situation and the opposition faced.  Geomancer with Guts becomes more useful in Chapter 4 with Scream and Ulitma in the picture.  Knight is OK needing only one shot of Accumulate for a damage increase but the skillset barely address their range issues.  Samurai makes use of the full Scream package with a physical that's helped by higher Brave and a magic powered skillset though Guts is a mediocre secondary without it.  Archer feels like the worst physical carrier for Guts.  Takes 2 uses of Yell/Accumulate for each increase in damage.  Unless one uses crossbows but crossbow damage is awful for most of the game.

  Most magic classes get little mileage out of Guts before Scream is learned.  Summoner and especially Calculator like Yell to make up for their speed deficiency.  Thanks to Yell (and Scream when available), Ramza may be the only special character who isn't a chore to train in Calculator.  Ultima further enhances the usefulness of Guts for Priest/Time Mage/Oracle by providing offense that their base class generally struggles with.  Wizard's main niche for Ultima is piercing evasion and otherwise feels redundant.  Chemist doesn't see any unique benefit from Guts unless you're doing something offbeat like fist Chemist.  Scream boosting MA I guess turns Talk Skill Ramza into the best potential Faith rasier.  Enough uses can make Persuade and other low-accuracy skills reliable though this is trivia due to the uses required.  Bard feels awkward as a Guts carrier.  Sing runs independent of a unit's Speed so it doesn't benefit from more Speed.    Harps use two stats for damage so their damage is slower to raise.  1-2 more MA from Scream won't make much impact on the songs that use it.  Bard has good MA but so little MP that it's poor at carrying Ultima.  Could Scream until Bloody Strings is doing 999 per hit but that's a comedy option that takes far too long to set up.

  Score: 38/85

Final ranking for most transferable skillset.

1. Ramza
2. Agrias
3. Mustadio
4. Beowulf
5. Orlandu
6. Reis
7. Cloud
8. Rafa
9. Meliadoul
10. Malak

Feel like I overvalued Snipe so put him behind Agrias in this final listing.  PSP Meliadoul is a lot better; at a glance I'd place that incarnation just below Orlandu.  Malak is dead last, to very little surprise.

65

Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

« on: May 06, 2022, 04:29:50 AM »

FFT Special skillsets as secondaries: thoughtdump continued

Beowulf

    Magic Sword requires a sword and decent MP to make frequent use of it.  MA is not as important since most of the skillset's accuracy comes from the skills itself but is nice to have.  Geomancer is probably the best not-Temple Knight option he can get.  Knight has robes but is generally lacking in MP lowering its desirability as a carrier.  Using the skillset in other classes requires Equip Sword.  The carriers that stand out for me are Wizard and Summoner.  Black Magic/Summon Magic provide the direct damage that Magic Sword generally lacks.  Priest is OK too with its Speed multiplier and a skillset that covers different functions than Magic Sword.  Samurai with a Rune Blade works OK for similar reasons as Agrias but unlocking Samurai on Beowulf is a pain since he's so awful in Monk, Thief, and Archer.  Time Mage feels only OK as the melee damage isn't much better than a staff and maybe even worse.  Compare that with Priest who has a decent physical for those moments one can catch an enemy midcharge.  Oracle has lots of overlap and would require giving up a stick for Magic Sword.  Lancer MP is terrible and robes don't save it.  Mediator with Magic Sword is viable but I don't feel it's worth giving up a spell gun for.  Hat wearing classes without robes would lean towards wearing a Gold Hairpin for MP to fuel Magic Sword and giving up a Thief Hat/Twist Headband feels like a bigger sacrifice.  Chemist and Archer would also entail sacrificing their ranged weapons so I consider them terrible Magic Sword carriers.

  Score: 25/85  I considered throwing a pity point for Thief since Equip Sword does help its offense but it doesn't change how it's still bad as a carrier which is what this evaluation focuses on.

Orandu

  Similar to Agrias, likes having high PA and WP.  In some ways Orlandu feels better off than Agrias in generic classes yet in some ways he feels worse.  Partly because Holy Swordsman is so good so there's a bigger power loss relative to a generic wielding All Swordskill.  And partly because he joins later when there are more significant hat options.  Still male PA gives him more oomph.

  Knight Orlandu offers nothing over his base class (other than higher PA growth which I'm not factoring in here).  It's still his second best but the gap between first and second is noticeable.  Geomancer Orlandu doesn't have the same appeal as Geo Agrias despite male PA.  Knight swords are a factor by the time he joins so it's a bigger power drop.

  As for Equip Sword classes, Ninja is still fantastic for the same reason of Agrias.  Even more destructive with male PA backing it up.  I feel he pulls off Monk well enough.  Samurai Orlandu doesn't have the synergy factor of Samurai Agrias and Draw Out is going mostly unused in his hands.  He's in Samurai to grind Blade Grasp and get out once done.  Thief I consider the minimum PA threshhold for a All Swordskill carrier.  Less power per attack than other options but with that speed, he's getting lots of turns relative to other generics.  Archer and Lancer are functional but don't really add options other than shields.  The magic side of the job tree are all awful at carrying swordskills.

  Score: 24/85  It's not that the skillset is bad in other classes.  It's that Holy Swordsman is so good that the gap in power is so much bigger.

Reis

  Dragon has different ideal carriers depending on what skills Reis will be focusing on.  For the damage skills, MA is the key stat along with mobility.  Geomancer is a great carrier with its 4 move, good MA and MA boosting options, and geomancy if she isn't close enough for a breath attack.  The mage classes are fair carriers to.  As a Time Mage, Reis has time magic for utility while Dragon provides direct damage that will leave a mark with Time Mage magic power.  Priest is good too.  Less magic but more speed with Dragon to contribute direct damage.  Oracle is not as good with less MA then Time Mage and sticks having the same attack range as the breath attacks (and an Octagon Rod does the same damage) though a Black Robe pushes breath damage past Octagon Rod poke damage.  Wizard and Summoner have less use for Dragon attacks but the Now timing and not being subject to Faith means they can still fill a niche.

  If Dragon is there to be used for Dragon Tame or buffing an ally Dragon, then speed and mobility are the key stats.  So Ninja and Thief become the best carriers for this purpose.  By the numbers, Ninja is outright superior in everything besides HP but Thief has an easier unlock requirement and given how late Reis joins, actually feels relevant.

  Score: 21/85  I'm not giving Knight Reis credit since Holy Bracelet has laughable accuracy and 2 range breath attacks have almost as much range issue as 1 range melee.

66

Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

« on: May 05, 2022, 04:34:53 AM »

FFT Special skillsets as secondaries: thoughtdump

  Picking this back up by dropping various thoughts on how well specails' skillsets function as a secondary skill.  Because they can't be sent on propositions, if one wants to teach them skills outside their base class (Move +2 for instance), they're going to be spending time in generic classes.  So this will lead to an attempt to rank how well their skilsets function outside their base class.

To start things off, Mustadio.

Snipe really functions best with a long range weapon and above average Speed.  Chemist and Mediator are both natural fits with innate gun usage and access to hats.  Archer is a reasonable pick as well with innate longbows.  Ninja I feel is a strong carrier too.  Despite being range 1, getting two shots per use is fairly substantial for those times where Attack isn't a kill.  Classes limited to range 1 weapons don't carry Snipe very well at all and the range 2 and 3 weapons aren't much better off.  Some worse than others such as Knight, Thief, or Monk without any ranged skills learned.  (though with a skillset, Monk Mustadio does have innate Martial Arts for boosted Snipe chances.)

The Equip Gun support ability is a boon for the Snipe command set making it more viable for other classes.   Still it does tie up the support slot and even then it doesn't benefit other classes equally.  Also, 750 Mediator JP takes a while to pile up.  Looking at roughly 35-40 actions to accrue the JP (without Gained JP UP) though it varies depending on Mustadio's levels when he's in Mediator.  Probably expect 40-50 actions since picking up Threaten first looks like a good idea.

So who benefits most from Equip Gun out of the remaining 13 classes?  Thief Musty works out pretty well (by Snipe's mediocre standards anyways) and puts its stellar Speed to use.  Priest with a focus on support spells functions decently; the middling male MA not a factor in gun damage.  Equip Gun Time Mage gives up at most 1 MA so I feel it does come out ahead.  Equip Gun seems to strengthen Bard too.

The remaining classes have less incentive to tie up the support slot.  While Equip Gun doesn't hurt Samurai (and to a lesser extent, Lancer), all the armor classes are middling with Snipe.  Wizards , Summoners, and Geos stand to lose more magic power with a gun and they're less likely to care about its range.  Oracles already have a respectable physical.  Calculator is plain awful with Snipe regardless of the weapon.

Score: 38/85  If I was factoring the overall usefulness of the skillset into the score, it would be lower.  But right now, I'm only rating based on how well classes can carry it.  And spell guns can make almost anyone viable.

Agrias

    Holy Sword wants high PA and WP to be a worthwhile pick.  Well setting Holy Sword for Knight or Geomancer is mostly automatic.  Any other class will need to devote their support slot to Equip Sword.  At least Agrias will be contributing while accruing the needed JP for Equip Sword which will probably be about 15-20 actions.  (Gained JP up doesn't really speed this up if she doesn't start with it; it takes more actions to learn it than it would save)

   With Equip Sword, classes with access to PA boosting clothes and hats will see the most benefit.  Ninja is a fantastic carrier.  High WP flail in the right hand, sword in left, and go murder things.  Thief Agrias with PA boosting armor works really well and is one of the few powerful Thief setups when training for Move +2 on a special.  Archer is an odd choice but still manages some relevance.  If she hasn't trained much in other classes yet (like right after learning Equip Sword), it may well be her most damaging option though this does give up the range of a longbow.  Dancer with Holy Sword has acceptable PA and the skillsets work well together.  Dance when out of range and Holy Sword when something is close enough.  Samurai wants a Rune Blade but once acquired, it's a pleasing combo with Draw Out providing utility options and different effect ranges on its offensive skills and Rune Blade boosting those.

Lancer and Monk have the raw PA but have fewer PA boosting options so less attractive as carriers.  As for the magical side of the job tree, yeah no they're going to be worse with the swordskills than Holy Knight.  At lower raw PA levels and PA boosting gear, she can get away with decent power on Chemist and Mediator but guns may be preferable.  Priest can sometimes equal Holy Knight/Thief in PA (90% PA multiplier compared to 100%) so it could be a viable carrier.  The other mage classes really feel like she'd be better off finding a different secondary skillset.  So if one is determined to pick up Teleport for her, she's probably not going to be using Holy Sword during that time.

Score: 37/85  Being dependent on having a sword and having nearly half the job tree unable to wield the skillset well hits her hard with the criteria I'm using.

Rafa

  She wants lots of MA for Truth.  Wizard is the obvious pick but I feel the skillsets are redundant  together.  They're both magic damage and I'm more inclined to favor Black Magic's dependability than messing with Truth on a Wizard Rafa.  At least Truth pierces evasion and low Faith though which keeps it from complete irrelevance.  Unlike Summoner, another carrier where Truth is most likely sitting unused.  I find Priest, Time Mage, and Oracle the best Truth carriers.  Truth provides offense while the White/Time/Yin-yang Magic provide utility.

  On the physical side, only Rune Blade Knight or Geomancer stick out to me.  Knight won't be amazing MA but it's decent with a Rune Blade, Red Shoes (and Aegis Shield if willing to sacrifice evasion) and provides ranged options which Knight lacks.  Geo does have MA and a good array of boosting options but geomancy piercing evasion means I'm likely to favor its reliability over mucking about with Truth.  Any other class, setting Truth as a secondary is pretty much only because I don't have a better option, not that I'm expecting Truth to make much of a contribution to a battle.

Score: 16/85

Malak

    Un-Truth wants high MA and a class that doesn't need Faith to be effective.  Which leaves... almost nothing.  Rune Blade Knight is OK and Un-Truth does let it attack things at distances or over large vertical difference.  Geo has the MA but again, I'm more likely to reach for the dependability of geomancy over risking Un-Truth.  Bard has above average MA but not much in the way of boosting it.

Yeah, Un-Truth is awful as a secondary.

Score: 6/85  And this is with a pity point for Oracle Malak and not factoring in the effort to unlock Bard.

67

General Chat / Re: The Phantasy Star 4 cast takes on FF6: Beyond Chaos

« on: March 26, 2022, 04:06:48 AM »

I guess I have some words about dealing with late-game randoms.  If a monster turns out to be undead, oneshot with Life.  If it's vulnerable to instant death, that becomes my go-to; X-Znoe sees a lot of use.  Otherwise, I will prefer to cripple them with status over spamming damage.  Monsters with high enough HP to survive 3-4 Ultimas tend to be common.  Permanent disablers like silence, imp, and berserk (and combined with Vanish when I remember to really neutralize threats) I will favor over stuff that wears of like confuse or stop.  Slow combined with sleep or stop can also take an enemy out of action for a long time.

Other than death formation with its 8000 damage Throw nonsense and its Disaster capable escort, only one other enemy managed to score a wipe.  Smacked a monster, it counters with Meteor.  Which my team manages to survive but barely.  Before I can heal, Crono smacks it again, triggers another Meteor, and I'm looking at a dead party.  Next time I encounter that monster, Berserk to the rescue.

With two save points available, I can explore without risking losing lots of progress.  Until I reach the three switch room before where Guardian would be in vanilla.  Panic again since I'm now cut off from a save point until I beat Guardian, Doom, or Goddess.  (I didn't realize there's a way for the team in the center to access earlier areas at the time)  Anyways, manage to avoid wiping until team 2 finds a Guardian.

Oh Guardian and your 1500 damage Tek Laser.  Thing is, it always had high Magic power in vanilla so while it appears to be stat bloat, it's probably just normal Beyond Chaos stat randomization.  Which is dangerous enough.  Like vanilla, it is a damage race to kill it before it reaches a phase where it busts out MT murder.  Generally not a problem by the time I've reached it.  Even less of a problem once Marle lands that unblockable freeze Special.  Can't use Merton with Lucca but GrandTrain from Lucca, Bum Rush from Kyra, and whatever Rune contributes kill it before freeze wears off.

Drops a Force Armor.  With only 10 M. Block, it's a letdown and the people who can use it have stronger defense options so it's going to go mostly unused.

With that team on a save point, they'll stay there for a bit while the other two groups explore forwards.  Next boss fight is team 3 finding Doom.  Demi gets the spare Blizzard Orb as a precaution and Seth takes a defense hit to don a spare Flame shield.  The other two will be leaning on their M. Block to keep them in the game until Demi lands a freeze Special.
    Stat bloated Doom starts off with either N. Cross or high powered Ice 3/Absolute 0.  And the attack spells have enough power that they're likely to be fatal unless nulld/absorbed, dodged, or having lots of M. Def.  It also has really strong physicals though those are generally survivable at high HP.  They're usually strong enough that R. Polarity is a threat.  It started off with N. Cross missing Demi.  She Rages and lands freeze on the first turn.  Offense choices are the same that this group pulled out on Atma: physicals from Hahn and Alys and GP Rain from Seth as he has no noteworthy magic (along with some ThiefKnife stabbing hoping to get lucky).  Also Doom has bloated magic defense so offensive magic that doesn't pierce defense won't leave much of a mark.  I already have Forcefield so I have no reason to hold back.  Even with Slow set though, Doom lives long enough to unfreeze and sneak some physicals in.  Very well, even with their power they're unlikely to kill off everyone before getting refrozen.  When it hits Seth, who's lagging defensively at 190 and in the front row, it does a fearsome .... 150 damage.  What?  With over 160 Attack according to the monster stats?
     Hahaha, Doom had so much physical power that the damage overflow glitch kicked in and rolled over the damage to something really small.  It was already in phase 2 at this point to all it does is physicals, ForceField, and R. Polarity.  Joke fight confirmed.  Demi refreezes it, beat it down, and win another Genji shield.  It rolled low on defense so the few people who can use it will take a defense hit if they equip it.  Does have good magic defense and 20 M. Block in its favor.  Makes an interesting alternative for Lucca to stack even higher amounts of magic defense and M. Block.

  The other two teams take the opportunity to make farther progress.  Encounter the room which would be before Poltergeist in the vanilla game.  In vanilla, climbing the conveyor allows skipping Poltergeist.  Not happening here.  Instead, this leads to a room with no encounters and a secret item that was decided upon generating the game.  I'm expecting a Wing Pack thanks to Sketch glitch enabled preview but I get a Page Jacket instead.  Surprise.

  Oh yeah, Rename Card is not present having been replaced by a second random secret item.  Guess the game assigned this one instead to the room.  The Page Jacket is disappointing armor with only 55 defense usable by everyone.  (good magic defense though)  The biggest thing against it is that it makes the wearer undead like the Relic Ring.  With how likely people are to die from being dropped to zero HP, the undead nature is too much of a liability.  Humorously, the wearer also starts with death sentence so they get a full HP refill if it expires in battle.  Only once though since undead reversal doesn't properly clear death sentence.  The extensive status immunities aren't enough to offset the undead liability either for me.

  Next boss challenged is Poltergeist.  Team 1 is up to bat.  I actually lose once even with Rage of game-breaking.  Stat-bloated Poltergeist is an offensive monster.  The Fire 3 counter will probably kill a target without fire immunity.  Meteo is around 5000 HP of doom unless evaded.  Aero and WaveCannon hurt but survival prospects against those are better.  Most times, I win by exploiting it's AI.  But I have a Rage with an unblockable freeze Special so what could go wrong?
  Well Chaz landed a freeze early but it wore off before I took it down (boss' innate auto-haste helps it).  Poltergeist got a turn and blasted the team with WaveCannon and flattened Rika and Grzyz (Gryz has 180-ish magic defense but was weakened by a Fire 3 counter and blasted before I could heal him).  With no one under my control, prayed Chaz would refreeze it.  Coinflip kept landing 1600 damage Meteor instead and Chaz got two turns before another WaveCannon flattened him.  Crono still kicking thanks to Rage Ring but with his so-so damage, didn't finish the fight before a 5000 damage Meteo sent him into dirt.
  Next try went better.  Gryz throws on a Thunder shield so he won't die to sudden WaveCannons which I neglected doing the previous attempt.  Chaz is more cooperative on the winning attempt and the only turn Poltergeist gets is an opening Flare Star.  I win a Sky Render, which I have no real use for at this point.  I really wanted Chaz surviving since I gave him Crusader and the 100 spell points nets him Quick.  He now has the full combo of X-Magic, Quick, and Ultima (along with Osmose and Life3 for utility).  Fear.  For all of two rooms until the party reaches the final 3 switch room that starts the final boss fight.

  One more of the warring triad to go and it's team 2 up against Goddess.  Magic bloated Goddess is mean and could very well become a wall to parties with low damage output.  Bolt 2 is probably death (at least at the levels and magic defenses I generally have when reaching her).  Bolt 3 is overkill.  And Quasar is a massive MT 'eff you wipe.
  Of course there's still Lullaby to potentially cause many lost turns and Charm to muck things up even more.  And Overcast to turn anyone who dies from the other stuff to become zombies.
   ID protection for Overcast as well as thunder resistance or Wall Rings are pretty much essential to not get vaporized by the magic damage.  Unless the character has insane (say 240-ish) magic defense or perfect M. Block.  Marle gets by without an ID blocker as she's going to be using a Rage with ID immunity.  Ice or water resist is also nice to have, especially for Wall Ring characters lest they fall to Flash Rain.  With all my extra Rage Rings, sufficient lightning protection doesn't become an issue in this game.  More M. Block is good to stuff Charm and Lullaby.
   Generally, the most reliable way to win through HP damage is to blast through the low HP phase and letting Goddess get as few turns as possible since Quasar will lead to ruination.  This team has a much easier method of winning though: unblockable freeze Special from Rage.  Once Goddess becomes an ice statue, pile on more Bum Rush, GrandTrain/Ultima, and Jumps from Rune and the party wins without issue.  Dropped an Excalibur like in vanilla.  Also rather meh, just like vanilla.  More Battle Power for Rune jumps but the holy element is more likely to be resisted in Beyond Chaos.

  Yay, Jump was relevant since only Fight triggers Love Token.  And it hits Goddess' lower defense stat, doing about 1500-2000 when it hits in the back.  No, Rune is still not the badass damage dealer he wishes he is.  Lucca learns Quick from this fight which means Marle will have it too.

Because of final dungeon randomization, it's not a guarantee that the team that fights Poltergeist has one last save point before the final battle.  Here, team 2 is the one that finds the save point that's normally after Poltergeist in normal vanilla progression.

And with that, only the final battle remains.  Which I'm not inclined to do anytime soon given the stat bloat present there and how quickly things can go wrong.  With my characters in the Lv 32-35 range, even the first form can be scary. (and I have died to it in randomizer)  Though when I do get around to it, I'll have a battle report up.

68

Unranked Games / Re: Atelier Ayesha

« on: March 19, 2022, 12:06:49 AM »

Supports

  Deemed Action Commands by the game, these are skills that allow characters to support allies in battle and cannot be used when solo.  The skills are fueled by the AC meter.  Battles begin with one meter in stock and different AC skills consume various amounts of gauges.  A single gauge is 20 units in length and is filled by taking any action that isn't an AC.  The amount of gauge ticks gained per action will be provided in this post.

All gauge gain was tested with no effects that boost AC meter gain other than Nio's innate passive.  More numbers will go up as I obtain them.

Universal actions
Move: 1-2  (3-4 for Nio)
Attack: 5-6  (11-12 for Nio)
Getting attacked: 3-4 per attack (7-8 for Nio)  Hit count makes no difference.  AC gauge will increase even if attack is evaded as far as I can tell.
Special: 14- 15  Amazingly, even for Nio.  She doesn't get a bonus here like with other actions.

Character specific skills
Ayesha
Item: 3-4

Regina
Double Smash: 9-10
Stone Crack: 12-13
Flare Blast: 10-11
Rock Blast: 12-13

Wilbell
Pumpkin Bomb: 10-11
Arcane Call: 10-11
Shielding: 12-13
Element Call: 12-13 (initial summoning only)

Linca
Start Rush: 8-9
Stomp Charge: 11-12
Adrenaline Rush: 8-9
Valkyrie Dive: 10-11

Juris
Hunter Blow: 9-10
Hunter Raid: 13-14
Snipe Shot: 8-9
Rain of Shots: 11-12

Keithgriff
Heat Hand: 8-9
Cool Foot: 8-9
Mirage Trick: 18-19
Double Up: 11-12  (initial casting only)

Nio
Pana Charge: 16-17
Pana Rush: 18-19
Panacea: 17-18
Specialty: 17-18

69

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: February 25, 2022, 03:27:15 AM »

Stomping Lufia 2 - the writeup continues

  I've already finished, it's getting everything I want to express out in text that's dragging along slowly.

4 person party again.  And the first big dungeon with Lexis can troll in a way that is probably unintended.  About half the enemies there are resistant to Neutral.  The strongest buyable weapons at the time are all Neutral element.  Given how the last dungeon has a Burn Sword and a Fly Ax to find for free, this is a mean trick to pull on a player who goes to the trouble to grind money to upgrade weapons only to have them do less damage than a lower attack elemental weapon.

  The dungeon also has the nasty Assassins.  They outspeed the party, are one of those that resist Neutral, are a hassle to avoid due to their movement, and can instakill if the RNG feels like it.  I do have three sources of ID protection by this point which does mitigate the danger somewhat (even if the Undead Ring is the only one I had in play when I went through). 

  The seas of the world are open after the events of that dungeon.  Very little else reaches their level of danger in my time with Lexis.  Other than trying to raid the Tower of Truth early.  Haha, turns out those monsters are a threat to a Lv 30 party with sub-optimal gear.  I actually leveled up my party to 35 before the Mountain of No Return.  Not because I felt I needed the levels, but so that Artea doesn't start 5-6 levels ahead of everyone.

  The monster data for the retail game seems to indicate the Gargoyle bosses are Hard as well as Flying but I think the patch removes the Hard attribute.  Maxim's Pumpkin Jewel did less damage that I expected.  Guy's Fly Ax did perform up to expectations.  He started with enough IP to open with a Flying Smash that took one from full HP to nearly nothing.

  My favorite part of the sub upgrade is no random battles while underwater.  Of course I go everywhere other than the next plot point for treasure as well as visiting a town early.  Got the key from Dragon Mountain but didn't go farther in.

More to come in a later post, including some actual boss fights.

70

General Chat / Re: The Phantasy Star 4 cast takes on FF6: Beyond Chaos

« on: February 05, 2022, 03:14:38 AM »

  Team 3 finds an Atma.  Going to diverge from the battle accounts and go into an editorial mode here.

  I do have some gripes about how Beyond Chaos handles monster stat randomization and Atma is the first beneficiary that's likely to be encountered.  The monster stat randomization does try to present a challenge with its endgame bosses.  Since HP can't go beyond the 65535 cap and Beyond Chaos doesn't use HP looping scripts, it resorts to stat bloat for Atma, the 3 statues, and the final battle.  (starting Reraise will often be present too to maximize the amount of HP to chew through)  What that means is Atma has enough magic power that the target either negates the incoming attack through some means (elemental resistance, M. Block, Reflect if applicable, etc...), or it's eating dirt.  If it decides to use Meteor in its lower HP phase, you lose.  Unless you've ground up to 6000 max HP or so and even then that might not be enough.  Speed is significantly buffed and Hit Rate will usually be 255 so Evade and Image status are now worthless.  Physicals hurt too but are generally survivable with a Lv 30-35 party unless their defense is badly lacking.  Oh yes, Ultima still exists but it's predictable so less of a factor than a surprise Meteor and if your damage is high enough, won't come up.

  So is there anything to gain from fighting this monstrosity that's capable of wiping the party if it feels like it?  Besides satisfaction and the save point, it now gives 100 spell points.  Enough to learn a x1 rate spell in one shot.  Having an extra Quick caster without needing to consciously grind for it is nice.

  Wall Rings on everyone to turn away a lot of its magic, of which Flare can appear.  Fire immunity or absorption would not be redundant since Flare Star or S. Cross will fly past reflect.  Float status negates Quake in the lower HP phase.  Since Meteor is basically death, my preferred approach is to minimize the chance of it appearing.  Killing it fast once the lower HP phase hits is desirable, maybe intentionally triggering Ulitma and piling on damage while it's charging.  Ultima can be survived by Runic (which I don't have), Reraise status, or Palidor can grant a one-time repreive (hopefully buying enough time to finish Atma off).

  It's a formidable foe but has no answer to being frozen so it's less dangerous than it could have been.  Demi Rages and lands freeze on the first action.  Cast Slow on it as soon as I can (so freeze lasts longer) and pound it.  Hahn and Alys use physicals (and a RoyalShock proc from Alys' Illumina would be a welcome sight), Seth resorts to GP Rain since his Magic selection didn't have anything better.

  Atma does turn up with Reraise but due to the animation time, it gives my team a free round of attacks.  Plus Demi re-froze it on her next action so it doesn't get to do anything in it's remaining time.  Demi had Crusader so now has Quick.  Which I will probably forget about the next time this team enters battle, being so used to not having access to it.

71

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: January 15, 2022, 10:52:58 PM »

Lufia 2 battle report continues:

    So it turns out I forgot about whole towns and dungeons since I last played.  The game does have some nice scenes though the overall progression still has that strong fetch quest feel I remember from before.

   Idura 2 puts up a fight due to his weakness being ice.  The only characters that can really exploit this are the ones most likely to be using their turns for healing.  (Ice Balls exist but are fixed power and I don't have lots of extra cash)  He's also faster than everyone.  Went down without anything bad happening but took some time.

  Idura 3 almost wins.  He confused Dekar, who in turn walloped Guy which left him weak enough for the opposition to pick him off.  (Idura is still faster than everyone)  A sleeping Maxim fell next as Guy was set to wake him up with an item but got killed before acting.  Maxim is my only character with revival.  With only Dekar and a low HP Selan, defeat looked immanent.  Only because the enemies did the only set of actions that let Selan live (physicals on Dekar) did I get to carry on.  I won that battle from that position and chose to keep the result rather than resetting but it was sure a close one.

  I will mention that I'm not using any Ancient Cave equipment to more closely experience the intended gear curve.  It won't help the enemies that much for the most part.

  Devil Flower (Rogue Flower in retail) put up a fight to my surprise.  It does quite heavy damage to my Lv 25-26 party when they're not saturated in blue chest armor.  Also likes its status which I forgot to account for.  No one had sleep protection and the boss is quite capable of sending people to dreamland.  Had Selan been put to sleep early, might have lost.  Had Maxim been put to sleep early, the fight would have dragged even longer than it did.  (He has the Burn Sword and does the bulk of the damage)  So I got lucky in spite of my careless casual approach.

  Couple of Ancient Cave firsts (from the Gift file): Flash used the ST status cure on someone with a status, which has never happened before in all my past time with the game.  And during the same run, I found a Safety Hat (Safety First in the patch).  This is significant only because it's impossible to find in the retail game.  Not "impossible unless fulfilling an obscure set of conditions".  Not "rare on the level of the Pink Tail" low odds.  It's truly impossible because of how the cave has no chance of headgear appearing in red chests after B9 normally.  So it felt good seeing it.

72

General Chat / Re: The Phantasy Star 4 cast takes on FF6: Beyond Chaos

« on: January 10, 2022, 04:26:45 AM »

I take team 3 exploring and they find a dragon within 5 rooms.  Yes, randomized final dungeon can do that.  The room layout is different, to say the least, and also expanded.  It turns out to be a Storm Dragon.  Storm Dragon can be a major bitch in randomzier.  Unevadable, non-elemental MT magic damage in Rage turns this into a magic durability check.  It can become insurmountable at lower levels.  Since my group is high leveled and have developed Magic lists, it's a much more reasonable fight.  Still want to get Shell up on everyone through Zoneseek since an opening Wind Slash was doing around 1100-1300 on the lower magic defense members without it.

  Plus, this dragon has no defense to being frozen.  So it's a lot less painful than it could have been.  The Gem Box I win is just as much use as the first one (as in not very useful)

  Warp out and safety save before diving back in.

  Finding a save point is my first goal as it's a tense, one nasty random can wipe out lots of progress, until then.  Murder formation from ancient castle and Cyan's dream makes more appearances here.  Gulp.  Throw maniac is vulnerable to sleep, slow, and stop and the monster with Disaster also has enough status holes so with a full party I'm able to slap some status and try to recover.  Or die.  Happened once or twice.  After some tense exploration, team 2 finds Inferno.  From the other end.  Damn, I was hoping to save before fighting any bosses.  Set Marle up with Fenrir, X Magic, and Throw.  Make sure everyone has petrify immunity and get to work. 

  Get Zoneseek, Krirn, and Fenrir online as soon as I'm able while keeping everyone alive.  Slow whatever parts I can and make use of Stop if that works.  Most of this teams offense is of the MT variety which isn't a good idea here.  Dead parts will lead to Meteor spam which is likely to be fatal.  So Merton+Rage is out.  Along with GrandTrain and Bum Rush.  Kyra is on utility duty along with Lucca, though Lucca can chip in some 1200 damage Step Mine for offense when free.  Drainer Jumps mean I rarely have to keep an eye on Rune once buffs are up.  Most of the damage is done with Marle's Throw.  Inferno rolled a fire weakness to tossed some extra Fire Knuckles for gratuitous amounts of pain.  Shrapnel is annoying but everyone but Rune is doing well on magic defense so manageable.  Rune is hopefully mid-Jump when they show.  Boss doesn't drop anything on defeat.

  With a party on the save point, making progress is less stressful and wiping isn't as terrible since I'm saving after every fight or two.  Team 1 finds the last dragon.  It's a Gold Dragon.  Rage Ring Crono can solo this, worst come to worst.  Didn't need to resort to that though.  Get Shell and regen on everyone which keeps damage in the recoverable range.  Chaz unloads a parade of time magic.  R-Tek mostly sucks here so Rika is primary healer/utility unit.  Unless Gryz lands a lightning weakness with Debilitator.  Poison it for added insult.  I could cheese its AI with Reflect but don't bother to.  The Regal Crown it drops is rather meh at this point.
  More important, being the last of the 8 dragons, Crusader is unlocked. It was dealt quite the list with 4 of its spells exclusive to it.  Bolt 2 was learnable via Thunder shield but this is the first appearance on an Esper.  Forgettable at this point.  Also is the sole teacher of Pearl (was missing it before), Flare (useful), and Quick; the last piece to turn Chaz into a bonkers gamebreaker.  Logic would dictate giving this to Chaz at once to train up Quick but I don't really need to rush it for reasons I will get to shortly.

73

General Chat / What games are you playing 2022: No to stat bloat since the turn of Millenia

« on: January 05, 2022, 02:14:05 AM »

New year already?  Didn't really register for me.  Oh well.

Lufia 2 stomp continues.  From the time of having a full party, gameplay gets more interesting with enemies with more varied weaknesses and resistances to pay attention to if one doesn't want to be stuck dealing scratch damage.  Given how I was somewhat underleveled, the next couple of boss fights outsped Tia which complicated my survival.  The clown bosses went down in 3-4 rounds since I paid attention to setting up my characters to hit their weaknesses.  The one after that inflicted a casualty due to their speed advantage.  And I was still without revival.  Gades 1 reduced the team to a smear; no surprise since I got there at Lv 18-19.
    Gades 2 gave less trouble.  I gave Maxim the Mind Ring and Guy the Undead Ring to go with his Thunder Ax.  Got buffs up on round one after which Maxim goes on heal duty.  With Guy and Dekar slugging away for about 350-400 a round, didn't take long and nothing terrible happened.

There's more but I'm cutting it off here to get the topic up.

74

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2021: Please don't bully cute, girly-girl alchemist

« on: December 26, 2021, 09:34:06 PM »

Got into that mood to do some Ancient Cave diving so tracked down Lufia 2 and did the legwork to aply the Frue Lufia patch.  Frue Lufia is essentially a restoration.  It restores content that is in the code of the retail release that doesn't get implemented such as a 3rd form of Gades for the endgame and several monsters that cast Mirror that didn't before.  The enemy name adjustments are welcome, no more of the ridiculous Gorems, Seirans, and Hidoras among others.  Also fixes the Ancient Cave item randomization so that it's possible to find helmets, shields, and rings in red chests after B9,  So used a cheat code to unlock Gift Mode and went for it.  Some notable defeats, because they're fun to document:

- Casting attack magic on an enemy I forgot used Mirror.  While this didn't lose the battle by itself, it was enough of a loss in offense and action economy that it did end in total defeat.
- Not paying attention on B90 to enemy coloration thinking I was safely facing a Copper Dragon when it was in fact a Gold Dragon.  It lived long enough to get a triple-turn of Stardust Blow, Zap, Stardust Blow and reduced the party to a smear.
- B77  Two Orochis (Orky in the retail release)  Actually admitted defeat and Providenced out instead of fighting this group that was blocking passage.  My instant death options sucked being only Perish and a lone Death Ball.  I have no gear capable of striking dragon species weakness.  My best source of lightning damage was Lexis' Bolt magic for 400 (to 2800 HP each).  I also had no defense buffs to deal with their likely 8 attacks a round. (16 as there were two of them)  Those are rather strong hits doing around 100 to a 350 defense character in the front row.  Didn't like my odds at all.

    I also stormed through the main game on occasion with the intent of applying acquired battle mechanics knowledge to cruise through.  It's vanilla Lufia 2 difficulty so I disrespected the challenge level.  The game seemed to take offense and many early boss fights sent at least one character to the floor and during a period where revival is limited/non-existent.  Taking on the catfish at Lv 4 didn't turn out well (and a game over since it was still one character)  Regal Goblin summoned a bunch of buddies and they ganged up on Tia.  Tia gets gangbanged again at Camu.

   Oddly, nailed Tarantula on the first try.  I expected to get wasted challenging it at Lv 14 and being too cheap to buy status curing.  Sure I spread out as much status protection as I could but there are unavoidable gaps.  Guy got paralyzed early but recovered quickly losing only two turns.  Tarantula only healed itself once and never summoned companions.  Guy did get paralyzed again late but Maxim had the Fire Dagger and finished things soon after.

75

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2021: Please don't bully cute, girly-girl alchemist

« on: November 18, 2021, 04:27:29 AM »

FFX - It's finally over

    Ground out the remaining captures, unlocked Nemesis, then pay off Yojimbo and hope it uses Zamato.  22 resets later, I land that 5% chance and have the Mark of Conquest.  Nemesis will still be there if I ever decide to pursue an honest win but for now I just wanted it done and over with.  Auron finally unlocked Comrade overdrive mode when I was nearly done with the capturing.  Other than buying up the Music and Movie spheres and unlocking a few last overdrive modes, I am done with this file.

Rikku and Yuna have the most sphere grid coverage at the end, maybe pushing up to 70%.  On the low end are Tidus and Auron who have traveled less than 50% the full grid, with the others somewhere in the middle.  Rikku has the highest Strength at 156 though the top spot traded characters a few times over the quest to conquer the Monster Arena.  I have farmed enough stat spheres to max out the big 4 core stats (except maybe Magic) but only placed around 20-25 by the time I was done.  Only Rikku and Yuna hit 9999 HP by the time I beat Ultima Buster and stats stopped really mattering but everyone but Lulu has reached 9999 by the time Nemesis unlocked.  As for my other stat threshholds

Magic: Yuna with 169
Defense: Lulu's 133
Magic Defense: Lulu at 160

    Great battle system but the optional content can really be a slog.  And given how tedious or frustrating the optional content can get, not inclined to replay this a lot, if at all.  I suppose Expert sphere grid is very well suited for replaying the story content and trying out different builds that cover less than 25% of the sphere grid.  Doesn't apply to my version though, just a side thought.  After the fact, I realized I could have picked it up on PS3 but unlikely to bother.

Lingering gameplay thoughts:

  Looking back, there are some things I realized after the fact.  My Auto-shell placement was really awkward and I think a better use would be to stack it with Mag. Def + factors to really get the best mileage out of it, namely living through devastating magic attacks.  I've already mentioned how I feel Kimahri is better off focusing more on Magic until he hits about 95-100 to max out Nova.  Would have been better off giving my one Break Damage Limit customization to him to turn him into another dualcast Flare caster.  Placing Auto-Protect and Auto-Shell could have gone better (no regrets about giving my one shot at Auto-Haste to Yuna).  Auto-shell goes better on characters with a magic defense stat to speak of, not as useful on Tidus and him spending a very long time at 7 M. Def.

As far as status protection goes, one Confuseproof on the strongest of Tidus/Wakka/Kimahri is a must.  Deathproof on someone with Sentinel (generally Auron) is also near essential.  Enough Stoneproof to go around (5 or more) makes life a lot easier.  Poisonproof is really good as well in the fights where poison status appears.  Anything else is nice but not really needed.  Either the status is attached to single-target physicals (Sentinel), the fight can be left to Aeons, attached to attacks powerful enough to KO who they hit anyways, or can be dealt with without much hassle.  Unless intentionally seeking a win on Malboro Menace without Aeons, grinding status protection is almost always an unneeded time sink.  Deathproof on most people is nice for Earth Eater but I didn't go out of the way for it; got lucky with armor drops in Omega Ruins while going through it.