FF5 Solo Cannoneer Part IV

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To begin the postgame, let's take on Arguable Superboss #2, just for the sake of showing off one of Cannoneer's more exploitable quirks.


Gogo the Mime. The way you ordinarily fight him is by not fighting him and waiting for him to call you a good mimic. During the Four Job Fiesta last year, I actually successfully took him head-on (and with an otherwise crappy party no less). But the situation here unlike the one there - zombie meatshields are out, we can't get Shell, and we can't pause time in the menu with only one person.

The big problem with fighting him is his Meteors. He casts three in a row to start his rampage script when he gets below 33000 HP, and every time you attack him below that baseline (including when you knock him under), he also casts a Meteor spell. Aegis Shield can't block this, and even with Shell and max magic defense any one character would be hard-pressed to survive that. Solo Mystic Knight would have no trouble committing mimicide due to his silencing abilities. 99% magic evade or no, that always hits. If there were a Silence Shot, Picard would also have little troubles. Simply fire it after slowing him, hope it procs, then tear into him with Killer Cannon (Fuma Shruiken + Blitzshot). Gogo is classified as a Human, and so that will do massive damage. But all that offense doesn't mean a thing if we can't defend.


So I've mentioned it a few times before, but there are several Combines of the Cannoneer that don't trigger reactions in AI scripts - this appears to be the majority of the status-inflicters. This is sort of probably by design: the status they inflict do trigger counters. But if the target is immune to the status, no counterattack. Ergo, if the attack triggered counters as well, you'd get two counters from one attack - similar to something that's coming up in a bit.


Still, it's semiexploitative at best. Moving onward, I intend to stay away from this if it's remotely practical. The best compromise I felt I could do here was to blast him down to around 16000 HP, hit with a Killer Cannon, survive one Meteor, then deliver a final one to put the stamp down. This took over a dozen tries at Picard's current level, also needing to slow the famed mimic to give himself buffer room, but he eventually made it so.


With that banter done, let's do the Sealed Temple. To boldly go where no man has gone before...except one, but work with me here!! Picard's usual means of offense here was the Water Cannon, due to a surprising amount of enemies being vulnerable to it (these bombs aren't one of them, but were still flatlined by the attack). There were some enemies, however, that demanded alternative approaches.


The first example I ran into were Behemoths, which cast Meteor upon dying. Picard countered this with a Power Shot (used with a Power Drink, appropriately) to Berserk them. He caught one by using three Water Cannons that did just under 5000 (it has 15000HP).


The Gil Turtle here actually differs from the one in World 2 slightly - its Turtle special inflicts HP Leak instead of poison was inflicting HP Leak instead of poison, because Turtle is a bizarre special that can have either effect throughout the battle is basically the same as the original, I just thought it was different at the time because of the status bug. Picard went with an upgraded version of his old setup, slowed him, and brought out a new Combine...


The Vulner series is used with an Iron Draft, and has the same properties as Guard-Off or a Turtle Soup mix. Picard could then step into the front row and fight with the Chicken Knife!! There were only two problems with this - first, Gil Turtle's blows did more damage, but he could counter this by falling into the back row and healing.


Second, there was actually a better option - the Needle Cannon (Gold Needle + Blitzshot) does a fixed 3000 damage, which would've been his best damage option. Picard had forgotten to stock up, though. But even without that, what was a doable but scary fight in World 2 was a trivial one here.


Picard continued to blast his way through the dungeon. Unfortunately, larger groups made exploiting EXP Up impractical, save for certain rooms, such as his first trip into the Sealed Temple's Arena. By the way, those guys with their butts sticking out are from the magic side of the Fork Tower. They counter physicals (which include Combine) with Meteor. Flaremancers from the tower also show up. Similar story there. Luckily, Picard could easily one-shot them at this point, but other physical classes may have trouble here.

The Dark Elementals on the Hall of Doubt also proved annoying. Even at level 70, Picard's Combine still couldn't reliably one-shot them. He traversed that floor with the Reflect Ring equipped to render their -ga spells harmless.


Before long, it was time for Grand Aevis. One thing that Rathma didn't mention was this guy's absurd speed - he has an astonishing 70!! Picard could thankfully make it less of an issue with Slow Cannon. His strategy here was to eliminate one of the Dark Elementals, leave the other at low health (rendering its White Winds useless), and Open Fire on the Grand Aevis itself.

The first time he tried this fight, Picard was eventually killed by Blaster. It was also the cause of his second death, immediately at the start of the battle. Without the healing issues of the undead Necromancer, Maelstorm and Breath Wind weren't a problem. Aegis Shield to cover Evil Eye, and though he left himself open to Zombification (if it got to be too big an issue, I would've done the fight with the Angel Ring), it didn't once affect him.


It only hit me a short time after that battle that drastically rearranging the inventory for Combine would be useful. When you put the cursor on memory, it opens back up on the item you used, not the ammunition. You always go ammo -> item, so putting the two I used most side-by-side was a big timesaver.


Picard stepped into the front row during the Ronka Ruins section of the temple, remembering Rathma's experience with being killed by back attacks from the Exorays. He could quickly win all the random encounters using one of his Combines anyway before they had a chance to attack. The aforementioned flowers could be killed with Flame Burst, the stronger Flame Cannon simply being overkill. And if a back attack did trigger, they wouldn't be able to kill him. The scary double Iron Giant encounter could be dispatched with Chaos Cannon, or two Water Cannons for 9999 into their elemental weakness.


The Duelists, the Assassins, and Soul Eaters could all be stunned by Berserk, cutting off their dangerous or irritating scripts.


To mention something about the dungeon that T-Hawk didn't with Rathma - here, you need to press a switch to stop a waterfall, but it turns back on very quickly. Picard had to make a temporary swap to a Thief to run by here. The timing is very strict - one step off-course and he wouldn't make it. A total pain, really.


Bleh...well, after his comrades were re-petrified, Picard made his way back out of the temple, using a convenient shortcut in the ruins section.


So here's Archeodemon. No problem, we'll just blast it with Water Cannon during the charge-up phases and-


Oh.


Okay then.

So two aspects of this fight that the magely Rathma didn't encounter or make clear: first, Archeodemon absorbs all elemental damage. Second, Archeodemon will counter any non-magical attack with Death...ON HIS UNDEAD SELF.

I fought this with my fiesta party last year, and - sticking to my rule of not exploiting the counterattack glitch - I'd employ a similar strategy that they used. That is, cutting its MP from an absurd 62000 to a manageable 9999 with an Ether and repeatedly attacking until it had no more MP.


The Assassin's Dagger was the weapon of choice here. If its death spell went off, Archeodemon would cast Death on itself twice. It was pretty funny, watching it die and revive three times in a row. At 29MP a casting, plus 39MP per Flare and 15MP per Drain Touch, it actually ran through its MP fairly quickly.

That's not to say the fight was a cakewalk. While Picard was protected from Flare and Mega Flare from behind a Reflect Ring, Archeodemon would occasionally trigger its own ???? counter with the moves, hitting him with the 2300~ damage anyway. Giga Flare would do about the same, and Drain Touch around 800. Because of this kept him around 3200HP with a combination of Hi Potions and Elixirs.

Eventually...


No more MP. Picard's cannon made short work of the creature, doing 6000+ a shot. Only a potential reflected Mega Flare that triggered ???? could have killed him at this point (his Death counter supersedes his ????/Curse/Nothing counter). I probably should have waited around to make sure it had no MP for that either.


But that didn't happen, so Picard won out. Took nearly an hour of game time. Since he was right in the area, Picard left the temple to refresh his supplies and float. Then back in it was. All the way back to the bottom.


Good lord, the enemies in the Lethe Court were painful. Ironclads, unlike their brethren, only had slow as a status to exploit. Picard's supply of Turtle Shells was limited. Hades were more obnoxious. Picard had to use the Flame Shield and Bone Mail here - the former was to protect against Meltdown, and the latter from the Death spells. I had forgotten to take many pictures in this section.

Idly, he had the option of equipping the Chaos Orb (won from Archeodemon) to increase the damage from his fire and electric shots, boosting them from just under 7000 to a healthy 9999 on a neutral hit. This accessory unfortunately inflicts HP Leak if the user is not a Necromancer or has the Undead ability set - in which case it inflicts Regen instead. I was hoping the Bone Mail would count, but no such luck. Oh well, losing haste was bad anyway.


Picard had nearly run out of Hi Potions by the time he reached Guardian. Yikes. The only other way to heal was with the Protect Ring if the Behemoth group decided to show up. They were more than content to sit around and wait for his HP to go back up; the King only occasionally throwing out a weak physical attack.

Well. There was also Elixir use and attacking himself with the Assassin's Dagger, but I didn't want to dip into the former, and I didn't consider the latter at the time, only remembering it was an option when T-Hawk mentioned it after I originally posted this part of the report in the thread. Derp. >_<


At least the boss itself was an easy endeavor. Like before, Picard was able to ignore the aging missiles. Unlike before, he did indeed have the power to just win outright (had that failed, Bone Mail would've stopped the status, though it didn't seem to take anyway). He got hit with Encircle the first time, but short-circuited the cannon under a torrent of water the second go. It revived the Wave Cannon once, but very quickly blew up shortly after.


No effect? Um. Not sure what caused that to pop up, but okay.


Picard barely managed to hobble out after that. I opted to use the GBA quicksave trick to push him through the final stretch. While we're restocking, what say we fight some superbosses?

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