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FF1 No Items Part III
Sep. 20th, 2019 03:52 pmI decided to take an unorthodox approach to the lategame: I wanted to prepare as much as possible before taking on each fiend. Either way, this meant buying that expensive BOTTLE and heading into the Sea Shrine next.
The new equipment was paying off. What was now an excellent pointman, surpassing Buff. And now both he and Buff could do respectable damage. The going was really smooth. Whenever WzSAHAG/R.SAHAG groups showed up, I could unload with LIT2. Just the one from Buff was enough, them doing little enough to not need Zeus' contribution. My party was now strong enough with enough charges that I could actually take some runnable encounters if I wanted to.
I picked up the Opal Bracelet and SLAB from the bottom level and EXITed out. This would primarily be Buff's: he needs it more than the WWs do, and with the eventual ProCape it puts him almost on par with the Ninja. His options don't open up nearly as much upon class change, unfortunately.
I got the CHIME, and made this pickup, the latest weapon upgrade for What. It sports 32/30 offenses. It's something that Red Mages can equip as well, and in fact is probably their best weapon since they don't get Defense. With class change however, they can - Defense's similar statistics and higher critical rate put it just ahead.
So what next? Sky Castle, I guess! This would lead to What's final weapon upgrade excepting maybe giving him the Masmune, and much much more. The Blue D was never a threat any of the times I encountered it. ALIT neutered it for the most part, and even when it got it off beforehand, I had enough spell charges that it wasn't too terrible to recover from.
ProRing number one! There's two to get here.
And naturally two battles later I see an EYE who hits the one person it could've with XXXX. Instant death really takes a lot to recover from with just spells: a LIF2 charge, or LIFE (spending a CUR3/HEL2) and several others to heal up. I got another EYE after that, but it played nicer. Once I got the second Ribbon in here, it went directly to Gard.
White Shirt is preliminarily just an armor upgrade for a WM - while it's no better than a Gold Bracelet in terms of defense (in fact, siightly worse due to being 2 weight instead of 1), the resistances to Fire and Death make up for it slightly. But more importantly, the Katana!
This weapon is exclusive to Ninjas. Its offenses are 33/35, which are the third-best in the game behind XCalber and Masmune. It's also third to last on the item ID list, so it has a high critical rate. The downside is the critical hit bug: this weapon would have had a 30 crit chance if not for it - by far the best with only the Vorpal tying. While the bug actually gives it more at 38, it gives a lot of other weapons a ton as well. One of the many reasons Thief/Ninja lost its niche in this game.
And here's ProCape. I gave it to Buff for now. The smart thing to do later might be to give this and the other one to the WWs - he's still stuck with a Buckler unfortunately. For the time being however, I felt it better to have it on him. I EXITed out after collecting this to keep the items saved, before making my final run of the tower.
Mirage Tower and Sky Castle are relatively straightforward if you just head directly to the goal. It wasn't very long until I reached the last floor and--
...no WarMECH? What is this nonsense? Well, not that it would've mattered, I would've run away from it instead of throwing myself into suicide. I definitely need more power before I can take it on, or more specifically, more HEL2 and HEL3.
Anyway, I topped off almost fully before heading into the fight. This would be the first time I would get to use FAST with What and Buff on the same turn. Looked forward to seeing what they could do!
Uh, well. At least this isn't necessarily a problem with Ninja itself: TIAMAT sports 80 defense. Breaking through it, especially at lower levels, is a matter of critical hits. The other offensive classes of course get more hits to try this with.
Things started going wrong about here. Mend wasn't one of the Ribbon holders, so that was the end of her.
Compounding this was getting very bad luck. Where are all the criticals here?!
I was slowly plinking the big dragon down. I hadn't been able to get up AFIR however: Gard was spending too many turns making up the deficit from losing Mend, so the followup THUNDER on the next turn did in Buff.
Gard kept What healthy, but BLAZE exactly killed him.
And then TIAMAT started with the criticals. Welp, see ya.
Well, only thing to do was try again. Buff and What's next hit was a way's off - I'll have to hit level 29 for both of them to get it, so all grinding would do would be giving more health and spells. I didn't do anything wrong in that fight, I just got supremely unlucky. Clearly, wasted it all not seeing WarMECH.
Here's a fun bit of strategy I employed, something that I did several times moving forward in fact: I got into a fight that wasn't very threatening and cast HEL2. This is 48 power in-combat compared to CUR3's 66, but spread across the whole party. More than worth it!
THERE WE GO. That's more like it! Also hey, no WarMECH again! I would've been able to recover from an appearance anyway, but I guess the meme is dead for now.
This went as smoothly as it could've gone. Instead of getting bad luck in the worst places, I got good luck where I needed to. Plenty of strong hits, and I got everything up..
In no time at all, I'd reduced the dragon's HP to nothing.
Well, Gurgu Volcano next, I guess. I took a lot of damage from the lava, but by now had enough HEL2 charges to recover. BULLs were decent opponents to heal against, having little in the way of attack.
As usual with my fights against KARY who are able to, the fatal combination of SLOW and AFIR made sure she couldn't do anything to me.
This one was over in a matter of turns. I had nothing to get in here...except for Flame Shield or Armor - statistically the same as Ice, but able to cover multiple elemental resistances. So a differing pair of them would be best. Something for a return trip, I guess.
Finally, the Sea Shrine. Here you can see LIT2 in action against this group as I mentioned. I had What physically attack the WzSAHAG while having Buff use LIT2, and cleaned up from there. This is an unrunnable encounter, so it's a good thing I can fight it effectively.
This unrunnable encounter...is far more dangerous. It was worth throwing out HRM2 against them even though it meant a CUR2 charge, as them being dead sooner meant potentially using less healing charges. Of course when they kill you with their massive attack, there's not much you can do.
I had enough spell charges to recover from that...then I got GHOSTs who did it again! The run in was wrecked at this point: I had no healing left. I mean I was going to EXIT out and head back to heal anyway, then go through it again my usual way for this variant. But that just incentivized it more than before. So I got what there was left to collect and left.
Since I was close to leveling too, I obtained level 19 on the outside. Aside, this small strip of unforested land here? It's an anti Peninsula of Power: you'll only run into IMPs here. Amusing, but unhelpful. That aside, I got What his level 3 spells to potentially help out in wiping out those GHOSTs moving forward.
It ended up not mattering: none of them showed up, and only very small groups of WATERs were of note. I had plenty of healing left by the time I made it to KRAKEN. Last fiend to fight, here we go.
Fantastic start.
Okay, good. Aside from instantly killing Gard, that was actually good. I'll take an instant successful SLOW and one death. Good thing, he attacked Mend next turn, for like no damage.
From here and with ALIT up, there was no threat to be had from the octopus anymore.
That's it, all four ORBs lit! Of course, I have some major leveling to do from here. Not even having CUR4 isn't going to cut it for the marathon that is Temple of Fiends past. That's going to be the real test of the challenge. Not sure how much I'm going to need. Can I make it through LICH's NUKE and all the Gas Ds and friends with no healing except for spells? That remains to be seen.
As for Thief so far...it's been doing all right. Definitely a longer term investment, however. I'll have much more to say about it at the end, but I don't regret taking it or feel it's been a completely incorrect choice. We'll see how well it does in the endgame, next time!
Next | Index
...
One more thing.
If it's not going to show up on its own, I'm going to take the fight to it. In theory. Checking the encounter table, I got there on dry spells the first two times, so I just reset. As I got there the third time, I saw MudGOL/SORCERER, SLIMEs, AIRs...and AIRs! It's coming up, so I fully healed before the fight!
Well, saw that one coming.
Not even giving me a chance, sheesh.
ABORT! Didn't help that HEL2 went off at the wrong time on turn 1. Definitely need a bit of luck just on the opening here. But I'll be back to formally do this after the grind.
The new equipment was paying off. What was now an excellent pointman, surpassing Buff. And now both he and Buff could do respectable damage. The going was really smooth. Whenever WzSAHAG/R.SAHAG groups showed up, I could unload with LIT2. Just the one from Buff was enough, them doing little enough to not need Zeus' contribution. My party was now strong enough with enough charges that I could actually take some runnable encounters if I wanted to.
I picked up the Opal Bracelet and SLAB from the bottom level and EXITed out. This would primarily be Buff's: he needs it more than the WWs do, and with the eventual ProCape it puts him almost on par with the Ninja. His options don't open up nearly as much upon class change, unfortunately.
I got the CHIME, and made this pickup, the latest weapon upgrade for What. It sports 32/30 offenses. It's something that Red Mages can equip as well, and in fact is probably their best weapon since they don't get Defense. With class change however, they can - Defense's similar statistics and higher critical rate put it just ahead.
So what next? Sky Castle, I guess! This would lead to What's final weapon upgrade excepting maybe giving him the Masmune, and much much more. The Blue D was never a threat any of the times I encountered it. ALIT neutered it for the most part, and even when it got it off beforehand, I had enough spell charges that it wasn't too terrible to recover from.
ProRing number one! There's two to get here.
And naturally two battles later I see an EYE who hits the one person it could've with XXXX. Instant death really takes a lot to recover from with just spells: a LIF2 charge, or LIFE (spending a CUR3/HEL2) and several others to heal up. I got another EYE after that, but it played nicer. Once I got the second Ribbon in here, it went directly to Gard.
White Shirt is preliminarily just an armor upgrade for a WM - while it's no better than a Gold Bracelet in terms of defense (in fact, siightly worse due to being 2 weight instead of 1), the resistances to Fire and Death make up for it slightly. But more importantly, the Katana!
This weapon is exclusive to Ninjas. Its offenses are 33/35, which are the third-best in the game behind XCalber and Masmune. It's also third to last on the item ID list, so it has a high critical rate. The downside is the critical hit bug: this weapon would have had a 30 crit chance if not for it - by far the best with only the Vorpal tying. While the bug actually gives it more at 38, it gives a lot of other weapons a ton as well. One of the many reasons Thief/Ninja lost its niche in this game.
And here's ProCape. I gave it to Buff for now. The smart thing to do later might be to give this and the other one to the WWs - he's still stuck with a Buckler unfortunately. For the time being however, I felt it better to have it on him. I EXITed out after collecting this to keep the items saved, before making my final run of the tower.
Mirage Tower and Sky Castle are relatively straightforward if you just head directly to the goal. It wasn't very long until I reached the last floor and--
...no WarMECH? What is this nonsense? Well, not that it would've mattered, I would've run away from it instead of throwing myself into suicide. I definitely need more power before I can take it on, or more specifically, more HEL2 and HEL3.
Anyway, I topped off almost fully before heading into the fight. This would be the first time I would get to use FAST with What and Buff on the same turn. Looked forward to seeing what they could do!
Uh, well. At least this isn't necessarily a problem with Ninja itself: TIAMAT sports 80 defense. Breaking through it, especially at lower levels, is a matter of critical hits. The other offensive classes of course get more hits to try this with.
Things started going wrong about here. Mend wasn't one of the Ribbon holders, so that was the end of her.
Compounding this was getting very bad luck. Where are all the criticals here?!
I was slowly plinking the big dragon down. I hadn't been able to get up AFIR however: Gard was spending too many turns making up the deficit from losing Mend, so the followup THUNDER on the next turn did in Buff.
Gard kept What healthy, but BLAZE exactly killed him.
And then TIAMAT started with the criticals. Welp, see ya.
Well, only thing to do was try again. Buff and What's next hit was a way's off - I'll have to hit level 29 for both of them to get it, so all grinding would do would be giving more health and spells. I didn't do anything wrong in that fight, I just got supremely unlucky. Clearly, wasted it all not seeing WarMECH.
Here's a fun bit of strategy I employed, something that I did several times moving forward in fact: I got into a fight that wasn't very threatening and cast HEL2. This is 48 power in-combat compared to CUR3's 66, but spread across the whole party. More than worth it!
THERE WE GO. That's more like it! Also hey, no WarMECH again! I would've been able to recover from an appearance anyway, but I guess the meme is dead for now.
This went as smoothly as it could've gone. Instead of getting bad luck in the worst places, I got good luck where I needed to. Plenty of strong hits, and I got everything up..
In no time at all, I'd reduced the dragon's HP to nothing.
Well, Gurgu Volcano next, I guess. I took a lot of damage from the lava, but by now had enough HEL2 charges to recover. BULLs were decent opponents to heal against, having little in the way of attack.
As usual with my fights against KARY who are able to, the fatal combination of SLOW and AFIR made sure she couldn't do anything to me.
This one was over in a matter of turns. I had nothing to get in here...except for Flame Shield or Armor - statistically the same as Ice, but able to cover multiple elemental resistances. So a differing pair of them would be best. Something for a return trip, I guess.
Finally, the Sea Shrine. Here you can see LIT2 in action against this group as I mentioned. I had What physically attack the WzSAHAG while having Buff use LIT2, and cleaned up from there. This is an unrunnable encounter, so it's a good thing I can fight it effectively.
This unrunnable encounter...is far more dangerous. It was worth throwing out HRM2 against them even though it meant a CUR2 charge, as them being dead sooner meant potentially using less healing charges. Of course when they kill you with their massive attack, there's not much you can do.
I had enough spell charges to recover from that...then I got GHOSTs who did it again! The run in was wrecked at this point: I had no healing left. I mean I was going to EXIT out and head back to heal anyway, then go through it again my usual way for this variant. But that just incentivized it more than before. So I got what there was left to collect and left.
Since I was close to leveling too, I obtained level 19 on the outside. Aside, this small strip of unforested land here? It's an anti Peninsula of Power: you'll only run into IMPs here. Amusing, but unhelpful. That aside, I got What his level 3 spells to potentially help out in wiping out those GHOSTs moving forward.
It ended up not mattering: none of them showed up, and only very small groups of WATERs were of note. I had plenty of healing left by the time I made it to KRAKEN. Last fiend to fight, here we go.
Fantastic start.
Okay, good. Aside from instantly killing Gard, that was actually good. I'll take an instant successful SLOW and one death. Good thing, he attacked Mend next turn, for like no damage.
From here and with ALIT up, there was no threat to be had from the octopus anymore.
That's it, all four ORBs lit! Of course, I have some major leveling to do from here. Not even having CUR4 isn't going to cut it for the marathon that is Temple of Fiends past. That's going to be the real test of the challenge. Not sure how much I'm going to need. Can I make it through LICH's NUKE and all the Gas Ds and friends with no healing except for spells? That remains to be seen.
As for Thief so far...it's been doing all right. Definitely a longer term investment, however. I'll have much more to say about it at the end, but I don't regret taking it or feel it's been a completely incorrect choice. We'll see how well it does in the endgame, next time!
Next | Index
...
One more thing.
If it's not going to show up on its own, I'm going to take the fight to it. In theory. Checking the encounter table, I got there on dry spells the first two times, so I just reset. As I got there the third time, I saw MudGOL/SORCERER, SLIMEs, AIRs...and AIRs! It's coming up, so I fully healed before the fight!
Well, saw that one coming.
Not even giving me a chance, sheesh.
ABORT! Didn't help that HEL2 went off at the wrong time on turn 1. Definitely need a bit of luck just on the opening here. But I'll be back to formally do this after the grind.
