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FFMQ Cheerleader Challenge Part III
Feb. 21st, 2015 06:27 pmAs usual, here is the next part of the streamed version of this challenge. 37:35 is when I engage Gidrah, 1:11:10 is when Dullahan is fought. And here and here are also parts of it. 23:20 is when Pazuzu is fought.
__________
Before moving onto the next area, I went and picked up the Exit spell from a battlefield in the Aquaria region. These areas present you with a series of ten battles, with an experience, gold, or item prize after. This was technically accessible as soon as it was dethawed, but it would've required fighting alone or backtracking with Reuben. Since none of the Fireburg dungeons had long walks to get out, I waited.
The enemies here were long past the point of relevancy. Only thing worth noting is that the Phanquids resisted wind, and Kaeli now comes with Cure, Heal, and Aero. She failed to one-shot some of them because of this.
To my displeasure, Kaeli was actually worse at fighting the Mummies than Tristam!! See, the AI does know about undead reversal on Cure spells, and Kaeli repeatedly used Cure in spite of them being weak to Aero as well and doing far more damage. It got even worse inside against this group of three. I had to retreat a couple times when the battle got too out of control, and even then, I believe I only won after she'd run herself dry and started throwing out Aero.
Thankfully, there were none of them after the first floor. The enemies varied; these Leeches and the Live Orks were weak to Kaeli's axe. Snipions' only real problem was their Doom Stinger.
The Ooze are an enemy worth noting. They're immune to white magic, and have a reflect effect against other magic. The AI doesn't know or care about this; it'll sometimes happily cast against them and get ravaged by its own spells. Kaeli never actually did this in the dungeon, but I was well aware that she could've.
Then you have the Mad Toads, who I believe are the first instance of a counterattacking enemy in this game. In their case, they poisoned. Not a significant threat since Kaeli had no White charges, but the flipside of it is, situations like this.
Gidrah was an encounter that took some thought. He's accompanied by two Skuldiers, enemies who are capable of using Spooky Laugh to confuse, Sleep Gas to sleep, and Doom Powder to instantly kill. Gidrah itself has a poison-touch counter much like those Mad Toads, as well as Stone Gas. Thankfully, Kaeli is immune to petrification. I went in at first with Kaeli with no White spellcharges. This naturally did not work so well, so I tried it with...only to find her spending too many turns healing, and again attacking the undead enemies with Cure.
So what I tried was to go in without any, then use a Seed on her after the Skuldiers had fallen. during the switchover. This proved too unreliable. I did need her to have White charges, and had to have Benny healing.
The biggest problem when the Skuldiers were down was poison-touch. I didn't want Kaeli to get caught in an alternating loop of heal, so I sometimes aimed a Heal at her. This was an extremely chaotic battle, consisting of predicting whatever came next. It certainly didn't help that she didn't start using Aero - which Gidrah is weak to - until late in the fight. I also used a Seed on Kaeli in the fight during a free turn, just to make sure she had enough spell charges
Thankfully, some of my status problems changed in Windia. The Cupid Locket protects against silence (useless), blind (a minor thorn), and confusion (YES!). With this, there are now more situations where Benny can cover his partner with impunity.
On Mount Gale were more of those Skuldiers, so this was welcome. What was not welcome were the Water Hags. These palette swaps of the Desert Hags (who appear green on the map, much like they appear gray) will use the Cure on any enemy in battle that's damaged. Extremely annoying, but they only seem able to use it so many times.
The other way around it was if Kaeli decided to use Aero. A single target spell would wipe one out in a single hit via 716 damage, and a multi-target one wouldn't make them Cure themselves, and allow the next Giant's Axe swing to bring them down. Another thought occurred that's technically within the ruleset was healing them myself after Kaeli damaged them above their own Cure threshold, but not all the way. I never got to employ it
I did find the ultimate helmet here, the Apollo Helm. It has no special properties over the Moon Helm aside from increasing stats a bit more, but no harm in picking it up.
Dullahan. The Vampires were only slightly annoying until I removed them. As for he himself, the esoterically named Headoomerang was his least threatening attack. Unfortunately, Sleep is one of the statuses that Benny still does not resist, so Hypno-sleep was a problem. More dangerous than that is Doom Dance, an attack that could instantly kill. Thankfully, it isn't guaranteed - fortunate because he once used it twice in a row. It nailed Benny and Kaeli a few times, necessitating the other springing into action.
A big problem I found in this fight, and in several actually, is Benny being at a low enough level so their attacks do over half his HP in damage. Rapier and Thunder Beam both did over 440 damage. So if the boss moves first and hits Benny, his partner would heal him instead of attacking! Pretty annoying, but not too painful to counter: just heal every round. I actually won it on the first attempt.
Aside: I saw him as some weird-faced monster, in his first form with the helmet as an eye, as a kid.
The next area of the game is the obnoxious Pazuzu's Tower. It's not necessarily as long as Lava Dome, but it is convoluted and can be just as annoying. Some of the more notable enemies here are the Beholders. Just like the Oozes, they repel magic. This time, I wasn't so lucky, and Kaeli did cast Aero on a few of them. They also have a Doom Gaze attack, which was fun to deal with, and like their palette swap, could Selfdestruct which was fun for other reasons.
This dungeon is sort of a puzzle. Pazuzu is omnipresent on every floor at first. When you talk to him, he'll taunts you and moves to a random floor except the 7th and the one you spoke with him on.
In the meantime, you have a tower of annoying enemies to climb. Kaeli cannot kill these things in one hit, and they have a few annoying attacks like Stone Gas. The worst I found, however, was not an attacker.
It was the Sorcerers. They often came in huge groups, and like their palette swaps, they love Cure. I eventually took to just holding down the speedup key on these bastards. They weren't any problem on the offensive side, it's just that they were a pain on this end. And they were everywhere. Thanatos were also capable of using this, though they were much less prone to doing so.
Fifth floor Pazuzu. In a speedrun setting, this is the third-best, after sixth and first. To battle him, you need to flick the switches on the even-numbered floors to stop the elevator from going by those floors and trap him. Otherwise, he'll run away when you encounter him again.
Before all that, I had to get through more Sorcerers, ugh. They took so long, holding down speedup felt smart. Nagas were the second-worst, with plenty of annoying status attacks. Chimeras often came with Sorcerers, and had poison-touch and Stone Gas much like Gidrah.
If he's stuck, you fight him!
Pazuzu has a lot of annoying attacks. Sky Attack which damaged both party members was of the least concern. He seemingly has an obnoxiously high crit rate. Piledriver and Typhoon can both do extreme damage on a bad diceroll. But the worst is something that isn't a true attack, rather something he activates on his fifth turn, then flips on and off every third turn after that. If you attack him with magic when he has Psychshield up...
This happens. Pazuzu despite being the wind-aligned of the Vile Four, is weak to the element. So when it wasn't up, Kaeli's efforts with this were not in vain. When it was though, I had to be very prompt in healing her. A critical before reviving her would've been disasterous, as would a successful Stone Beak.
As before, I had to deal with attacks that did slightly more damage than Benny's maximum HP (he has 960 here), and a partner who could get into a healing loop because of it. The scariest moment came near the end of the fight. A bad sequence of attacks could've meant a restart, but Benny pulled through to heal.
It's quite amazing that I managed to win this on the first go at it. Pazuzu can just screw you if he's in a bad mood. Four Vile Four down, four crystals restored, four coins to the tower. All that's left is a small mini dungeon called Mac's Ship and Doom Castle!
Next | Index
__________
Before moving onto the next area, I went and picked up the Exit spell from a battlefield in the Aquaria region. These areas present you with a series of ten battles, with an experience, gold, or item prize after. This was technically accessible as soon as it was dethawed, but it would've required fighting alone or backtracking with Reuben. Since none of the Fireburg dungeons had long walks to get out, I waited.
The enemies here were long past the point of relevancy. Only thing worth noting is that the Phanquids resisted wind, and Kaeli now comes with Cure, Heal, and Aero. She failed to one-shot some of them because of this.
To my displeasure, Kaeli was actually worse at fighting the Mummies than Tristam!! See, the AI does know about undead reversal on Cure spells, and Kaeli repeatedly used Cure in spite of them being weak to Aero as well and doing far more damage. It got even worse inside against this group of three. I had to retreat a couple times when the battle got too out of control, and even then, I believe I only won after she'd run herself dry and started throwing out Aero.
Thankfully, there were none of them after the first floor. The enemies varied; these Leeches and the Live Orks were weak to Kaeli's axe. Snipions' only real problem was their Doom Stinger.
The Ooze are an enemy worth noting. They're immune to white magic, and have a reflect effect against other magic. The AI doesn't know or care about this; it'll sometimes happily cast against them and get ravaged by its own spells. Kaeli never actually did this in the dungeon, but I was well aware that she could've.
Then you have the Mad Toads, who I believe are the first instance of a counterattacking enemy in this game. In their case, they poisoned. Not a significant threat since Kaeli had no White charges, but the flipside of it is, situations like this.
Gidrah was an encounter that took some thought. He's accompanied by two Skuldiers, enemies who are capable of using Spooky Laugh to confuse, Sleep Gas to sleep, and Doom Powder to instantly kill. Gidrah itself has a poison-touch counter much like those Mad Toads, as well as Stone Gas. Thankfully, Kaeli is immune to petrification. I went in at first with Kaeli with no White spellcharges. This naturally did not work so well, so I tried it with...only to find her spending too many turns healing, and again attacking the undead enemies with Cure.
So what I tried was to go in without any, then use a Seed on her after the Skuldiers had fallen. during the switchover. This proved too unreliable. I did need her to have White charges, and had to have Benny healing.
The biggest problem when the Skuldiers were down was poison-touch. I didn't want Kaeli to get caught in an alternating loop of heal, so I sometimes aimed a Heal at her. This was an extremely chaotic battle, consisting of predicting whatever came next. It certainly didn't help that she didn't start using Aero - which Gidrah is weak to - until late in the fight. I also used a Seed on Kaeli in the fight during a free turn, just to make sure she had enough spell charges
Thankfully, some of my status problems changed in Windia. The Cupid Locket protects against silence (useless), blind (a minor thorn), and confusion (YES!). With this, there are now more situations where Benny can cover his partner with impunity.
On Mount Gale were more of those Skuldiers, so this was welcome. What was not welcome were the Water Hags. These palette swaps of the Desert Hags (who appear green on the map, much like they appear gray) will use the Cure on any enemy in battle that's damaged. Extremely annoying, but they only seem able to use it so many times.
The other way around it was if Kaeli decided to use Aero. A single target spell would wipe one out in a single hit via 716 damage, and a multi-target one wouldn't make them Cure themselves, and allow the next Giant's Axe swing to bring them down. Another thought occurred that's technically within the ruleset was healing them myself after Kaeli damaged them above their own Cure threshold, but not all the way. I never got to employ it
I did find the ultimate helmet here, the Apollo Helm. It has no special properties over the Moon Helm aside from increasing stats a bit more, but no harm in picking it up.
Dullahan. The Vampires were only slightly annoying until I removed them. As for he himself, the esoterically named Headoomerang was his least threatening attack. Unfortunately, Sleep is one of the statuses that Benny still does not resist, so Hypno-sleep was a problem. More dangerous than that is Doom Dance, an attack that could instantly kill. Thankfully, it isn't guaranteed - fortunate because he once used it twice in a row. It nailed Benny and Kaeli a few times, necessitating the other springing into action.
A big problem I found in this fight, and in several actually, is Benny being at a low enough level so their attacks do over half his HP in damage. Rapier and Thunder Beam both did over 440 damage. So if the boss moves first and hits Benny, his partner would heal him instead of attacking! Pretty annoying, but not too painful to counter: just heal every round. I actually won it on the first attempt.
Aside: I saw him as some weird-faced monster, in his first form with the helmet as an eye, as a kid.
The next area of the game is the obnoxious Pazuzu's Tower. It's not necessarily as long as Lava Dome, but it is convoluted and can be just as annoying. Some of the more notable enemies here are the Beholders. Just like the Oozes, they repel magic. This time, I wasn't so lucky, and Kaeli did cast Aero on a few of them. They also have a Doom Gaze attack, which was fun to deal with, and like their palette swap, could Selfdestruct which was fun for other reasons.
This dungeon is sort of a puzzle. Pazuzu is omnipresent on every floor at first. When you talk to him, he'll taunts you and moves to a random floor except the 7th and the one you spoke with him on.
In the meantime, you have a tower of annoying enemies to climb. Kaeli cannot kill these things in one hit, and they have a few annoying attacks like Stone Gas. The worst I found, however, was not an attacker.
It was the Sorcerers. They often came in huge groups, and like their palette swaps, they love Cure. I eventually took to just holding down the speedup key on these bastards. They weren't any problem on the offensive side, it's just that they were a pain on this end. And they were everywhere. Thanatos were also capable of using this, though they were much less prone to doing so.
Fifth floor Pazuzu. In a speedrun setting, this is the third-best, after sixth and first. To battle him, you need to flick the switches on the even-numbered floors to stop the elevator from going by those floors and trap him. Otherwise, he'll run away when you encounter him again.
Before all that, I had to get through more Sorcerers, ugh. They took so long, holding down speedup felt smart. Nagas were the second-worst, with plenty of annoying status attacks. Chimeras often came with Sorcerers, and had poison-touch and Stone Gas much like Gidrah.
If he's stuck, you fight him!
Pazuzu has a lot of annoying attacks. Sky Attack which damaged both party members was of the least concern. He seemingly has an obnoxiously high crit rate. Piledriver and Typhoon can both do extreme damage on a bad diceroll. But the worst is something that isn't a true attack, rather something he activates on his fifth turn, then flips on and off every third turn after that. If you attack him with magic when he has Psychshield up...
This happens. Pazuzu despite being the wind-aligned of the Vile Four, is weak to the element. So when it wasn't up, Kaeli's efforts with this were not in vain. When it was though, I had to be very prompt in healing her. A critical before reviving her would've been disasterous, as would a successful Stone Beak.
As before, I had to deal with attacks that did slightly more damage than Benny's maximum HP (he has 960 here), and a partner who could get into a healing loop because of it. The scariest moment came near the end of the fight. A bad sequence of attacks could've meant a restart, but Benny pulled through to heal.
It's quite amazing that I managed to win this on the first go at it. Pazuzu can just screw you if he's in a bad mood. Four Vile Four down, four crystals restored, four coins to the tower. All that's left is a small mini dungeon called Mac's Ship and Doom Castle!
Next | Index
