FFL2 Solo Mutant Part III

I'll open the third part of this report by showing off the fruits of my labor! P-Blast is fantastic, doing nearly double the damage that Blizzard would do. It was so worth it. Here's a stat checkup as well. Toma's HP was lagging a bit, though his MANA was okay.


But Echigoya's place in Edo offered something even better than P-Blast. The Flare spellbook is the strongest attack a Mutant can do in this game. It's also ridiculously expensive and a limited resource, so at this point it's more of a tactical nuke. He also carries Dragon Helmets, which are the best in the game, sporting 7 more DEF over the Giant Helmet, so Toma naturally purchased one. Although despite this picture showing both in my inventory, I reset and elected not to buy a Flare Book just yet.


So that opportunity I was talking about to possibly learn an extra skill? Right here. The Hatamotos in Edo are of DS-B. Just like Dunatis, a Mutant is capable of learning any ability in the game from them. Why didn't I use them instead of the Watchers? Or why not use them in tandem? Well, these guys are MUCH harder for Toma to take down, is the main reason. Their individual attacks do 100 damage apiece, so I'd have to hope to roll only a few and/or a lot of them to use X-Cure. The other reason being, screw doing more ability grinding.

But really, aside from another shot of P-Blast (you can get duplicates!), what really is there? There's no need for any other O-Ability due to O-All. Status stuff is situational. Flare is inferior as discussed. I thought Touch would be nice, but it needs AGL to hit which Toma can't have yet. Recover (heals 10% MaxHP after each round) might be useful for Apollo, but even at this Mana level, Toma is already recovering almost enough HP without Mana MAGI. He definitely would be by the time I get to Apollo. And of course I'll be winning most randoms in one round anyway. The basic elemental spells of DS-1 and DS-2 are actually quite solid to keep around.


I tried for a while anyway, and did indeed come up with Flare within a few minutes. Classic. Another P-Blast would've been amazing. I gave keeping this result some thought. The power of Thunder was waning a bit. It couldn't even consistently wipe out groups. I more than likely would be throwing out P-Blasts at every random that isn't a singular group moving forward, and using Elixirs to heal/restore its uses as need be. Flare ability effectively gives me five more slightly stronger shots of that. I can still use spellbooks if I want to conserve ability uses or hit singular groups. So there we go.


Two items were of note in the ship. The Hecate Shoes give a +15 to MANA! Very good item, but not something I want to have on all the time. See, remember how the chances of stat boosts are calculated? Well, they take your stat including equipment into account. In other words, this is something to equip for boss fights to give that extra kick, but not for everyday travel or when I want to see that number naturally increase. The other being the Tank, for reasons I'll get to briefly.


After the events of the ship, I went ahead and purchased three Flare spellbooks. That plus one or two free ones that are coming up should be more than enough until Toma reaches the Final Town, where he'll be able to buy more. One each for Magnate, Odin, and Minion. This left exactly one open slot in Toma's inventory. Since it really didn't seem practical to keep it that way, I had Toma use the three Power potions he had. No point in not doing so, given STR can't naturally increase for him. He kept the two Magic and two Speed in his inventory for now, however.


So the Tank. I only vaguely mentioned it in my four Robots playthrough, but Tank is one of several of its kind of weapons, like SMG and the like. They never miss, hit an entire group, and have a fixed base damage. However, Tank has another property. It blocks melee attacks at 70% odds. Against the nine Hatamotos that accompanied Echigoya, Toma would ordinarily not stand a chance. But crammed into this thing, he was safe from their swords. All he needed to do was hope they used Katana or X-Cure instead of Magnum or Bazooka (which are ranged, so Tank can't stop them).


With this, I bought three Elixiers, which I figured would be enough for Castle Edo. I used the first of these in the first treasure room, which had this Ninja Gauntlet (boosted DEF by 4 more over the Giant Gauntlet), a Body Potion, and a Missile. I didn't actually have the room for the last one. I'd been holding onto Revenge (a countering weapon) since I got it, and decided to give it a whirl. The results were better than they were for Mamizou as a Moaner, but still disappointing. So into the trash it went. Maybe for Solo Human, this tactic will finally get its chance to shine.

So one more slot freed up. I was also keeping the Giant equipment around, but I have a specific use for it in mind later. On the other hand, all of them can be rebought, and I presently have enough GP so that it'll just be a small sting. So those are next on the chopping block. But ultimately, I ended up leaving the Missile, the Dragon Sword, and the Samurai Bow behind. If I want to grab them later, I'm able to do that. May as well keep space for the important stuff for now.


This enemy group, as well as its variants with no Ninjas and Knights, was one of interest. It's pulled at the very start of the Castle as a fixed encounter, and so you can't run from it. This extends to the random encounter version later on, too. Too many of them could wipe out Toma and force a reset if his health was low going into the battle. Thankfully though he was destroyed by it a few times, saving frequently as so not to lose Flare set it up so that I never lost much progress when it did show up at the wrong moment.

Sho-Gun was as per the norm for any FFL2 playthrough, completely nonthreatening. Throughout Castle Edo, Toma was able to gain over 100 extra HP, in addition to the 100 he obtained through the rest of the world, putting him back on track. By contrast, he only gained 4 MANA total the entire world. Because of this, I wanted to farm an extra stat point off him and did. So boring that I didn't even take a picture.


Fighting a Dolphin wasn't too bad. Toma just used Flare and P-Blast, healing with a Cure Book - replacing the Hermes Shoes for this fight - when he was at low HP. The living statue tended to stick to using its physicals (which did around 60 damage for Fin and 135 for Tusk) and Blitz (which lowered AGL, pointlessly), rather than its Whirls which did 350. That was appreciated in getting the kill.


He broke out a Flare Book for Magnate, which put out impressive numbers. As for the villain's own damage output: Thunder did nothing thanks to O-All, Katana did around 200, Vulcan did 230ish, and Tornado did around 350. Toma's Cure healed about 550 each time. So as long as Magnate didn't use Tornado twice in a row, the mutant/esper could heal after every point of damage taken.


And then I got into an immediate battle after regaining control. Toma P-Blasted everything, and then this happened. I didn't save after Sho-Gun, so RESET. It worked out though, as Toma got a quick Mana Up against Sho-Gun, was able to score another on Magnate, and even had good enough damage rolls to get him in 9 instead of 10.

I quickly picked up the Pegasus MAGI in the Nasty Dungeon, choosing to save exploring it until shortly later. Moving onto Valhalla Palace, a particular weapon awaited Toma in the very first room...


So for the most part, Toma has simply been raising his MANA and HP. However, with this new weapon, he can officially start raising DEF. The bad news is, stat boosts take your current stat into consideration, equipment included. This is troublesome due to needing to equip the Giant equipment to deal damage with it (and is also why I haven't been having Toma use the Hecate Shoes), though the Power potions helped in that regard. The good news is, Defend Sword blocks melee attacks at 80% odds on its own.

Note that there exist only two fixed Defend Swords in the game. The other is deep in the Nasty Dungeon. This one is much more accessible, needless to say. More can be obtained as drops from Paladins in the Center of the World.


Our good friend the Hermit was the punching bag of choice. A fixed encounter with a single enemy with a DS of 7. With an extra Power Potion from the Nasty Dungeon, Toma's natural STR was 17. Each piece of Giant equipment gives 10 to STR...but 37 plus the Power MAGI was enough to one-shot the Hermit (392HP), so I had Toma forgo the Giant Armor. 23 DEF instead of 43 helps the chances of getting boosts! Toma could wear less armor, but getting the most out of each Defend Sword is more worthwhile in the long run than even higher odds of stat increase. Hermes Shoes provided AGL to actually hit with the weapon.

The other way to raise DEF - technically requiring no armor at all - would be via confusion, using shields while the enemy kills itself. If it ever does - a lot of them love doing nothing. Obviously the Defend Sword is much easier and more practical, but that method may see use if I feel like bumping it a few points after gaining them with the swords becomes impractical. With that in mind, Toma could still two-shot the Hermit with the Power MAGI and without any of the Giant equipment.


This was surprisingly not painful in the slightest. So much so I doubted for a moment whether the calculations for a stat-up factor in equipment. I checked the game's memory, searching for values matching Toma's raw DEF stat. After a boost I searched for the updated value and came up with no results. There is simply C20E, his full stat. So yes, it does factor in boosts. Even better relevant to the ease, just soft resetting the game respawns the Hermit. No need to go in and out of the room all the time.


When Toma hit 49 DEF total, I thought that would be it for the easy stat gains, or even stat gains altogether. According to the formula and integer math, his DS would be 7. And it did in fact slow down. But every time I went "okay time to say it slowed down in the report", he got another DEF boost. 56 is when it hit DS-8, and that seemed to stall it. I wrote that and it increased again after a bit more trying to make the number of remaining uses even.

To point out something the more astute reader may have already noticed: the effective DS level of a stat is not a constant increase due to how it's calculated - remember, S / ((S / 20) + 5). For example with 56, the denominator would be 7 (dropping all remainders in division). Making that calculation gives an even DS-8. But were it to hit 60, the denominator would be 8. 60/8 is 7.5, or DS-7. Here's a full list of the equivalent DS level for each stat value.

Anyway, with the stat still able to be pushed higher after all, I had Toma keep pushing it. Rode this crazy train this far, may as well go all the way. And eventually...


40 uses of the Defend Sword, 40 increases of DEF. With this, Toma could put on the proper armor and attain a grand total of 94 DEF. Now I felt ready to dive into my next objective.


As an aside, I had a suspicion confirmed here that Thunder is the most neutral attacking element. No enemy in the game carries O-Thunder - not even Thunder birds - compared to the 21 that have O-Fire or 6 with O-Ice. In fact, O-Thunder doesn't actually exist as an ability in the code. It's not perfect of course, since some do have O-Damage, but when it comes to hitting just about anything for damage it's unquestionably the best. I bring this up because I thought I was nearly caught having to run against a SnowCat enemy, when Toma was out of P-Blasts and Flares with an Ice spellbook equipped. I did take them out, without needing to use the spellbook, and checking after revealed that they actually don't have O-Ice.

But Thunder is not the best element, however. When it comes to hitting weaknesses, 19 have X-Fire, 33 have X-Ice, and 10 have X-Thunder. Of the monsters that do have O-Ice, two are Center of the World exclusive and two are player exclusive - the other two are Ghast and Ice Crab. So Ice is the best overall element. I am at the point though where those two enemies are relevant, so for now, Toma will be packing Thunder books.

Diversionary discussions regarding the effectiveness of elements aside and getting back to the task at hand, the Nasty Dungeon contains another Defend Sword. But more important than getting even more DEF was...well, still getting even more DEF. Due to limited inventory space, I chose to forgo picking up the majority of the items. Toma's use for the bulk of them was questionable anyway.


And here on the sixth floor is the Parasuit, the ultimate armor. This thing adds a massive 73 to DEF for humanoids. It has O-Fire, O-Ice, and O-Change on it. It even grants a bonus of +15 to STR and AGL. And it gets it all done in one armor slot. Non-Robots (who only get +32 and can stack armor as usual) must/get to unequip all other pieces of armor to wear it.

You might be thinking that there must be some sort of catch. Maybe it isn't as efficient? Well...not really. The best of the rest: Arthur Armor (+31, O-Stone), Dragon Helmet (+20, O-Para), Ninja Gauntlet (+10, O-Weapon), and Hecate Shoes (+6, +15 MANA) is only 67 DEF, and all the status immunities are granted by Parasuit. The only real reason not to use it is if you want some of the things that it can't offer, such as Dragon Armor's total elemental immunity, Hecate's MANA boost, or the Giant equipment's STR boosts. There's also two in the game!


This frees up a ton of inventory space for the character. More than I know what to do with! And yes, just like with Robots being able to pump their stats far higher than what is displayed, Toma actually has 113 DEF here: the 40 natural that he'd built up, plus the 73 from the Parasuit. Toma could theoretically have a grand total of 172, but this is still more than enough for now.


Also in this little alcove are two interesting weapons, both with 30 uses. The Psi Gun deals MANA*12 weapon to a group. Sadly a weapon that is truly limited in this game. The only ones you can get are here and in the Final Dungeon; no enemy drops them. The other is the Vampic Sword. It deals MANA*6 damage, and can absorb HP from anything that isn't a God, Plant, Hard, or Undead-type enemy. Just like with similar skills that served me well in past challenges, this will come in handy on a few specific bosses.

This feels like a good final breakpoint. Next time, I'll clean up what's left of this game and complete this challenge.

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