FF6 Eviltype: Nearing the end of this, all that's really left is the final bosses. They are, at these levels, unsurprisingly terrifying. Hope you guys like stupidly long challenge recaps (if not, you know where the page down button is).
Doom (2 resets): [Terra/Relm/Strago/Gogo] I'm a bit fuzzy on this fight now, beyond that it isn't too bad early. Ice magic everywhere, so resisting it is certainly key, and the physicals are mean so maintaining a good defence is important. The second half of the fight is where things get hairy. Part of the problem is Forcefield which shuts down a fair bit of my offence (namely, Relm's Pearl is the best thing I have), part of the problem is her triplecombo of Reverse Polarity / Demon Rage / physical which kills one person for sure and possibly one other person (yeah I should have had Gau or Mog in this team), and notably removes Protect which is necessary to not get blitzed down by the physicals. Also Step Mine can murder people too. But... really not too bad overall!
Goddess (8 resets): [Umaro/Shadow/Sabin/Gau] So once she enters a certain HP loop Goddess gains a crap-ton of damage moves and multiacting, including Flash Rain, Cleansweep, Scar Beam, Pearl, and Quasar. I could talk a bunch about the various defensive shenanigans needed to survive all this (in particular, which hits both sides and which don't, makes a big difference!) but none of it matters because uh holy crap Quasar does like 1900 MT ITE ITD damage to both sides oh god I'm dead. The solution to a limit OHKO move? MP kill the bitch.
But I didn't incur 8 resets on Quasar alone, which meant the other seven came from how nasty the fight is even in the first stage. (Made extra hard by this being probably my weakest party.) The crap I have to deal with:
Bolt 3: Crazy amounts of lightning damage, also used as a counter sometimes. Block lightning or die, even halving it is pretty bad and may KO. Unfortunately this party lacks much innate lightning defence beyond Umaro's Rage Ring, so once the two Thunder Shields are gone I don't have much else unless I want to use a Force Shield, which isn't an option for reasons which will be clear later. The solution? Well, Goddess does damage in one of two ways: physical and lightning. And Gau can be set up to null physicals. So... drop the lightning defence on him, just cast Reflect, and I never need to heal him, though recasting Reflect is a concern. I consider a Wall Ring here but I opt not to for relic slot reasons.
Physicals and Drain Kiss: So aside from a bucket more HP and a small magic power boost, Goddess isn't that different a boss from vanilla. This is probably the biggest change, out of nowhere, she learned how to hit like a truck. Safe is absolutely necessary on Sabin/Shadow to not get pureed and even then Drain Kiss comes very close to OHKOing; it also means I need to equip them into relatively high-def setups past their Thunder Shields. Drain Shield's also ITE because fuck you. (All the goddess special physicals are.) One nice bonus is that while MP-killing Goddess, Drain Kiss gets less deadly, unfortunately she does periodically damage herself off counters which I can only get rid of in exchange for making Sabin notably worse. Oh, and Relic Ring doesn't stop Drain Kiss. I tried to make it relevant, I really did. If she focuses physicals on Sabin/Shadow they can die, not much I can do about that.
Overcast: MT death sentence is horrible enough and by itself justifies the use of a Memento Ring and Safety Bit. Worse still is the zombie-upon-death effect which persists forever. Oh and if you equip a Ribbon you become a perma-zombie if you die. (Something I have to relearn the hard way.) The non-death-protected person just needs to be revivified upon death, which sadly brings them back to trivial HP.
Charm: Fuck this move so much, if I get hit with it I have to kill the afflicted person myself before. Shadow is good at doing this with his targettable ITD/ITE throws. If Shadow is charmed it's really damn annoying and I kinda mostly hope Goddess will smack him around. Thank goodness dying into zombie state cancels charm (it doesn't cancel Rage, something else I learn the hard way).
Love Token: Mostly this just makes Umaro hilariously useless even before I decide to MP-kill the boss. Wow, never take him to this fight, she counters everything she does by making him take physical hits for her, which uh yeah means all he can do is a 25% chance of Storm against her stupid-high MDef. Umaro spends most of this fight dead, which is a shame because he's tanky enough to draw hits well but I can't justify reviving him constantly as he kills himself.
Megazerk: grahhh this merits status immunity, but no ribbon as per above! Peace Ring to the rescue. MT ITE Berserk is terrible. I can't protect everyone from it, and it's a pain to get rid of because I don't have Dispel, but fortunately the afflicted PC doesn't act against me while I kill him or wait for him to die (usually the latter).
Lullaby: Well no Ribbons means this will certainly hit, but compared to the above it's not too bad. Doesn't hit both sides at least, unlike the other MT status.
Yeah that's pretty much it. One useless PC, three PCs with non-super-stellar magic power, trying to Rasp away a magic tank's 19000 MP while all sorts of things can go wrong. I pull it off eventually. Once I do, I burn through the rest of her health which isn't bad without MP, seeing "Quasar: Need MP" is cathartic. Good thing I never have to deal with THAT again.
<Super> Having trouble with Quasar? You're fighting Poltergeist then?
<Elf> ffffffffff-
Poltergeist (5 resets): [Celes/Edgar/Setzer/Mog] Good news is I have a better team for this fight! Bad news is that Quasar is back, slightly stronger, and no longer a limit. WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO- *Dark Holy Elf is hit by half a dozen planes and explodes*
Okay. OKAY. I could learn Life 3 though trying to survive against Poltergeist's offence after everyone revives from that is messy (as a fast boss, Poltergeist is guaranteed the next turn after a revival of that sort). And anyway nobody has Life 3 yet. I consider grinding for it but then I die once more to Kefka's Tower randoms and decide I have too far to go... and anyway I remember a way around this: Celes' desperation attack Spin Edge, which does 40k MP damage, taking out all of Poltergeist's MP. I just have to use it before she uses Spin Edge. Great.
After some messing with the setup, I create a Celes who will mostly be safe at low HP. She naturally nulls Poltergeist's fire and wind spells, and I give her a stupid-high MBlock setup with Illumina and all that so only Psychrip is the real threat, and whatever, reviving someone brings them back to critical at least! The problem is dropping her into critical to start the battle, but fortunately W Wind is really accurate (or I'm lucky?). If W Wind misses, don't heal seizure and I can use it again, this time hitting nobody else since apparently it misses those suffering from seizure already, which does make mechanicaly sense. Fortunately desperations can't be used the first few rounds. Or not so fortunately.
My other tactic to buy myself some time is to cast Stop on my lowest-MBlock PC. Why? Because Poltergeist will waste a turn instantly killing anyone suffering from Stop. Ha HA! The other two PCs can revive and re-stop. Unfortunately Poltergeist is too fast for this to lock her down, not to mention my own Stop sometimes misses. So it's not perfect, but it helps. Once the Spin Edge lands, the fight... isn't trivial because of the last big trick I should mention. Anyway I should note that this is the only time in my hundreds of hours of playing FF6 that I have purposefully fished for a desperation attack. For the purpose of it being useful, I mean, instead of just to see one.
Anyway I haven't mentioned all of her damaging arsenal yet, but it is relevant. Psychrip is a nasty ITE physical, she has fire damage for days (with Minerva, Red Jacket, and two Flame Shields I'm in the clear, even halving it didn't really work), Aero (at least Celes nulls it), Bio, and Shrapnel. Shrapnel is the big problem here: it's non-elemental and very powerful. If used ST it OHKOs anyone it hits (doesn't usually hit Celes), if used MT it OHKOs anyone except Celes, or those in Shell. Shell/Safe of course are staples, and if someone gets Stopped/IDed or otherwise killed they get reapplied quickly. Once the MP kill is in place, Shrapnel and Psychrip remain threats, but the removal of a few other turns goes a long way and the fight isn't TOO bad.
Okay, let's talk final battle. After some thought I decide to go with a Celes/Terra/Gau/Mog team. It provides a good spell arsenal (Terra's a bit behind, but whatever she has Cure 3 and Life 2), two Minervas which greatly easy elemental damage, and two Snow Mufflers which null physicals. Gau's also my only source of Life 3 (besides Gogo). Edgar and Setzer are on standby but I really don't hope to use anyone else.
Setups are simple enough, aside from the armours, Terra/Celes rock Aegis Shield + Red Cap while Gau/Mog get Thunder Shield, Muscle Belt, and enough Def to hit 255. The HP boosters are explained later. Relics are mostly Earrings/Hero Rings and Gold Hairpins to speed things up, aside from the requisite Muscle Belts. Maybe I should have opted for more defensive gear (Pod Bracelet, Ribbon), I'm not certain.
First tier: Not too bad. Slow the part that can be slowed, and buff like mad. Haste, Regen, Safe, Shell, Rhinox rage for Life 3. The damage is pretty decent before the buffs are in place, but nothing that can't be managed. The problem moves are Reverse Polarity which pulls Terra/Celes to places they take real daamge (Row command immediately) and Dread which petrifies someone making me put all my buffs back in place again. Oh, and a nice thing about finishing each tier is it pulls me out of Rage/Dance (I also use Snowman Jazz to help speed the fight along once I'm comfortable I'm set up well, since Surge and Snowball are both great, and hey Ice Rabbit is MT full healing).
Second tier: This is where things get nasty. The punchy dude in the front isn't too bad, as my party tanks physicals pretty well. When it dies it launches 10 Hits, and in one of my attempts it would be better named 10 Misses.
The mage dude in the back can be silenced! Sadly this does NOT make him negligible, since he has a Stop-inflicting ITE physical of Sage's creation called
Eternity (0:08 is how I feel if he decides to spam it) which is a colossal pain in the ass (stop can't be blocked), so I have to plan out my turns being down a PC or two pretty often). Oh yeah it hits hard, OHKOs Terra or Celes without Protect or comes very close. Fortunately it wastes a lot of turns on magic.
The woman in the centre fires off all sorts of Magitek nonsense, of which the nastiest are Launcher which leaves my party a critical-HP mess (not as bad as it sounds, but some magic can kill Gau/Mog and physicals kill Terra/Celes in this state), and Delta Attack, which is petrify, now in ITE mode! The rest is mostly elemental damage which looks pretty evil but yeah no I'm nulling/absorbing everything important except fire which two PCs half.
Finally there's the tiger. Blah blah fire damage who cares. He has two big problem moves, North Cross which freezes, and Doom Tusk which zombies (mercifully, both blockable). However, a status assault combo involving zombie, freeze, and stop is a big threat.
I never do lose but I come very very close once. Mostly just have to carefully manage all my turns and keep the buffs in place, and always keeping a turn handy to respond to Launcher. I should mention the mage picks up a new trick or two when low on health, he starts countering like mad and while MOST of what he uses is magic, there's also Imp Song (MT imp, waste all my time with green cherry nonsense) and Cold Dust (freeze, burn it with fire). Oh and when he dies his death counter isn't affected by silence, and it dispels. Just more buffs to set up again in phase 3, since I leave him until last.
Third tier (1 reset): Two parts here. The first is a healer who heals so damn well I can't really outpace what she does (in no small parts because she absorbs all elements, so Celes' Flare is about the only thing I have which reliably and consistently does good damage). She also uses ITE sleep physical which is pretty damaging against front-row Terra/Celes but otherwise not too bad. Oh and if you kill the other part first she full-revives her buddy. Ha-HA!
The damage-dealer of the fight is of course the real problem. Meteor as usual is the demonspawn move, and it does 1500 MT. My first reset occurs because this could KO some people in one shot, so I came back with the HP-boosting gear above. Keeping everyone topped up is important so this doesn't kill. The rest of his skillset includes W Wind, which also merits a massive burst of healing and an Antidote spell, Merton which was brutal even halved until I made sure everyone could null it (Minerva, Thunder Shield). He can Reverse Polarity and chain it with physicals which of course is nasty. He's also got a bunch of status: he'll use his immunity-ignoring ID special Calmness on occasion, as well as MT confuse, mercifully not too accurate so I just have to hope for the best there (fortunately my actions aren't the type which backfire horribly if I get confused). His scariest move is Condemned, which if he casts it MT is a brutal Overcast-style effect which I can get around by letting people die early and reviving them. Fortunately MT Condemned is rare.
So it's a fight which requires me to stay awake during it, and constantly clearing off status. Once the right equipment is on place, though, it's not TOO bad.
Unfortunately blitzing the fight isn't really going to work, since once his HP falls below a certain threshold, he gains Meteo (inaccurate MT OHKO) both at will and as a counter. Even one Meteo could wipe me out; seeing two back-to-back due to a counter would bring the odds unacceptably high. So Rasp it is! Fortunately his MDef isn't silly high like Goddess' was and he "only" has 10000, and once that's gone he's a joke outside the odd Calmness. I do indeed see two Meteos back to back while killing him!
It turns out, though, that I need to MP-kill the healer as well, as I can't outpace her Pearl Wind spam. Fortunately she, as the attacker before her, likes to burn through her own MP which helps a bit, and again the amount to burn through is manageable, but yeah it means this fight still takes a long time. Kill the caster first so that I don't see Calmness knocking people out before Kefka.
Kefka (1 reset): So at low HP, Kefka gets a whole bunch of crazy things which I'd rather not deal with: Meteor, Quake, Goner, and Ultima (though the latter is at least only a counter) all of which costs MP. I figure the safest way to approach this is to kill Kefka's MP too, because what the hell this fight isn't THAT long yet is it? (kill me) Anyway this means just dealing with Kefka's high-HP phase which isn't too bad. The elemental spells and Aero are useless except Fire 3 which isn't too scary, Bio is easy enough to heal and Antidote away, Fallen One requires some big healing Doom and Havoc Wing sometimes claim OHKOs but whatever, no big, revive and move on. Actually this is remarkably straightforward. Unfortunately his MP is 39000 so it's a long, long slog, which I get increasingly impatient with.
Once that's done I start to work on chewing through Kefka's HP. He gains HyperDrive counters but whatever, revive and move on. He gains Revenger which dispels everyone but whatever, who needs buffs. I get to see delightful messages such as "Quake - Need MP" and then he charges Goner. I give no shits. The charge resolves, and... the spell actually goes off, KOing everyone except Gau who was raging in brainless damage mode. Gau dies not too long after.
SIGH.
My fault for being cocky I suppose, but the Eviltype docs note the change to Goner's damage formula but make no mention of its changed MP cost! The insulting thing is that with Shell and/or Morph I could have tanked it but had gotten lazy with reapplying buffs since I figured I had the fight wrapped up and really didn't want to drag out the already incredibly long fight further. I don't really want to redo everything to get back to this point, so maybe I'll hack the tiers down to 1 HP and Kefka to 0 MP and redo the fight from that point again, since whatever I've already proven I can deal with them. Bending the rules a bit but if I can't really justify spending all the time again (about two hours) to get to the same point.
Regardless, one way or another the challenge is almost over. Hooray~
