FF3 Solo Red Mage (NES) Part II
Feb. 15th, 2015 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorWith airship access back, as before, I decided to gain some levels before heading to Salonia and Garuda. The peninsula/horns of power was again the place to be. Ulillillia had a nasty trick up his sleeve: confusion! It could be unleashed on everything, and they would often kill or heavily damage each other. He could clean up with spell from there. The Death Needlers were, as before, a non-threat and could be physically dealt with.
I also found a weird bug: if he confused the Ion enemies and they used Quake, glitched graphics would appear. Sometimes it would act like he was using Quake, or one of his dead mini frog friends. It could even bleed into the menu!
Okay, so I may have gone a bit overboard on the leveling. But it was easy, and this gave him twice the hits and HP. It got me set for everything to come.
Garuda was a snap with this. Ulillillia didn't even have to heal once, he just hacked away and the big bird went down.
All the item-casting staves were purchasable in Salonia, including two new ones. Golem boosts Strength by 5, but it still comes out weaker than the Tyrfing. It uses Break. Rune Staff uses Blizzaga as an item and has no other special properties.
The trip to Dorga's cave was easy because of the same. Ulillillia could stick in the front row and fight without too much danger, and it was the most effective way of dealing damage too.
And with a magic class, Magic Circle Cave was no problem. I put him in the back row with two Ice Shields, despite the fact that it would open him up to the MageFlyers' Ice spells. The DarkKngts and DevilHorses were zero threat. The bugs were really the only problem, and they could be Aeroed down. In fact, it was so easy, Ulillillia Exited out at the end and ran it again, just for kicks. The second go, I had him try multi-targetting spells. That worked even better, to the point of where I stuck around until he hit Level 52.
I should've done this before, but it made little difference for Magic Circle Cave: buy Black and White Robes from Salonia. They're interestingly enough, the strongest mage armor in the game in terms of defense value at 20. They're not the strongest armor that Ulillillia can equip, but they are the second-strongest. Even after that, their stat bonuses make them a nice option at times
I decided to run some damage tests in the optional Undersea Cave. I already knew that I want to equip BlackRobe for most dungeon running and WhiteRobe for bosses where I don't need magic, but it helped to get some numbers. Numbers that are slightly skewed because he was leveling a bit as he went along, but all the same, here they are.
Ice3 on Aegirs:
WhiteRobe: 816, 832, 973, 1152, 800, 735, 784, 1001, 1136, 984
BlackRobe 1224, 808, 1008, 1071, 1161, 1125, 1197, 944, 1152, 1134
Cure on self:
WhiteRobe: 531, 477, 396, 567, 423, 441, 387, 495, 396, 423
BlackRobe: 368, 448, 416, 472, 424, 424, 368, 392, 400, 472
Cure2 on self:
WhiteRobe: 1449, 1602, 1548, 1332, 1512, 1170, 1572, 1332, 1296, 1368
BlackRobe: 1112, 1208, 1000, 1192, 1384, 1016, 1325, 1384, 1328, 1296
Speaking of the cave, I had him take several trips in and out to sell the loot he found. Ulillillia went up to Level 58 in the process. Sadly, all of it but the consumable items and a Diamond Ring were useless to him: he couldn't equip the rest of the Diamond equipment, the Reflect mail, or even the Aegis Shield. Bad news on that last one. Hopefully Dorga plays nice when we get to him.
The box encounters were no problem. Ulillillia had a fun solution to the splitting monsters: confusion stops them from splitting when attacked. And he could actually outright stunlock an enemy by alternating Conf and attacking.
The Temple of Time was also leisurely. Dirai are weak to Wind, so Aero was used against them. Diamond equipment protects against lightning, so the M.Chimera's Thunder attacks were laughable.
Ice3 actually did more damage than physical attacks to enemies on average, but of course, it's something of a limited resource. Less limited than in FF1. Still, spell charges are there to be used, so I pulled out the mass-targetting against groups of enemies. I also was able to clean out my inventory of some of those horns after this.
If you've read and/or remember my Monk report, you'll recall how much these Azraels gave Solo grief. Ulillillia wasn't having any of their crap; Mute prevented them from using their Split and that was that.
Honestly, I'm surprised. Status spells have a reputation of being useless in Final Fantasy games, due to not working on bosses and regular enemies dying too quickly for them to be of any use. While the former does hold true in this game, the latter does have merit.
That was also on display against the split-when-hit enemies a bit further in. They don't split when magic hits them. I'd forgotten to bring along the spellcasting staves due to their being weak, taking up inventory space, and forgetting they were in this cave too, but Ulillillia could poison them, slap on Ice Shields, and wait for their life to leak out of their bodies. Of course, a mix of attacking and multi-target magic worked as well...though they have fairly hefty magic resistance.
I rectified that for the next dungeon, but they turned out to be as useless as I thought. Even the Golem Staff - which casts Break - wasn't as effective as I hoped it would be. I don't even think it was having an effect.
I also got another accidental upgrade glitch here, albeit one more traditional than completely scrambling my inventory and that I caught right away. Through Hi-Potions, my W.Slayers became Shiny Swords. Read up here on the technical information behind it if you're interested. Though it doesn't contain info on like, what happened with Solo. I mean, I got a Chocobo summon there, value FF. There's no way that should've happened, let alone values going to 99 or 13, and spawning ?s, Holy Lances, and Hellclaws out of nowhere.
Anyway, Cave of Darkness wasn't too bad...or so I thought. Ulillillia occasionally would use Venom and attacking with Ice Shields from the back row on larger groups, and a variety of strategies on the smaller ones. It was grueling though, and I actually ran out of spell charges halfway through.
So I took Ulillillia through the summon dungeons to gain some levels. Odin's was easy, though there were enemies who had Brak2 spells better left muted. Odin himself was even easier. In the back row with duel Ice Shields, the Red Wizard could only be touched by his weak Atom Edge special, which did around 400-500. He slung out Ice3s, doing over 1000 apiece, until Odin croaked.
These guys gave Solo a hard time, but this character had a solution for that: Venom! Even if they stunlocked him with their sleeping Glare, as long as he got it off, Ulillillia would be fine. I get into a situation early where he's stunlocked and they can't actually hit him though. After 20 minutes of running the emulator on turbo, I reset and put a new piece of the puzzle in: don't equip the Ice Shields until after Venom is up, to increase the chances of being hit.
The exact same strategy worked on Leviathan: stay in the back row with two shields, and cast magic against him. He went down without incident.
See, this is why we play challenge runs, for this kind of satisfaction! Saw my strategy play out to perfection here. I was back attacked, and decided to dive into the back row. Ulillillia was smacked around, but that's good - he was hit out of sleep. He got the Venom off, and then slapped on shields. It didn't matter he was at 11HP! The enemies weren't killing him from here! He may have been sleeplocked, but the poison was doing its job. And he eventually won the battle!
Ha! I could turn the Grenades' Explode against them with confusion!
No such luck against Bahamut, who resists elemental spells. Still, throwing up dual shields was great when it came to healing - they even reduced MegaFlare's damage. Not a hard fight at all. Also, notice how the spell is slipped into your inventory before the fight.
This is what getting stunlocked looks like. Good thing you step out onto the world map to fight Bahamut, so you can save.
Back in this cave. Hellhorse, Vassago, Garb, and Sirenos monsters could be reliably one-shot. Though Haniel, Balfrey, Cronos, and DeathClaws could not. If there were two or more of the latter on the field, he would throw out Confusion or sometime Sleep to get some whacks in without them splitting. The Venom option was also around. Between this all, he had more than enough resources to make it all the way.
Hekaton was a joke with dual shields from the back row slinging spells. He never once hit Ulillillia.
Dorga was again a problem. Luckily, in spite of his not being able to two-shot him, Ulillillia has an advantage that Solo does not: magic defense. It still took several tries, enough so that I'll fully disclose I reloaded a savestate from the start of the fight instead of running the cave again every time. But he eventually missed two Brak2s and that was that. I also found it best to just keep attacking instead of switching to shields as I had done so in that image. Better to get the fight over with sooner than risk more Brak2s.
Notice a problem here? It would be, if not for Unne's predictable AI routine. She always went WWind, Wall, WWind, Blizzard. Ulillillia just had to heal before the Blizzard, and keep attacking.
So, uh, yeah. Not as bad as I was expecting, really, except the Cave of Darkness. All that's left from here is the endgame. And that will certainly be a challenge, I have no doubt about that. How much of a challenge remains to be seen.
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I also found a weird bug: if he confused the Ion enemies and they used Quake, glitched graphics would appear. Sometimes it would act like he was using Quake, or one of his dead mini frog friends. It could even bleed into the menu!
Okay, so I may have gone a bit overboard on the leveling. But it was easy, and this gave him twice the hits and HP. It got me set for everything to come.
Garuda was a snap with this. Ulillillia didn't even have to heal once, he just hacked away and the big bird went down.
All the item-casting staves were purchasable in Salonia, including two new ones. Golem boosts Strength by 5, but it still comes out weaker than the Tyrfing. It uses Break. Rune Staff uses Blizzaga as an item and has no other special properties.
The trip to Dorga's cave was easy because of the same. Ulillillia could stick in the front row and fight without too much danger, and it was the most effective way of dealing damage too.
And with a magic class, Magic Circle Cave was no problem. I put him in the back row with two Ice Shields, despite the fact that it would open him up to the MageFlyers' Ice spells. The DarkKngts and DevilHorses were zero threat. The bugs were really the only problem, and they could be Aeroed down. In fact, it was so easy, Ulillillia Exited out at the end and ran it again, just for kicks. The second go, I had him try multi-targetting spells. That worked even better, to the point of where I stuck around until he hit Level 52.
I should've done this before, but it made little difference for Magic Circle Cave: buy Black and White Robes from Salonia. They're interestingly enough, the strongest mage armor in the game in terms of defense value at 20. They're not the strongest armor that Ulillillia can equip, but they are the second-strongest. Even after that, their stat bonuses make them a nice option at times
I decided to run some damage tests in the optional Undersea Cave. I already knew that I want to equip BlackRobe for most dungeon running and WhiteRobe for bosses where I don't need magic, but it helped to get some numbers. Numbers that are slightly skewed because he was leveling a bit as he went along, but all the same, here they are.
Ice3 on Aegirs:
WhiteRobe: 816, 832, 973, 1152, 800, 735, 784, 1001, 1136, 984
BlackRobe 1224, 808, 1008, 1071, 1161, 1125, 1197, 944, 1152, 1134
Cure on self:
WhiteRobe: 531, 477, 396, 567, 423, 441, 387, 495, 396, 423
BlackRobe: 368, 448, 416, 472, 424, 424, 368, 392, 400, 472
Cure2 on self:
WhiteRobe: 1449, 1602, 1548, 1332, 1512, 1170, 1572, 1332, 1296, 1368
BlackRobe: 1112, 1208, 1000, 1192, 1384, 1016, 1325, 1384, 1328, 1296
Speaking of the cave, I had him take several trips in and out to sell the loot he found. Ulillillia went up to Level 58 in the process. Sadly, all of it but the consumable items and a Diamond Ring were useless to him: he couldn't equip the rest of the Diamond equipment, the Reflect mail, or even the Aegis Shield. Bad news on that last one. Hopefully Dorga plays nice when we get to him.
The box encounters were no problem. Ulillillia had a fun solution to the splitting monsters: confusion stops them from splitting when attacked. And he could actually outright stunlock an enemy by alternating Conf and attacking.
The Temple of Time was also leisurely. Dirai are weak to Wind, so Aero was used against them. Diamond equipment protects against lightning, so the M.Chimera's Thunder attacks were laughable.
Ice3 actually did more damage than physical attacks to enemies on average, but of course, it's something of a limited resource. Less limited than in FF1. Still, spell charges are there to be used, so I pulled out the mass-targetting against groups of enemies. I also was able to clean out my inventory of some of those horns after this.
If you've read and/or remember my Monk report, you'll recall how much these Azraels gave Solo grief. Ulillillia wasn't having any of their crap; Mute prevented them from using their Split and that was that.
Honestly, I'm surprised. Status spells have a reputation of being useless in Final Fantasy games, due to not working on bosses and regular enemies dying too quickly for them to be of any use. While the former does hold true in this game, the latter does have merit.
That was also on display against the split-when-hit enemies a bit further in. They don't split when magic hits them. I'd forgotten to bring along the spellcasting staves due to their being weak, taking up inventory space, and forgetting they were in this cave too, but Ulillillia could poison them, slap on Ice Shields, and wait for their life to leak out of their bodies. Of course, a mix of attacking and multi-target magic worked as well...though they have fairly hefty magic resistance.
I rectified that for the next dungeon, but they turned out to be as useless as I thought. Even the Golem Staff - which casts Break - wasn't as effective as I hoped it would be. I don't even think it was having an effect.
I also got another accidental upgrade glitch here, albeit one more traditional than completely scrambling my inventory and that I caught right away. Through Hi-Potions, my W.Slayers became Shiny Swords. Read up here on the technical information behind it if you're interested. Though it doesn't contain info on like, what happened with Solo. I mean, I got a Chocobo summon there, value FF. There's no way that should've happened, let alone values going to 99 or 13, and spawning ?s, Holy Lances, and Hellclaws out of nowhere.
Anyway, Cave of Darkness wasn't too bad...or so I thought. Ulillillia occasionally would use Venom and attacking with Ice Shields from the back row on larger groups, and a variety of strategies on the smaller ones. It was grueling though, and I actually ran out of spell charges halfway through.
So I took Ulillillia through the summon dungeons to gain some levels. Odin's was easy, though there were enemies who had Brak2 spells better left muted. Odin himself was even easier. In the back row with duel Ice Shields, the Red Wizard could only be touched by his weak Atom Edge special, which did around 400-500. He slung out Ice3s, doing over 1000 apiece, until Odin croaked.
These guys gave Solo a hard time, but this character had a solution for that: Venom! Even if they stunlocked him with their sleeping Glare, as long as he got it off, Ulillillia would be fine. I get into a situation early where he's stunlocked and they can't actually hit him though. After 20 minutes of running the emulator on turbo, I reset and put a new piece of the puzzle in: don't equip the Ice Shields until after Venom is up, to increase the chances of being hit.
The exact same strategy worked on Leviathan: stay in the back row with two shields, and cast magic against him. He went down without incident.
See, this is why we play challenge runs, for this kind of satisfaction! Saw my strategy play out to perfection here. I was back attacked, and decided to dive into the back row. Ulillillia was smacked around, but that's good - he was hit out of sleep. He got the Venom off, and then slapped on shields. It didn't matter he was at 11HP! The enemies weren't killing him from here! He may have been sleeplocked, but the poison was doing its job. And he eventually won the battle!
Ha! I could turn the Grenades' Explode against them with confusion!
No such luck against Bahamut, who resists elemental spells. Still, throwing up dual shields was great when it came to healing - they even reduced MegaFlare's damage. Not a hard fight at all. Also, notice how the spell is slipped into your inventory before the fight.
This is what getting stunlocked looks like. Good thing you step out onto the world map to fight Bahamut, so you can save.
Back in this cave. Hellhorse, Vassago, Garb, and Sirenos monsters could be reliably one-shot. Though Haniel, Balfrey, Cronos, and DeathClaws could not. If there were two or more of the latter on the field, he would throw out Confusion or sometime Sleep to get some whacks in without them splitting. The Venom option was also around. Between this all, he had more than enough resources to make it all the way.
Hekaton was a joke with dual shields from the back row slinging spells. He never once hit Ulillillia.
Dorga was again a problem. Luckily, in spite of his not being able to two-shot him, Ulillillia has an advantage that Solo does not: magic defense. It still took several tries, enough so that I'll fully disclose I reloaded a savestate from the start of the fight instead of running the cave again every time. But he eventually missed two Brak2s and that was that. I also found it best to just keep attacking instead of switching to shields as I had done so in that image. Better to get the fight over with sooner than risk more Brak2s.
Notice a problem here? It would be, if not for Unne's predictable AI routine. She always went WWind, Wall, WWind, Blizzard. Ulillillia just had to heal before the Blizzard, and keep attacking.
So, uh, yeah. Not as bad as I was expecting, really, except the Cave of Darkness. All that's left from here is the endgame. And that will certainly be a challenge, I have no doubt about that. How much of a challenge remains to be seen.
Next | Index
