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FF4 Solo FuSoYa Part III
Aug. 10th, 2016 04:36 am...you know what? We're doing this. It'll be interesting with FuSoYa's low HP.
Yang's trial was actually somewhat problematic, probably the hardest trial FuSoYa had to face. The monks beforehand were annoying. FuSoYa needed a Black Belt equipped to raise his evasion so he'd be able to dodge enough of their shots when charging Meteor. The final set required some healing in-battle with Curaga, particularly against the Drillmasters, who needed a Bio and a Meteor to beat.
Lunar Titan himself was at least easy. Unless otherwise mentioned, you can assume FuSoYa used Slow twice and Haste twice on any boss. Together with Float and Blink, it locked out all the danger he could pose. When he started using Crush repeatedly at the end, I just held down A and had FuSoYa attack physically rather than use an Elixir/more MP. He was no threat at that point.
Against Lunar Shiva, FuSoYa could either use Firaga or Flare on. I used the latter for most of the battle, but swapped to the former at the start in attempt to save MP and due to it doing 9999 every time. FuSoYa could survive a full power Ice Storm (with it doing around 2000 damage), so he used the time to set up. Nothing to it.
So remember how I was talking about the Lilith Rod? Well, these Lamia Queens have it as a semi-rare drop, so it's much more practical to get this. FuSoYa's Osmose has its problems which I've talked about before, and this helps to mitigate those and drain larger amounts of MP from anyone.
Although the sad thing is, trying to obtain this weapon made it so that I didn't have to get it. Enemies in here bleed money. I gave this a reasonable amount of attempts. When I'd gone through two Elixirs, decided that I'd just buy those from now on and keep moving forward.
0/10, game. What a joke. Got this in Rydia's trial. It's useless for FuSoYa, and questionable for her, as I'll discuss when I get to her solo. Rydia's trial itself was a simple Flarefest against the elemental summons - I didn't even bother with setting up except on Titan, and only because those muscles aren't for show - he could heavily damage the bearded man.
Lunar Dragon...I wanted to use Reflect to bounce back its Slows, but this also had the problem of making it so FuSoYa couldn't cast Blink on himself, short of Reflecting the Lunar Dragon as well. It wasn't too big a deal to heal the damage, at least.
Ran into the town floor on the way down, and was able to spend that money!!
Cecil's trial has a variety of tasks that tempt you with rare items. Taking them fails the trial. I ran into one such one that offers up a Golden Apple. I might not do it ordinarily for posterity, but with FuSoYa's critically low HP, I'll take anything I can get.
The Lunar Odin battle was really up to surviving the Zantetsukens. Luckily, the floors that show up in it are fixed when you enter the ruins, so I could get that Golden Apple again when I died, which I did a couple times. That Apple actually came within 8HP of being relevant on my winning run. The physicals could be healed, and the Holy could be Reflected. Silk, Shoes, and Lunar Curtain for Barrier to avoid needing to pay attention to the physicals...and that was enough to win the race before the double Zantetsuken. Of course, if it wasn't enough, I could've always just tossed out a lighting-elemental attack for the instakill.
Because FuSoYa really wants more HP, I go as far as the entrance to Kain's trial to try to get the personality test floor. I do get it, so that's 150 extra HP. I also get the dragon floor/the floor that has Perseus' Bow on it, which gives up a Soma Drop and a Golden Apple.
Speaking of, this floor is when I realized how great Black Magic users really are at trash-clearing. They can slaughter random encounters with a combination of Break on anything vulnerable, and Tornado on anything not. Little can really stand up to this. Enemies towards the end and in the postgame have a lot of HP, but against those spells, that means nothing. FuSoYa also has the supportive White spells, so he may well be the best at this
After going out to grab Rosa, Edge, and Kain for their trials, I went with the magical loop on Lunar Asura, also adding in Reflects on her to bounce her Curagas. I also used a Metamorpha encounter to my advantage, as everyone ended up revived at the beginning of this trial. Need to remember to revive Rosa so this doesn't happen, if I remember correctly, it doesn't happen if she's living.
Edge's trial had MP pots lying around, which were nice, but not really needed. One of the enemy groups in here is three Lamia Queens, although it's not common enough to try to farm.
Oh why yes, I am a showoff. I was checking its HP to see if I could get away with just a Bio to finish. I noted I might be able to do this. So I tried - I had FuSoYa unequip the Stardust Rod and use a Bio for around 1800 damage. A punch brought it to around 20 HP, and then I just sat back and waited for the HP leak to do its job. Interestingly, this overrides the death animation.
So this happened on the way to the next trial. I got them again and successfully beat them on the runback, however. The trick was to Slow them twice before unleashing Meteors, and even so, it was a tight thing. Got absolutely nothing out of it but the money. Also got another visit to the personality test floor.
Kain's trial exposed something interesting: the game did not automatically remove FuSoYa from the party. Just saved me from having to edit the memory again. I actually had to repeat it once due to mismanaging HP and dying, but otherwise, there's nothing to report here.
Mmmhmmm. Yup. Went from being trepedatious about using these to literally having more than I can use.
Nothing to say about Lunar Ramuh. Blink plus the usual carried him through.
The twins' trial also exposed the oddity with FuSoYa not being switched out...only it got even worse. His presence sometimes caused the wrong twin to end up in the wrong area when switching, and the status tiles affect/check for the twin that's supposed to be there. That said, he could cast the magic on them manually, so it wasn't obstructive. Lunar Leviathan got the usual treatment. Entangle, with FuSoYa's Spirit, was a nonthreat.
I did see Brach along the way, but there was no point in fighting the big dragon. FuSoYa would need the Adamant Armor or a ton of trips to the personality test floor to survive, and he can't even equip that Hero's Shield. Can't stress enough how silly that is. Only ZEG remained.
What's there to say? Shoes, Silk, Lunar Curtain, Grimoire LO. Besides having it to deal damage with his own Flares, Reflect (constantly refreshed by ZEG) was also important to bounce the incoming Flares, which were painful. I was experimenting around with the Battle Speed, putting it on 6 to see if that could trigger the fabled "HP Leak runs out before Whirl," but it was just short. However, FuSoYa did only end up facing two. He survived both times and quite handily put ZEG in the ground.
__________
FuSoYa really spoke for himself. Aside from that period in the Moon and Babel Giant, he completely dominated the game. The White spells bring a ton of support options to the table like Blink, Reflect, Curaga, Haste, and Slow. Whereas the Black spells like Break, Flare, and Bio do the heavy lifting. Osmose makes sure that he rarely ran out of MP, although finding the right monsters to restock on was quite frustrating at times. HP was an issue for some of the game, and MP was a small issue up to where it started growing beyond level 70. He had enough to reasonably work with at the end.
The consistent domination surprised me. I was expecting him to drop off a cliff in effectiveness at the end, but once he had enough post-70 growths, that really didn't happen. In the postgame, he was still able to perform very well, thanks to Slow/Haste/Blink and Flare. And the only thing that really hit hard enough to be a serious threat to his low HP was Lunar Odin. His only weakness was his lower stats, which needed careful attention to be adequate in the end and postgame. Even then, they weren't as high as the dedicated mages. His magical versatility more than made up for it.
Next up is the polar opposite of FuSoYa when it comes to stats. Also one of the last 'original' characters, and more challenging ones to boot. Maybe.
Index
Yang's trial was actually somewhat problematic, probably the hardest trial FuSoYa had to face. The monks beforehand were annoying. FuSoYa needed a Black Belt equipped to raise his evasion so he'd be able to dodge enough of their shots when charging Meteor. The final set required some healing in-battle with Curaga, particularly against the Drillmasters, who needed a Bio and a Meteor to beat.
Lunar Titan himself was at least easy. Unless otherwise mentioned, you can assume FuSoYa used Slow twice and Haste twice on any boss. Together with Float and Blink, it locked out all the danger he could pose. When he started using Crush repeatedly at the end, I just held down A and had FuSoYa attack physically rather than use an Elixir/more MP. He was no threat at that point.
Against Lunar Shiva, FuSoYa could either use Firaga or Flare on. I used the latter for most of the battle, but swapped to the former at the start in attempt to save MP and due to it doing 9999 every time. FuSoYa could survive a full power Ice Storm (with it doing around 2000 damage), so he used the time to set up. Nothing to it.
So remember how I was talking about the Lilith Rod? Well, these Lamia Queens have it as a semi-rare drop, so it's much more practical to get this. FuSoYa's Osmose has its problems which I've talked about before, and this helps to mitigate those and drain larger amounts of MP from anyone.
Although the sad thing is, trying to obtain this weapon made it so that I didn't have to get it. Enemies in here bleed money. I gave this a reasonable amount of attempts. When I'd gone through two Elixirs, decided that I'd just buy those from now on and keep moving forward.
0/10, game. What a joke. Got this in Rydia's trial. It's useless for FuSoYa, and questionable for her, as I'll discuss when I get to her solo. Rydia's trial itself was a simple Flarefest against the elemental summons - I didn't even bother with setting up except on Titan, and only because those muscles aren't for show - he could heavily damage the bearded man.
Lunar Dragon...I wanted to use Reflect to bounce back its Slows, but this also had the problem of making it so FuSoYa couldn't cast Blink on himself, short of Reflecting the Lunar Dragon as well. It wasn't too big a deal to heal the damage, at least.
Ran into the town floor on the way down, and was able to spend that money!!
Cecil's trial has a variety of tasks that tempt you with rare items. Taking them fails the trial. I ran into one such one that offers up a Golden Apple. I might not do it ordinarily for posterity, but with FuSoYa's critically low HP, I'll take anything I can get.
The Lunar Odin battle was really up to surviving the Zantetsukens. Luckily, the floors that show up in it are fixed when you enter the ruins, so I could get that Golden Apple again when I died, which I did a couple times. That Apple actually came within 8HP of being relevant on my winning run. The physicals could be healed, and the Holy could be Reflected. Silk, Shoes, and Lunar Curtain for Barrier to avoid needing to pay attention to the physicals...and that was enough to win the race before the double Zantetsuken. Of course, if it wasn't enough, I could've always just tossed out a lighting-elemental attack for the instakill.
Because FuSoYa really wants more HP, I go as far as the entrance to Kain's trial to try to get the personality test floor. I do get it, so that's 150 extra HP. I also get the dragon floor/the floor that has Perseus' Bow on it, which gives up a Soma Drop and a Golden Apple.
Speaking of, this floor is when I realized how great Black Magic users really are at trash-clearing. They can slaughter random encounters with a combination of Break on anything vulnerable, and Tornado on anything not. Little can really stand up to this. Enemies towards the end and in the postgame have a lot of HP, but against those spells, that means nothing. FuSoYa also has the supportive White spells, so he may well be the best at this
After going out to grab Rosa, Edge, and Kain for their trials, I went with the magical loop on Lunar Asura, also adding in Reflects on her to bounce her Curagas. I also used a Metamorpha encounter to my advantage, as everyone ended up revived at the beginning of this trial. Need to remember to revive Rosa so this doesn't happen, if I remember correctly, it doesn't happen if she's living.
Edge's trial had MP pots lying around, which were nice, but not really needed. One of the enemy groups in here is three Lamia Queens, although it's not common enough to try to farm.
Oh why yes, I am a showoff. I was checking its HP to see if I could get away with just a Bio to finish. I noted I might be able to do this. So I tried - I had FuSoYa unequip the Stardust Rod and use a Bio for around 1800 damage. A punch brought it to around 20 HP, and then I just sat back and waited for the HP leak to do its job. Interestingly, this overrides the death animation.
So this happened on the way to the next trial. I got them again and successfully beat them on the runback, however. The trick was to Slow them twice before unleashing Meteors, and even so, it was a tight thing. Got absolutely nothing out of it but the money. Also got another visit to the personality test floor.
Kain's trial exposed something interesting: the game did not automatically remove FuSoYa from the party. Just saved me from having to edit the memory again. I actually had to repeat it once due to mismanaging HP and dying, but otherwise, there's nothing to report here.
Mmmhmmm. Yup. Went from being trepedatious about using these to literally having more than I can use.
Nothing to say about Lunar Ramuh. Blink plus the usual carried him through.
The twins' trial also exposed the oddity with FuSoYa not being switched out...only it got even worse. His presence sometimes caused the wrong twin to end up in the wrong area when switching, and the status tiles affect/check for the twin that's supposed to be there. That said, he could cast the magic on them manually, so it wasn't obstructive. Lunar Leviathan got the usual treatment. Entangle, with FuSoYa's Spirit, was a nonthreat.
I did see Brach along the way, but there was no point in fighting the big dragon. FuSoYa would need the Adamant Armor or a ton of trips to the personality test floor to survive, and he can't even equip that Hero's Shield. Can't stress enough how silly that is. Only ZEG remained.
What's there to say? Shoes, Silk, Lunar Curtain, Grimoire LO. Besides having it to deal damage with his own Flares, Reflect (constantly refreshed by ZEG) was also important to bounce the incoming Flares, which were painful. I was experimenting around with the Battle Speed, putting it on 6 to see if that could trigger the fabled "HP Leak runs out before Whirl," but it was just short. However, FuSoYa did only end up facing two. He survived both times and quite handily put ZEG in the ground.
__________
FuSoYa really spoke for himself. Aside from that period in the Moon and Babel Giant, he completely dominated the game. The White spells bring a ton of support options to the table like Blink, Reflect, Curaga, Haste, and Slow. Whereas the Black spells like Break, Flare, and Bio do the heavy lifting. Osmose makes sure that he rarely ran out of MP, although finding the right monsters to restock on was quite frustrating at times. HP was an issue for some of the game, and MP was a small issue up to where it started growing beyond level 70. He had enough to reasonably work with at the end.
The consistent domination surprised me. I was expecting him to drop off a cliff in effectiveness at the end, but once he had enough post-70 growths, that really didn't happen. In the postgame, he was still able to perform very well, thanks to Slow/Haste/Blink and Flare. And the only thing that really hit hard enough to be a serious threat to his low HP was Lunar Odin. His only weakness was his lower stats, which needed careful attention to be adequate in the end and postgame. Even then, they weren't as high as the dedicated mages. His magical versatility more than made up for it.
Next up is the polar opposite of FuSoYa when it comes to stats. Also one of the last 'original' characters, and more challenging ones to boot. Maybe.
Index
