FF5 Solo Cannoneer Part III

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Entering World 3 and the Pyramid (Antlion isn't worth talking about). It's not exactly true that Picard had no way of damaging both Gargoyles at the same time. Poison status allowed for this. Made for a creative way to deal with them, but of course, exploiting Sleep was the better choice. He'd deal with the later ones in that fashion. Dark Matter, like the other three mixing ingredients, is of use to the Cannoneer. So Picard had a lengthy trek through this place on his hands to gather up all the goods. Usually I just run right through this place...not the wisest of choices this time.


He soon found himself in this precarious spot. Not facing the snakes and Mecha Heads meant they couldn't initiate the encounter, so he eventually escaped...only to be trapped again. Deciding to fight, he set to work and rolled some confuses on the robots, making for amusing results when they used ???? on themselves.


Zombie status is stupid. So is the game refusing to let you run. I had to retreat out at this point due to only having one Holy Water in stock, Esuna and Tents don't heal the status either, nor does the Oracle's healing, and you can't even petrify the offending zombie! I took the opportunity to get the Chicken Knife, and proceeded to let it sit in Picard's inventory without fully powering it up.


Melusine was worthless. Reflect Ring, and I even forgot to use the Sleep Blade until she was basically dead (and had to wait for her to shift out of her physical form so Open Fire could damage), but it didn't matter. With her out of the way, Picard proceeded to pick up the usual goods for a solo character, including the Hermes Sandles and the Magic Lamp.


The Solitary Island Shrine was an uneventful place, where Picard mostly ran from the encounters - especially the obnoxious birds with their 33090HP. I'm not exactly sure what was up with the fight against Stalker, also known as Wendigo, also known as allegedly unbearably hard solo by that one guide writer but actually stupid easy. Sleep Blade could be used to make it fall asleep, and could also target the false images.

He managed to sleep the back two, but the front two remained awake. And unlike with Merlin, it continued to move around - occasionally into one of the sleeping targets, but would eventually move out of them. He won in the end anyway, but had to poke the last image awake so it could die. Weird fight in how it played out, but not a hard one.


I think it's time we taste it too. The only thing interesting about Minotaur (a simple fight for every solo) was my curiosity as to how much his dying Holy would do, if I gave him an Ether so he would actually be able to use it. The results were...disappointing, to say the least.

Useless piece of trivia unrelated to the challenge: the Fork Tower actually does explode if you take too long to start the Omniscient fight. A nice touch, but kind of silly in light of the strategies melee classes employ against him. Regardless, our second Cannoneer (with her poor level of 4, but behind the Bone Mail/Reflect Ring) decided to be a little more proactive.


So here's a neat trick/bug I've never seen any solo exploit: using an Ether on an enemy. What's the point of this? Well, enemy MP is supposed to be capped at 9999. Use an Ether or Elixir when they have more than that, and 9999 is what it'll be dropped to. Saves a lot of time waiting for some bosses to run themselves out of MP! She needed to wait for Omniscient to lock his spells out with a Stop or Silence so he would not cast Reset, but got it done.

Despite this, Krile got impatient and decided to be more proactive. She could attempt to inflict Aging status on Omniscient after he bounced a Stop or Silence onto himself. The odds were low because of the level difference (maybe I should have reset and let Picard do it, instead of going with the same philosophy as the White Mage solo?), but she eventually got the job done - reducing the healing from Omniscient's Regen and making him liable to kill himself.


Then she decided to be even more proactive. Omniscient had bounced a Haste off himself onto Krile, and a Slow spell off her onto himself. Combined with Aging debuff (which had lowered his level and thus raised the odds of statuses landing), Krile could get 6 turns to Omniscient, and get in two blasts of Open Fire after bouncing a Silence off her wall with the Mage Masher. What is this, a Time Mage game?

The Great Sea Trench was not a fun place. The blob enemies in particular could take as many as five blasts to die from Open Fire, and without a way to multi-target yet, Picard decided running was the best option. The three little pigs were, by contrast, ridiculously easy. The Bone Mail, the Flame Ring, and the Ice Shield caused all of their spells to be absorbed, and swipes from the Sleep Blade rendered them helpless. I used Open Fire, turned on the autofire, and relaxed until they squealed.


I'd neglected to get any of the legendary weapons so far - given the only one Picard could use was the Assassin's Dagger - and getting them all is a requirement to unlock the GBA jobs (and thusly, the Cannoneer's ammunition). In another neat detail/piece of consistency, any of the tablet bosses you've already defeated, including this red guy we never actually fight, won't be in this cutscene. (If you've beaten them all before using your first tablet, the cutscene simply won't happen.)


Istory, Istory, Istory. Aquagels startled me a bit with that damage output on that back attack, but it was still as much of a breeze as I expected from reading solo job reports. Even the Tonberries couldn't do much with the blind and confusion shots around to mess with them.


It probably wasn't the wisest of ideas to try taking on Leviathan without a Coral Ring, just to see if I could do it. Also unwise was leaving on the Bone Mail and having Picard use an Elixir on himself. Despite all this stupidity on my part, Leviathan only used four Tsunamis throughout the battle, two of which were blocked by the Aegis Shield. His physicals were rendered moot with Main Gauche and blind (so many bosses and notable encounters are vulnerable to that...). So Picard won anyway. Comedy of errors, this is.

And now the moment we've all been waiting for...


Cannoneer unlocked for real.


To use Combine, you pick an ammunition and a component. It then deals damage to all targets on the field. Picard stocked up on these and other supplies from Moore. He also went back to Drakenvale to stock up on Dragon Fangs, as well as a Dark Matter on the side thanks to the Thief Knife. Taking a page from White's playbook, decided to test his new abilities and these fangs on a worthy target.


Wait, what? Well, this is underwhelming. That's only around 1000 more than Open Fire is doing with a confuse shot. Much like that itself, Combine scales with level and deals damage independent of stats. It counts as magical damage, but deals it as a physical attack (in other words, it's reduced by Shell, but triggers counterattacks tied to physical attacks). Here's the damage formula from the GBA Algorithms guide.

Attack = Base Attack + (0..(Base Attack/8))
M = (Level*Level)/256 + 4
Damage = Attack*M, max = 9999

The shot I'm using, and the reason for gathering those Dragon Fangs, is known as Dragon Cannon (Blitzshot + Dragon Fang). It has a base attack of 215, and M gets doubled if the target is a dragon. The problem is, Bahamut isn't classified as a dragon by the game! Weird.


So Picard turned to another attack: Slow Shot (Buckshot + Turtle Shell). Using the weakest ammunition, this has a base power of only 65. But true to its name, it has a (flat) 75% chance to inflict Slow on anything vulnerable. Picard proceeded to use Open Fire to bore a hole through the legendary not-dragon with the infamous 4-to-1 speed advantage.

Why not use the stronger Blitzshot? Quite simply, to save on money/resources. While cheap, using the ammunition in every battle does add up. Since these status-inflicters do their status at the same rate regardless of which ammo you use, it's more cash-efficient to use the basic Buckshot if you simply want to inflict the status. And especially since they otherwise don't have much use, being far weaker than Blitzshot and even Blastshot.


And because beating up on one optional summoned monster wasn't enough, I decide to throw down with another. Fuma Shruiken goes into a Combine much like Dragon Fangs (this one being called Killer Cannon), but with M doubling if the target is human instead - of which Odin qualifies. Still, with only one in stock, Picard decided against using it, and after a reset brought out his melee fighting skills for the first time since Karnak Castle. His cannon attacks take animation time, so the Chicken Knife (which had only 106 power...again, he didn't bother to actively power it up) was the best option in this fight.


Into the Rift. Picard continued to use EXP Up through most of this, instead of Combine. The fans in the Ronka Ruins section were notable, due to being able to steal Turtle Shells from them. There was also a hilarious moment where - because of confusion - the Level Checkers hit themselves with Level 2 Old, followed by Level 5 Death when their level lined up just right. This infamous combo is sometimes called Death By Math in some circles, and is used to instantly kill many-a boss in speedrun settings.


Calofisteri was as always, trivial with the Bone Mail. Picard didn't even bother with Combine. For Apanda, he once again broke out Slow Shot, then proceeded to destroy the boss with Flame Cannon. This, along with its cousins the Water and Spark Cannon, are used with Ninja scrolls. Among the most efficient price-wise, they happen to have the second-highest base attack of Combine at 220, yielding only to the Hero Cocktail's holy-elemental Divine Cannon at 225.


Picard employed a bold new strategy against the dangerous Apocalypse/Azulmagia...





See ya, nerd. Didn't feel like taking him on and playing with his irritating AI routine, so he can stay in jail. That and I was also feeling (probably excessively) bold, and wanted to see if I could make it through without the save point he gives up.


You may have noticed that Picard was floating. I picked up the status by having him Tempting Tango a Gaia Cat on the North Mountain. This along with the Reflect Ring made Catastrophe a fight that was impossible to lose. Yet it still managed to troll, by giving him a rare Cottage steal instead of an Elixir. What a jerk. For most of the encounters in the dimensional castle, it was Picard causing the enemies grief with confusion from !Open Fire (especially amusing with the Death Claws), or just killing them with damage or instant death.


Halicarnassus was hit with a Slow Shot, then blown away by repeated Water Cannons. Like Open Fire, Combine works from behind toad status. Unlike Open Fire, it does full damage from behind Mini and Toad status due to being considered a magical attack. Not to mention, it looks hilarious!! She never got to use Holy.


Really game? Really? The rare drop?


For Twin Tania, Picard went in with Main Gauche, Ice Shield, Bone Mail and Coral Ring to essentially block all of the danger. His own blasts of water did over 7000 damage to the beast. Since Combine triggers physical counters, he used Tidal Wave on Picard every time he was hit except once, all of which healed Picard. He got to the Giga Flare charging portion of his AI routine, but never got it off.


Picard nicked the Genji Shield from Gilgamesh, then broke out Chaos Cannon (Dark Matter + Blitzshot) against Necrophobe's barriers, killing them instantly with its Death effect. This Combine is infamous for its not triggering counterattacks in scripts, although there are several others that work as well. With Golem from the Magic Lamp, a Slow Shot, and blasting with an elemental cannon, Necro signed his will to his next of kin. He grabbed the Genji Armor too, for that matter.


Out of the void to recharge the lamp. And to do some leveling for very special purposes. Picard found it was actually faster to equip Combine and kill everything in one round, rather than collecting the bonus from EXP Up.


Since he was training in the area, he decided to go up and down Phoenix Tower to break up the monotony. The only enemies of note were these Kuza Beasts. Recall their script: ????. While they have other options in their appearance here, Picard didn't feel like dealing with this potentially lethal blow. So he turned to the Power series (Power Drink). It inflicted Berserk, and he was in no danger.

One problem: the cutscene at the top heals your party. Oops. I was working under the impression that Float blocks certain statuses, including confusion. I'm not sure if it actually does or not, but it really didn't hurt to pick it up either way, Picard made sure to get the status back at North Mountain for possible use against Neo Exdeath's Grand Cross - until it gets dispelled, that is. On the other hand, the whole point of this grinding I was doing is to kill it before it even fires, as I calculated it should be able to. Can we do it?


First, Exdeath the tree. Everyone's favorite Aegis Shield made White Hole a non-factor. He was vulnerable to slow, so out came Slow Shot. Now, he is actually classified as a human! So with Killer Cannon, Picard chopped it down to size. On a side-note, remember what I was saying about Chaos Cannon? If you use it, or any of the other attacks that don't trigger counterattacks to deal the final blow to the tree, the fight against Neo Exdeath never triggers. Much like the Kiss of Blessing bug, which was partially patched out of this version.


But Picard will be fighting Neo Exdeath all right. Magic Lamp wiped out the back part. Like Shadow the Ninja, the onslaught of high-damage Dragon Cannons meant that the Grand Crosser's AI routine was constantly reset. Not a single one went off in the battle.


The other two parts put up only marginally more resistance, and found resistance was futile. The Almagest part was neutered by Aging from another Combine - the Silver Cannon, which involves a Speed Shake. The physical part is vulnerable to slow, as well as blinding. In order to keep their damage in sync, Picard pulled out the rarest Combine - Dark Cannon. This involves Ash, of which I believe there are exactly 7 in the main game (1 in Moore, 4 as rare drops from the crystals, a rare drop from Apanda, and a steal from Apanda).


Then one of them died before the other. Despite this scare, Picard finished the other off with another cannon shot before the Meteors could come, and that was that. Victory on the first attempt at the final boss.


Picard finished the game at Level 63, above the baseline for solo classes, but in my opinion well worth it to stop the hassle of Grand Cross. He needed only one Elixir in the battle, to heal after the Grand Crosser had died. The Cannoneer is an extremely powerful class, with Open Fire pumping out high damage from start-to-finish, the variety and multi-targetting of Combine, and the various status it is able to inflict with both attacks (including the nasty Slow, and Blind which a surprising amount of enemies are vulnerable to).

All in all, doing a solo playthrough for myself was quite the enjoyable experience, I must say. I'd go as far to place Cannoneer slightly below level of Samurai or Chemist in terms of ease, if only due to the randomness of !Open Fire and lacking !Combine for almost all the game. With all the nasty status stuff it brings, along with the protection from shields and sword use, plus the ability to hang out in the back row without concern, there's very little the enemies can do if you play your cards right. Not having ammunition for Combine early on wasn't TOO big a deal - it would've made the Purubolos and random encounters easier as well as bringing Slow to the table, but Picard got through without perfectly fine. It was almost too enjoyable, and it's a little disappointing for it to be over so soon.

So...shall we try to seek out more difficult foes for Picard?

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