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FF5 Four Job Fiesta(s) 2023
Jun. 19th, 2023 02:42 pmI decided to do my first fiesta run in close to a decade. This run is Meteor (meaning all jobs, including Freelancer and Mime, can appear anywhere at any time) with an Extra Job (meaning you can replace one of your jobs with one of the non-Necromancer GBA jobs when you formally get them)
My start was with White Mage. It's slow, but it's fairly easy if you know what you're doing. I took the time to get to Lv8 before Karlabos, it doesn't hurt to have buffer. I also made sure to get two extra pairs of Leather Shoes beforehand. No problem with the lobster, and they arguably have the easiest time in the Ship Graveyard. Despite slowing Galuf (Flail user, didn't bother to switch it), Siren died in one undead cycle. I could've waited out Magisa's 200MP but just went for it. The Drains stopped and she fell. Her husband was rendered impotent with Protect. The elephant was similar: I had only Galuf attacking with the Flail, everyone else defended or healed.
Second class? Samurai. I use a job unlock code because why wouldn't you use it if you're using Volcano or Meteor? But I need that money for other things and throwing it would be a bit dull. Besides, Samurai is plenty strong without it. It was great to have actual physical damage though - previous dungeons had been slow since I'm keeping Brave Blade on the table in case Gladitator is the extra. To that end, I took the time to grind out Shirahadori on everyone but Bartz (staying as White Mage) before the Fire Ship. Confusion wrecked LiquidFlame, but I did need to recalibrate at one point when she kept refusing to change into the Tornado form. Not like it was hard to do that with four White Magic users.
Escaped Karnak with over a minute to spare and looting everything but one Shuriken chest. I got Beastmaster as my third. Fun, if a candidate for being replaced with the extra job. I proceeded to take it too far, you'll see. It started with a Mani Wizard on Ifrit, which I had a devil of a time trying to catch. End result was instant death. Byblos was mauled by a bear, whipped into paralysis, and stabbed to death from there.
With the ship, I took on some tough enemies. Skull Eater cave wasn't a problem, a critical hit eventually got one. Criticals from Ashuras blew right through Prototype's 100 defense. No need to use !Control. Double Corbettes weren't a problem, just a slugfest; same for Ramuh. I did use !Control on Mini Dragons, since their evasion was annoying. Cura on everyone else kept me healthy. Finally, Jackanapes. I'd looted the Elven Mantle earlier with quicksaves, but I fought it for real here. Set up with Protect, broke its defense with Flail, and from there the Samurais did enough damage to eventually win.
Against proper bosses from here, Dhrome Chimera release destroyed Sandworm. Crayclaw got paralyzed by whips and wrecked. I threw a Corbette for Tail Screw on Adamantoise. If I wanted to be mean, Headstone, Aegir, or Crew Dust could've blinded it. The Flamethrowers and Rocket Launchers dragged, but were surmountable. Releasing a Prototype on Sol Cannon wrecked the launchers, then the fight was academic with White Magic. No problems in the Ronka Ruins. I had some fun with Archeoaevis: Page 32 release on phase 2 to instantly destroy it, then a bear on phase 5. Last job: Chemist. I reloaded, left the ruins, and grinded out some materials. I had no plans to use !Mix for the same reason I was avoiding giltoss. Yet. But I wanted to get ready ahead of time.
Against the bomb squad, !Control and self self-destruct dealt with them. Could've caught AoE, but shrug. Controlled a Gaiacat on North Mountain to get Float for Titan, easy with Protect from there. Manticore needed a hug, so I had a Calcruthl give it one. Gilgamesh 1 is vulnerable to mini.
But there was a problem with Gilgamesh 2. All that grinding for abilities and items made me way overleveled, which I don't mind because I plan to go for triple crowns and beyond. I was level 28. Same as Gilg 2. The same Gilg 2 that has Goblin Punch. Breaking the !Mix restriction here to level him up was something I would have totally done...if any of them were accessible: Dragon Fangs and Holy Water can only be obtained after the Bridge. Naturally, breaking it to strip his MP was also possible if I wanted. Of course there was a smarter way than just leveling to 29: I caught a Black Flame in World 1 and let loose, suddenly he was level 14 and there was no danger from the fight with Protect up. I went even further by saving up a Rock Slug for Slimer to slow him after his buffs (immune to silence on GBA, seemingly). Excessive, yes, but at this point I'm pretty much making a statement.
I unlocked !Iainuki for Galuf in late World 1 due to all my fighting, so he went White Mage and started slicing randoms apart. More tough enemies for fun: Kuza Beasts are vulnerable to confusion, and with them able to cast ???? on themselves, it ended as hilariously as you think. Shield Dragons are of course infamously vulnerable to !Control. I could probably pull it off without later once I can get to Moore for a Rainbow Wind catch (or with !Mix or Giltoss). Sandcrawlers in the desert you're not supposed to cross are vulnerable to paralysis and besides that are physical only. And I just picked up Blink. No problem. Tyrannosaur is traditionally cheesed with a Phoenix Down. I went for a different flavor: Strapparer, shadowy enemies on the overworld near Exdeath's Castle, cast Death Claw when released. Immune to the paralysis portion so there's still a chance of seeing a funny ???? but otherwise no problem.
Now for my first informal crown: Gil Turtle might not be recognized as a superboss by that, but it's always a minor one to me. Galuf, Lenna, and Faris all had Elven Mantles. Lenna had the Main Gauche for extra protection. Galuf and Faris had Shirahadori. A-Butz had nothing but these things happen. Everyone had !White secondary. I took a trip to Drakenvale, fed a Poison Eagle an Ether, and got Float.
I'm sticking to no !Mix, not that I needed it. Lenna quaffed a Speed Shake to go fast, and I got up Protect and Blink. Galuf was the main damage dealer with the Healing Staff, which did just under 500, but Faris could contribute with Dancing Dagger. Jitterbugs and Tempting Tango did nothing, Mystery Waltz did drain her MP, but stabs did chip (and halved evasion) while Sword Dances did a little over 800 each time. I did try out Ashura, but it wasn't damaging enough and the crits were too rare comparatively. It was just a matter of spamming Blink whenever one dropped. The most important thing was that it never hit Lenna: the Turtle counterattack is weird with its status infliction. You're most likely familiar with Poison/Blind. Bone Mail immunities make it inflict HP leak. But if you just have Poison immunity, say from the Angel Robe? Aging, Paralysis, and Confusion.
It took a long time. Lenna used Ethers to double their potency when needed. But I made it through, no problem.
Reflecting after, it was better for Lenna act as White Mage with !Drink and have someone else as the Chemist with White Magic; she would also be able to drink Hero Cocktails to get more damage. Didn't stock up on those though, I had all of two to use. I tried this altered strategy out in the next fight - going through the whole tunnel - and she did about 100 damage more on average. More importantly, it meant I had another person with haste. She actually did get hit by Turtle and inflicted by those statuses (thanks to a bug where status immunities persist for a battle after removing equipment, as long as you were in battle with it once before, and even stack with whatever equipment you've put on), but I had Esuna on-hand with Galuf. I also made sure he didn't wear the Angel Robe so he wouldn't fall victim to it after; with this, I could also give Bartz the Main Gauche so everyone had some secondary evasion. Ultimately, I made it to the end of the tunnel with about 15 Ethers used and no quicksave bug.
That's about where I stand for the moment. Even with the soft restrictions I imposed on myself, don't anticipate much trouble from this run. Beastmaster is fun but certainly a candidate for replacement when it comes time for the Extra job.
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The dragon pod isn't Heavy, so I could one-shot it. One of this party's weaknesses is the lack of multi-target damage abilities that don't involve throwing money, so it was also the most practical option. I bullied Gilgamesh 3 by controlling Endiku and having him deliver the final blow. I made sure to get four Reflect Rings in the Barrier Tower, and even landed a Coral Ring drop from one of the Yellow Dragons in a chest!
Now my not using !Mix is just a soft restriction. I used two or three Dark Ethers and a Lilith Kiss mix to demolish Atomos' HP. With Shell and Cura, no one actually died in the battle. That said, I could've done a clean win without: Sleepy, an enemy in the woods outside Exdeath's Castle, is an enemy that uses Sleep when released. Combined with !Mineuchi from the Samurai which does not wake sleeping enemies, I could've had a perfect victory without !Mix. I just forgot where Sleepy was and when I remembered didn't feel like redoing my Reflect Ring grind. Besides, I got a Coral Ring too.
With the submarine I also got access to the Ironback enemy, which are bears but better (unless you're playing on the 2013 release, maybe Pixel Remaster). I threw one at Catoblepas to one-shot it, dealing over 6000 damage.
No trouble in Moore. I did take a detour and indeed got a Shield Dragon kill with Rainbow Wind. I just used instant death on the Seal Guardians, because the main event was breaking out !Mix for a second time on the solo Exdeath fight. I boosted Galuf's HP with a mix, had him protect up, and strip Exdeath's MP. Between that and a Reflect Ring, his HP never went to 0 at any point during the fight. Then he dropped dead anyway because canon has to happen...
I actually almost died to a Blue/Red Dragon random in Exdeath's Castle when I wasn't paying attention and my duo of slicers didn't get the not-Heavy Blue. But they couldn't kill one lousy White Mage and she got everyone else back up. I went with just one from there on out and equipped !Control. It's really nice in the castle anyway: all the Dragons and Black Wizards are vulnerable and can destroy themselves.
I released a Druid on Carbuncle; now I'm the one using Encircle! Exdeath had two Staves of Light broken and two Yellow Dragons released. That took him into his desperation phase where Reflect Rings handled the rest.
Antlion is vulnerable to Berserk. So are the Gargoyles, stopping their revival gimmick. I blitzed through the Pyramid, even using quicksaves, to make Lenna not fall as behind in levels. I caught a Sleepy before Melusine and used !Mineuchi to make sure she didn't wake up after shifting to her physical-weak form.
My first legendary weapon set was Fire Lash, Sage's Staff, and Masmaune. On the way out, I ran into an Exdeath's Soul. Sage's Staff helped make quick work of it.
Here's an interesting fact about Dragon Whisker and Beastkiller: they use damage formula 72, which is used by certain bows that also deal extra damage to certain creature types. This includes their evasion halving properties, so although the 33% Firaga chance usually made Fire Lash better (especially with !White equipped to boost magic), Dragon Whisker could be better better on more dodgy foes. Covert was nothing, and I reloaded to fight Pantera, which was vulnerable to Confusion and shut off the gimmick before it could get started.
I did most of the Island Shrine, but left to go to the Rift very early. Calofisteri is a joke as always. I had two goals here. The first was to pick up Bear v3: Great Dragon. The second was to kill Omega before the Extra Job unlocked.
Video Link!
I always wanted to try out the !Calm strategy against it. This run gave me the excuse to do so. It would've been easy to do so without and with a bit of luck, but honestly? Screw Omega, it had it coming. If there was any doubt about this being more spite-fueled than anything, see the end of the fight where I break from my loop just to deliver an unexpected finishing combo.
The best alpha strike against Stalker/Wendigo was a Great Dragon release for 9999. After that, it was just a find and beatdown, since I'm still avoiding Gil Toss. Fun trick: you can cast Libra to find the real one. If stats pop up, it's the real one (and it won't move in response). Nothing to say about Fork Tower. Minotaur is laughably easy like always, and I dealt with Omniscient with Wall Rings, Silence, and stabbing him in his face.
Video Link!
But one superboss wasn't enough, so here's another. No, not Shinryu! Gogo the Mime! Normally you're supposed to not fight him, but really, that's no fun. This required some thought, but after weighing and examining my options, I figured out a path to victory. I got down to him without any fights with quicksaves, not that i needed the extra time. I doubled my characters' HP and cast Shell on them to begin with. Gogo goes crazy when he takes HP damage at 33000HP or below. But counters can't trigger counters, and he counters magic with Holy, Flare, or Meteor. The first two can be reflected, and the last one is why I boosted HP and put on Shell. I also used an Elemental Power mixture on Gogo himself to boost the power of his Holys!! He proceeded to cast them on every single counterattack. I uh, what?
There's limited time with Reflect for this team; mixtures don't necessarily work since they're single-target but can act as a fallback. I guess I could've used Reflect Rings, but the setup would've been much slower due to needing to apply Haste as well. But disregarding that, as long as he goes to 19998HP or less before it wears off, I can finish him with a buffed Gil Toss and a second Great Dragon release. #VictoryGogo
After a pause to get 99 Dragon's Fangs, I moved on. The Great Sea Trench was laughable: nothing is heavy so they were bait for !Iainuki, and add a White Mage using the Sage's Staff on top of that. I made sure to get Float from North Mountain to avoid the magma. The three little pigs are vulnerable to confusion for comedy, but otherwise, Shell and Curaga spam dealt with them - didn't bother with the lamp just to be different.
Nothing to say in Istory. Tonberries are vulnerable to Berserk which also bypasses their magic evasion. Makes them easy to deal with. I got to break out Holy formally here, which just nuked enemies down. I also used it on Leviathan. Hilariously and sadly, it was superior to physical attacks even on the Samurai.
I threw some Great Dragons at Odin to kill him easily. I then paused to consider how much more mileage I could get out of Beastmaster before getting my extra job. I did look at it in advance so I could plan. When it comes to extra jobs, Oracle is easily the worst. Very gimmicky abilities and if you're on GBA Condemn suffers from can't hit Heavy problems. The niche ability is not provoking counters. Which Cannoneer can also do and is easily the best. It's a different flavor of Chemist that deals insane damage and can inflict slow on enemies. I got Gladiator, which is solid if somewhat plain and confirmed the Brave Blade run, main reason I looked.
I did toy with the idea of dropping Samurai instead, but there are advantages to having two shield users that I'll get into when relevant. So I went over thoughts.
- !Control: This has some niche use here and there. It's pointless in boss fights, but there are a handful of randoms it can shut down.
- Paralysis: I don't use it much anymore. Of the upcoming bosses, only Jura Aevis, Catastrophe, and the Grand Cross portion of Neo Exdeath are vulnerable. First two aren't exactly dangerous and the last one I'd just be throwing out AoE.
- Equip Whips: This is mostly obsolete at this point. I'd likely want other secondaries. It would mostly go on Chemist like I have been, but there's other options for it now.
- !Catch: Now here's the kicker. There's obviously some big abuse possible here: Great Dragons for 9999, any of the 1/4 MaxHP damage attacks, and so on. To put in perspective how ridiculous Great Dragon is, it would still do 9999 damage to Omega. Hypothetically, that's 39996HP releasing four can just delete from any single target in the game. The big problem, of course, is that they're single-shot only, and that setting it locks out other secondary commands like !Mix or !White that might help take me the rest of the way. There's also status to consider: it is the only way I have of inflicting Petrify (aside from the Lamp) or Slow. However, petrify won't help on bosses, and both of the Slow ones are not auto-hit abilities, not good when there's too much with high magic evade late in the game.
- Dragon Whisker: Spoilers, no Berserk on Shinryu, I can kick its ass without (Omega had it coming). This would be a reason to delay with Oracle, but not with Gladiator who gets Dragon Lance. The one advantage is being back row OK without needing a skill.
With that I figured it had run its course. I could get some more use, but it would mean less time with Gladiator. So out with that and in with the Gladiator! I farmed a couple Mirage Vests. I would clean out the rest of the dungeons with Bartz grinding it up.
Here's Brave Blade with its usual somewhat mildly disappointing damage. Bahamut was no issue with Shell up. I then went up and down Phoenix Tower. Three of the Magic Pots escaped with one Elixir, two escaped with two. Pretty good luck there and it maxed him out. Bladeblitz was pretty crummy, at least with Samurai after though: it really wants a long-range weapon or the Long Reach skill, which you can't mix and match with Bladeblitz without Freelancer or Mime. I also got an Elven Mantle steal while going up the tower. Speaking of, the enemy who holds it counters with Zombie Powder when physically attacked. I could counter with Berserk and then Mini because she hits pretty hard.
That's about where I stand for now. Just need to clean out the Pyramid properly and head into the rift (properly).
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Nothing to say about the Pyramid. I ran over Apanda. I ignored Azulmagia because of whoever's offering money for King Behemoth's head before his and just for the meme. Everyone having !White secondary made the random Ninja encounters a joke. Catastrophe I also ran over, it just has way too little HP for this stage of the game to be anything resembling a threat. One of the Jura Aevis minibosses got off a Maelstrom, but attack, attack, Holy, Holy carried the day. Somebody forgot to tell Halicarnassus that !Finisher (and lots of stuff really) works through Toad. I won without removing the status because of it.
An interesting thing is that because Rune Axe takes Strength and Magic into account, it could compete with the Brave Blade. Normally it wouldn't because you'd mostly see them on Berserker, but with !White slapped on my Gladiator, suddenly the boost becomes meaningful. For a bit of math here, using Lenna as an example:
- Brave Sword: 150-168 attack. Attack multiplier=23
- Rune Axe: 30-101+10 attack. Attack multiplier=43
- Chicken Knife: 127 attack. Attack multiplier=38
Damage is equal to (Attack-Defense) * M. Axes quarter defense on top of that, but Rune Axe only has 90% accuracy. I've included Chicken Knife for comparison, but keep in mind that it halves evasion and without a command strike, 25% attacks on average will be wasted. Why 60 defense? Well, that's Shinryu's defense. I'll get to that in a bit, though.
- Brave Sword: 3450-3864 vs 0 def, 2070-2484 vs 60 def
- Rune Axe: 1720-4773 vs 0 def, 1075-4128 vs 60 def
- Chicken Knife: 4826 vs 0 def, 2546 vs 60 def
Twintania is weak to Holy, so a barrage of those won me the fight. Gloves off on Giltoss for Necrophobe. On my way back to Azulmagia, I stole a Murakumo! I quickly backtracked to secure it in case anything went wrong. I was going to set up for Shinryu, but then I realized that 1) I hadn't stolen a Dragon Lance yet and 2) I needed to gain a level to dodge L2 Old. Though I did rectify 1 on the way back.
Video link!
Shinryu! "You have Berserk this should be easy." / "I have Chemist and planning, I don't need it." If you're wondering why a bunch of statuses don't land, it's because of the status bug! Short version is, your status immunities from equipment persist for one battle and combine with whatever equipment you change to. This also works for shield switching: if you have Aegis for a turn then switch to Genji, you keep the former's petrify immunity. I use a Life Shield mix on Faris because White Mage couldn't wear Bone Mail (farmed up three beforehand!), but with two shield classes all could get petrify immunity.
That said, things I did suboptimally or wrong in this fight:
- Forgot to apply Shell to Faris at first, oops. It happened because I wanted to buff Krile for a potential double physical. Then I forgot after giving her Life Shield since she needed Roulette immunity.
- Should've had Main Gauche on Krile to begin with. Once I switched to throwing money with Lenna, should've had her hold one too.
- I only had one Diamond Helm which would've stopped Lightning. I also forgot to have them on in the first place, but the attack never showed.
- With those in place, I should've switched to Ice Shields on Lenna and Faris after the battle began to completely neuter Snowstorm. There wasn't much left that Aegis was better off blocking at that point and they have more evasion.
Still, I win, no problem. With that done, the final boss was just a formality. Holy and attacks cut the tree down to size. I went with no !Mix and no AoE for the final boss. The Dragon Lance helped assault the Grand Cross form of Neo Exdeath, constantly resetting its AI script and making sure I saw zero of them. Huge HP and Shell made Almagest a non-issue.
Impulsively at the very end, I decided to fight the desperation phase, i.e. only one part remaining and having it go crazy. This is worth watching just for the first Meteor and my reaction to it.
But this fiesta isn't over! There's postgame content for this ludicrously overpowered party to style on! My personal rule for it in a fiesta setting is that you can use Beastmaster or Thief strictly for the parts they're required, as well as Necromancer if you want to do the boss rush. Because it's rather silly to restrict it to fiestas that happen to luck into both of those two jobs. Then again, a lot of the design in the Sealed Temple is really silly.
The early portions of the temple were just a formality. Most of the early enemies were just from the Rift, with the odd new one like Soul Eaters. Berserk was pretty useful against certain enemies like those.
I eventually came to the first boss, Gil Turtle. This is just Gil Turtle verbatim. I was even stronger now and it was still the same, so the same Blink strategy worked. Ice Brand and Sage's Staff ripped it apart: no Holy since it's immune, unfortunately. I didn't prepare float, but Shell helped me eat the finishing Earthquake.
The dungeoneering got me the Mace of Zeus, which is an even stronger Morning Star (still outdated compared to Holy at this point), and Gladius, a Holy-elemental knife (better for the Chemist). Grand Aevis is the first formal new boss. It comes accompanied by two Dark Elementals who can sling Aeroga and heal it with White Wind (5500 max HP). If they both go down, it revives them. The dragon itself likes zombification, immediately using it if a party member is down. Because of this, I status bugged Angel Rings (alternative would be !Mix which is on the table at this point and very necessary because this thing is way too fast) as well as Aegis and Bone Mail since poison and death is also a thing.
The Aevis has 42000 HP and absorbs fire, ice, lightning, and wind. It is also floating. Because of this, Lenna made the best Gladiator in the fight: her finisher was the only one that did anything! After splattering one elemental, I weaken the other and just wear it down. Both of the physical attackers have Long Reach to hit for full damage in and to the back row. I spent a while scrambling with healing, especially since they kept going after Faris - both the only one who didn't get death immunity (I brought !Mix to life shield her) and the last to get Shell. It went down before I could move on to doing other things with !Mix.
One thing I was noticing as I went through the temple, I thought I'd grinded enough for the money cannon. Turns out, it disppears pretty fast when you spam Giltoss too much. It was around this time that I had to calm down and only use it when I really needed it. A good target was the Exorays: imagine the flowers that show up at the Dragon Pod, as 6000HP random encounters who can also cast Firaga and throw out Zombie Powder on a counter. Throwing money wiped all five every time, however. Mirage Vests were the armor of choice: it was nice having on free Blink on three of my four party members every turn.
I made it down the temple, bypassing the Thief check as discussed, and before heading back up, decided to challenge a new superboss.
Video link!
Omega Mk-ii is basically the same fight, just with a wallchange gimmick, a counter for Rapid Fire specifically, and somewhat higher stats. The first I ignore, the second I can't use aside from the Hayate Bow, and the third just means more HP. This shows off what I would've done to the original if I didn't feel like just !Calming it. Which also works here, aside - same weakness to Song/Stop. Nothing special, just six minutes of setting up and three of crushing it.
This victory also gave me the first new piece of equipment of real note, the Force Shield. It nullifies all elements, but only gives +10% evasion and has a massive weight value with an agility penalty. Still really good, however.
Video link!
One wasn't enough, so I swung into the area to the side to fight the other. It's full of dragon-type enemies, including the new Claret Dragon, but they're mostly ones from the main game who are simple at this point. I found another way to beat up Shield Dragons: Berserk them off my own Reflect and kill!
Neo Shinryu is absolutely not just like the original, and doesn't retain the Berserk weakness either. It has a tough but manageable script, which notably includes Curse: a big roulette of status ailments. It's a mechanically interesting fight: it's actually two enemies in one. One of them is invincible does almost all of the attacks. The other constantly shuffles False Image status (same as Wendigo and Pantera) on and off, so it's effectively only vulnerable half of the time. If you watch the ATB bars closely, you can see this happening when they pause. This also, amusingly, seems to stop the Mighty Guard at the start of the battle from being applied. It apparently sometimes does, but like, I have Dispel so.
The Mix buffs here were comparatively very simple: Goliath Tonics to double HP, Protect/Shell, Dragon Kiss, and some boosts for my damage-dealing Gladiator. It's still classified as a Dragon, so Dragon Lance works for extra damage. I also threw down some Resist mixtures down when I could. It eventually casts Mute, but it didn't seem to work: I could still heal with White Magic. It goes into some big physical chains at this point. Its parting move was pathetic and I walked away with the Ultima Weapon: a sword (not knightsword) that is the strongest in the game, even more than the max power Brave Blade. There's only two weapons that can rival it under normal circumstances: the Chicken Knife with its twin strength/agility modifiers and a katana with a 50% crit chance I'll be picking up shortly. Though there's times when a killer weapon will be better.
I went back up briefly but quickly moved onto Archeodemon. This is a weird gimmick boss: it absorbs all elements and counters anything that isn't magic with Death on his undead self. Using an Ether (which caps his MP to 9999) followed by some Dark Ethers on him allows me to strip him of his MP in short order and kill him easily from there, considering most of his moveset is MP-based. With 0 magic evasion to boot, Archeodemon and Omega Mk.ii are the only Sealed Temple bosses where you're allowed an easy exploit against them. I remembered to swap out the Ultima Weapon for the Artemis Bow on the Gladiator partway through because that deals extra damage to beasts, to which he is one. Just sped things up.
Next was to go back down to fight the next boss. I stole an Earthbreaker just because along the way, and grabbed the katana I mentioned. Guardian is Sol Cannon 2.0, with an added twist of a fourth part that can do some actions. Also if you let the gun charge you die instantly to a double Wave Cannon. I didn't let it act at all.
That just left Enuo, and here's another video. I came in with Bone Mail resistances on 3/4 party members, as well as Angel and Aegis resistances on all. I needed ProShell and Blink (to dodge a stupidly strong physical), but no problem with HP buffing and Dragon's Kisses either. I also used a single Dragon Power on all of my party members so their level wouldn't be divisible by 3. With all this buffing and White Magic around, that just left damage. !Zeninage and !Finisher both could cap while being in the back row, but the former needed me to reduce Enuo's defense first. Twice actually, since he has two forms. Due to the status resistance bug, all the Grand Crosses did was poison on someone who didn't get it, and Toad on Bartz. I proceeded to disrespectfully slay the Void's creator with a froggy !Finisher.
One last thing to do before I'd done everything possible with this fiesta is the Cloister of the Dead, the boss rush of the game. You face 30 enemies in groups of 5, all buffed to be something of a challenge. The only trouble is that this includes Minotaur, Omniscient, and Archeodemon (the only temple boss to show up).
There was really nothing special about it. I played conservatively early on, and the result was not needing to use a single Elixir.
- First wave is Wing Raptor (physical attacks), Garula (same), Siren (same), Magisa and Forza (same!), and Gil Turtle (beat him many times before and this was no different).
- Second wave is Liquid Flame (attacks, charm for fun), Soul Cannon (giltoss then attacks), Purobolos (giltoss), Minotaur (attacks), and the three little pigs (giltoss).
- Third wave is Byblos (attacks), Tyrannosaur (Phoenix Down), Dragon Pod (Death Potion), Archeodemon (same as before) and Apanda (attacks)
- Fourth wave is Manticore (Death Potion), Adamantoise (same), Jackanapes (you know, the random encounter? Kiss of Blessing out of sheer spite then attacks), Calofisteri (attacks and Holys), and Twintania (Holy spam w/Excalibur too)
- Fifth wave is Omniscient (Holy, the odd silence and hit), Wendigo (search and destroy), Sandworm (same except I can see it), Atomos (Sleep Blade into Holy), and Halicarnassus (!Finisher, !Mix, and !Zeninage all work through toad)
- Final wave is the Seal Guardians (giltoss), Melusuine (Succubus Kiss and attacks, had a weird bug in the menus with Bartz here where his items weren't working), Catastrophe (first time I needed wide-scale healing), Azulmagia (stripped his MP for fun), and Necrophobe (Giltoss the barriers, attack with Holy and Excalibur)
And that's it! This fiesta is super done! But I wasn't done with the fiesta this year...
Run 2 | Index
My start was with White Mage. It's slow, but it's fairly easy if you know what you're doing. I took the time to get to Lv8 before Karlabos, it doesn't hurt to have buffer. I also made sure to get two extra pairs of Leather Shoes beforehand. No problem with the lobster, and they arguably have the easiest time in the Ship Graveyard. Despite slowing Galuf (Flail user, didn't bother to switch it), Siren died in one undead cycle. I could've waited out Magisa's 200MP but just went for it. The Drains stopped and she fell. Her husband was rendered impotent with Protect. The elephant was similar: I had only Galuf attacking with the Flail, everyone else defended or healed.
Second class? Samurai. I use a job unlock code because why wouldn't you use it if you're using Volcano or Meteor? But I need that money for other things and throwing it would be a bit dull. Besides, Samurai is plenty strong without it. It was great to have actual physical damage though - previous dungeons had been slow since I'm keeping Brave Blade on the table in case Gladitator is the extra. To that end, I took the time to grind out Shirahadori on everyone but Bartz (staying as White Mage) before the Fire Ship. Confusion wrecked LiquidFlame, but I did need to recalibrate at one point when she kept refusing to change into the Tornado form. Not like it was hard to do that with four White Magic users.
Escaped Karnak with over a minute to spare and looting everything but one Shuriken chest. I got Beastmaster as my third. Fun, if a candidate for being replaced with the extra job. I proceeded to take it too far, you'll see. It started with a Mani Wizard on Ifrit, which I had a devil of a time trying to catch. End result was instant death. Byblos was mauled by a bear, whipped into paralysis, and stabbed to death from there.
With the ship, I took on some tough enemies. Skull Eater cave wasn't a problem, a critical hit eventually got one. Criticals from Ashuras blew right through Prototype's 100 defense. No need to use !Control. Double Corbettes weren't a problem, just a slugfest; same for Ramuh. I did use !Control on Mini Dragons, since their evasion was annoying. Cura on everyone else kept me healthy. Finally, Jackanapes. I'd looted the Elven Mantle earlier with quicksaves, but I fought it for real here. Set up with Protect, broke its defense with Flail, and from there the Samurais did enough damage to eventually win.
Against proper bosses from here, Dhrome Chimera release destroyed Sandworm. Crayclaw got paralyzed by whips and wrecked. I threw a Corbette for Tail Screw on Adamantoise. If I wanted to be mean, Headstone, Aegir, or Crew Dust could've blinded it. The Flamethrowers and Rocket Launchers dragged, but were surmountable. Releasing a Prototype on Sol Cannon wrecked the launchers, then the fight was academic with White Magic. No problems in the Ronka Ruins. I had some fun with Archeoaevis: Page 32 release on phase 2 to instantly destroy it, then a bear on phase 5. Last job: Chemist. I reloaded, left the ruins, and grinded out some materials. I had no plans to use !Mix for the same reason I was avoiding giltoss. Yet. But I wanted to get ready ahead of time.
Against the bomb squad, !Control and self self-destruct dealt with them. Could've caught AoE, but shrug. Controlled a Gaiacat on North Mountain to get Float for Titan, easy with Protect from there. Manticore needed a hug, so I had a Calcruthl give it one. Gilgamesh 1 is vulnerable to mini.
But there was a problem with Gilgamesh 2. All that grinding for abilities and items made me way overleveled, which I don't mind because I plan to go for triple crowns and beyond. I was level 28. Same as Gilg 2. The same Gilg 2 that has Goblin Punch. Breaking the !Mix restriction here to level him up was something I would have totally done...if any of them were accessible: Dragon Fangs and Holy Water can only be obtained after the Bridge. Naturally, breaking it to strip his MP was also possible if I wanted. Of course there was a smarter way than just leveling to 29: I caught a Black Flame in World 1 and let loose, suddenly he was level 14 and there was no danger from the fight with Protect up. I went even further by saving up a Rock Slug for Slimer to slow him after his buffs (immune to silence on GBA, seemingly). Excessive, yes, but at this point I'm pretty much making a statement.
I unlocked !Iainuki for Galuf in late World 1 due to all my fighting, so he went White Mage and started slicing randoms apart. More tough enemies for fun: Kuza Beasts are vulnerable to confusion, and with them able to cast ???? on themselves, it ended as hilariously as you think. Shield Dragons are of course infamously vulnerable to !Control. I could probably pull it off without later once I can get to Moore for a Rainbow Wind catch (or with !Mix or Giltoss). Sandcrawlers in the desert you're not supposed to cross are vulnerable to paralysis and besides that are physical only. And I just picked up Blink. No problem. Tyrannosaur is traditionally cheesed with a Phoenix Down. I went for a different flavor: Strapparer, shadowy enemies on the overworld near Exdeath's Castle, cast Death Claw when released. Immune to the paralysis portion so there's still a chance of seeing a funny ???? but otherwise no problem.
Now for my first informal crown: Gil Turtle might not be recognized as a superboss by that, but it's always a minor one to me. Galuf, Lenna, and Faris all had Elven Mantles. Lenna had the Main Gauche for extra protection. Galuf and Faris had Shirahadori. A-Butz had nothing but these things happen. Everyone had !White secondary. I took a trip to Drakenvale, fed a Poison Eagle an Ether, and got Float.
I'm sticking to no !Mix, not that I needed it. Lenna quaffed a Speed Shake to go fast, and I got up Protect and Blink. Galuf was the main damage dealer with the Healing Staff, which did just under 500, but Faris could contribute with Dancing Dagger. Jitterbugs and Tempting Tango did nothing, Mystery Waltz did drain her MP, but stabs did chip (and halved evasion) while Sword Dances did a little over 800 each time. I did try out Ashura, but it wasn't damaging enough and the crits were too rare comparatively. It was just a matter of spamming Blink whenever one dropped. The most important thing was that it never hit Lenna: the Turtle counterattack is weird with its status infliction. You're most likely familiar with Poison/Blind. Bone Mail immunities make it inflict HP leak. But if you just have Poison immunity, say from the Angel Robe? Aging, Paralysis, and Confusion.
It took a long time. Lenna used Ethers to double their potency when needed. But I made it through, no problem.
Reflecting after, it was better for Lenna act as White Mage with !Drink and have someone else as the Chemist with White Magic; she would also be able to drink Hero Cocktails to get more damage. Didn't stock up on those though, I had all of two to use. I tried this altered strategy out in the next fight - going through the whole tunnel - and she did about 100 damage more on average. More importantly, it meant I had another person with haste. She actually did get hit by Turtle and inflicted by those statuses (thanks to a bug where status immunities persist for a battle after removing equipment, as long as you were in battle with it once before, and even stack with whatever equipment you've put on), but I had Esuna on-hand with Galuf. I also made sure he didn't wear the Angel Robe so he wouldn't fall victim to it after; with this, I could also give Bartz the Main Gauche so everyone had some secondary evasion. Ultimately, I made it to the end of the tunnel with about 15 Ethers used and no quicksave bug.
That's about where I stand for the moment. Even with the soft restrictions I imposed on myself, don't anticipate much trouble from this run. Beastmaster is fun but certainly a candidate for replacement when it comes time for the Extra job.
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The dragon pod isn't Heavy, so I could one-shot it. One of this party's weaknesses is the lack of multi-target damage abilities that don't involve throwing money, so it was also the most practical option. I bullied Gilgamesh 3 by controlling Endiku and having him deliver the final blow. I made sure to get four Reflect Rings in the Barrier Tower, and even landed a Coral Ring drop from one of the Yellow Dragons in a chest!
Now my not using !Mix is just a soft restriction. I used two or three Dark Ethers and a Lilith Kiss mix to demolish Atomos' HP. With Shell and Cura, no one actually died in the battle. That said, I could've done a clean win without: Sleepy, an enemy in the woods outside Exdeath's Castle, is an enemy that uses Sleep when released. Combined with !Mineuchi from the Samurai which does not wake sleeping enemies, I could've had a perfect victory without !Mix. I just forgot where Sleepy was and when I remembered didn't feel like redoing my Reflect Ring grind. Besides, I got a Coral Ring too.
With the submarine I also got access to the Ironback enemy, which are bears but better (unless you're playing on the 2013 release, maybe Pixel Remaster). I threw one at Catoblepas to one-shot it, dealing over 6000 damage.
No trouble in Moore. I did take a detour and indeed got a Shield Dragon kill with Rainbow Wind. I just used instant death on the Seal Guardians, because the main event was breaking out !Mix for a second time on the solo Exdeath fight. I boosted Galuf's HP with a mix, had him protect up, and strip Exdeath's MP. Between that and a Reflect Ring, his HP never went to 0 at any point during the fight. Then he dropped dead anyway because canon has to happen...
I actually almost died to a Blue/Red Dragon random in Exdeath's Castle when I wasn't paying attention and my duo of slicers didn't get the not-Heavy Blue. But they couldn't kill one lousy White Mage and she got everyone else back up. I went with just one from there on out and equipped !Control. It's really nice in the castle anyway: all the Dragons and Black Wizards are vulnerable and can destroy themselves.
I released a Druid on Carbuncle; now I'm the one using Encircle! Exdeath had two Staves of Light broken and two Yellow Dragons released. That took him into his desperation phase where Reflect Rings handled the rest.
Antlion is vulnerable to Berserk. So are the Gargoyles, stopping their revival gimmick. I blitzed through the Pyramid, even using quicksaves, to make Lenna not fall as behind in levels. I caught a Sleepy before Melusine and used !Mineuchi to make sure she didn't wake up after shifting to her physical-weak form.
My first legendary weapon set was Fire Lash, Sage's Staff, and Masmaune. On the way out, I ran into an Exdeath's Soul. Sage's Staff helped make quick work of it.
Here's an interesting fact about Dragon Whisker and Beastkiller: they use damage formula 72, which is used by certain bows that also deal extra damage to certain creature types. This includes their evasion halving properties, so although the 33% Firaga chance usually made Fire Lash better (especially with !White equipped to boost magic), Dragon Whisker could be better better on more dodgy foes. Covert was nothing, and I reloaded to fight Pantera, which was vulnerable to Confusion and shut off the gimmick before it could get started.
I did most of the Island Shrine, but left to go to the Rift very early. Calofisteri is a joke as always. I had two goals here. The first was to pick up Bear v3: Great Dragon. The second was to kill Omega before the Extra Job unlocked.
Video Link!
I always wanted to try out the !Calm strategy against it. This run gave me the excuse to do so. It would've been easy to do so without and with a bit of luck, but honestly? Screw Omega, it had it coming. If there was any doubt about this being more spite-fueled than anything, see the end of the fight where I break from my loop just to deliver an unexpected finishing combo.
The best alpha strike against Stalker/Wendigo was a Great Dragon release for 9999. After that, it was just a find and beatdown, since I'm still avoiding Gil Toss. Fun trick: you can cast Libra to find the real one. If stats pop up, it's the real one (and it won't move in response). Nothing to say about Fork Tower. Minotaur is laughably easy like always, and I dealt with Omniscient with Wall Rings, Silence, and stabbing him in his face.
Video Link!
But one superboss wasn't enough, so here's another. No, not Shinryu! Gogo the Mime! Normally you're supposed to not fight him, but really, that's no fun. This required some thought, but after weighing and examining my options, I figured out a path to victory. I got down to him without any fights with quicksaves, not that i needed the extra time. I doubled my characters' HP and cast Shell on them to begin with. Gogo goes crazy when he takes HP damage at 33000HP or below. But counters can't trigger counters, and he counters magic with Holy, Flare, or Meteor. The first two can be reflected, and the last one is why I boosted HP and put on Shell. I also used an Elemental Power mixture on Gogo himself to boost the power of his Holys!! He proceeded to cast them on every single counterattack. I uh, what?
There's limited time with Reflect for this team; mixtures don't necessarily work since they're single-target but can act as a fallback. I guess I could've used Reflect Rings, but the setup would've been much slower due to needing to apply Haste as well. But disregarding that, as long as he goes to 19998HP or less before it wears off, I can finish him with a buffed Gil Toss and a second Great Dragon release. #VictoryGogo
After a pause to get 99 Dragon's Fangs, I moved on. The Great Sea Trench was laughable: nothing is heavy so they were bait for !Iainuki, and add a White Mage using the Sage's Staff on top of that. I made sure to get Float from North Mountain to avoid the magma. The three little pigs are vulnerable to confusion for comedy, but otherwise, Shell and Curaga spam dealt with them - didn't bother with the lamp just to be different.
Nothing to say in Istory. Tonberries are vulnerable to Berserk which also bypasses their magic evasion. Makes them easy to deal with. I got to break out Holy formally here, which just nuked enemies down. I also used it on Leviathan. Hilariously and sadly, it was superior to physical attacks even on the Samurai.
I threw some Great Dragons at Odin to kill him easily. I then paused to consider how much more mileage I could get out of Beastmaster before getting my extra job. I did look at it in advance so I could plan. When it comes to extra jobs, Oracle is easily the worst. Very gimmicky abilities and if you're on GBA Condemn suffers from can't hit Heavy problems. The niche ability is not provoking counters. Which Cannoneer can also do and is easily the best. It's a different flavor of Chemist that deals insane damage and can inflict slow on enemies. I got Gladiator, which is solid if somewhat plain and confirmed the Brave Blade run, main reason I looked.
I did toy with the idea of dropping Samurai instead, but there are advantages to having two shield users that I'll get into when relevant. So I went over thoughts.
- !Control: This has some niche use here and there. It's pointless in boss fights, but there are a handful of randoms it can shut down.
- Paralysis: I don't use it much anymore. Of the upcoming bosses, only Jura Aevis, Catastrophe, and the Grand Cross portion of Neo Exdeath are vulnerable. First two aren't exactly dangerous and the last one I'd just be throwing out AoE.
- Equip Whips: This is mostly obsolete at this point. I'd likely want other secondaries. It would mostly go on Chemist like I have been, but there's other options for it now.
- !Catch: Now here's the kicker. There's obviously some big abuse possible here: Great Dragons for 9999, any of the 1/4 MaxHP damage attacks, and so on. To put in perspective how ridiculous Great Dragon is, it would still do 9999 damage to Omega. Hypothetically, that's 39996HP releasing four can just delete from any single target in the game. The big problem, of course, is that they're single-shot only, and that setting it locks out other secondary commands like !Mix or !White that might help take me the rest of the way. There's also status to consider: it is the only way I have of inflicting Petrify (aside from the Lamp) or Slow. However, petrify won't help on bosses, and both of the Slow ones are not auto-hit abilities, not good when there's too much with high magic evade late in the game.
- Dragon Whisker: Spoilers, no Berserk on Shinryu, I can kick its ass without (Omega had it coming). This would be a reason to delay with Oracle, but not with Gladiator who gets Dragon Lance. The one advantage is being back row OK without needing a skill.
With that I figured it had run its course. I could get some more use, but it would mean less time with Gladiator. So out with that and in with the Gladiator! I farmed a couple Mirage Vests. I would clean out the rest of the dungeons with Bartz grinding it up.
Here's Brave Blade with its usual somewhat mildly disappointing damage. Bahamut was no issue with Shell up. I then went up and down Phoenix Tower. Three of the Magic Pots escaped with one Elixir, two escaped with two. Pretty good luck there and it maxed him out. Bladeblitz was pretty crummy, at least with Samurai after though: it really wants a long-range weapon or the Long Reach skill, which you can't mix and match with Bladeblitz without Freelancer or Mime. I also got an Elven Mantle steal while going up the tower. Speaking of, the enemy who holds it counters with Zombie Powder when physically attacked. I could counter with Berserk and then Mini because she hits pretty hard.
That's about where I stand for now. Just need to clean out the Pyramid properly and head into the rift (properly).
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Nothing to say about the Pyramid. I ran over Apanda. I ignored Azulmagia because of whoever's offering money for King Behemoth's head before his and just for the meme. Everyone having !White secondary made the random Ninja encounters a joke. Catastrophe I also ran over, it just has way too little HP for this stage of the game to be anything resembling a threat. One of the Jura Aevis minibosses got off a Maelstrom, but attack, attack, Holy, Holy carried the day. Somebody forgot to tell Halicarnassus that !Finisher (and lots of stuff really) works through Toad. I won without removing the status because of it.
An interesting thing is that because Rune Axe takes Strength and Magic into account, it could compete with the Brave Blade. Normally it wouldn't because you'd mostly see them on Berserker, but with !White slapped on my Gladiator, suddenly the boost becomes meaningful. For a bit of math here, using Lenna as an example:
- Brave Sword: 150-168 attack. Attack multiplier=23
- Rune Axe: 30-101+10 attack. Attack multiplier=43
- Chicken Knife: 127 attack. Attack multiplier=38
Damage is equal to (Attack-Defense) * M. Axes quarter defense on top of that, but Rune Axe only has 90% accuracy. I've included Chicken Knife for comparison, but keep in mind that it halves evasion and without a command strike, 25% attacks on average will be wasted. Why 60 defense? Well, that's Shinryu's defense. I'll get to that in a bit, though.
- Brave Sword: 3450-3864 vs 0 def, 2070-2484 vs 60 def
- Rune Axe: 1720-4773 vs 0 def, 1075-4128 vs 60 def
- Chicken Knife: 4826 vs 0 def, 2546 vs 60 def
Twintania is weak to Holy, so a barrage of those won me the fight. Gloves off on Giltoss for Necrophobe. On my way back to Azulmagia, I stole a Murakumo! I quickly backtracked to secure it in case anything went wrong. I was going to set up for Shinryu, but then I realized that 1) I hadn't stolen a Dragon Lance yet and 2) I needed to gain a level to dodge L2 Old. Though I did rectify 1 on the way back.
Video link!
Shinryu! "You have Berserk this should be easy." / "I have Chemist and planning, I don't need it." If you're wondering why a bunch of statuses don't land, it's because of the status bug! Short version is, your status immunities from equipment persist for one battle and combine with whatever equipment you change to. This also works for shield switching: if you have Aegis for a turn then switch to Genji, you keep the former's petrify immunity. I use a Life Shield mix on Faris because White Mage couldn't wear Bone Mail (farmed up three beforehand!), but with two shield classes all could get petrify immunity.
That said, things I did suboptimally or wrong in this fight:
- Forgot to apply Shell to Faris at first, oops. It happened because I wanted to buff Krile for a potential double physical. Then I forgot after giving her Life Shield since she needed Roulette immunity.
- Should've had Main Gauche on Krile to begin with. Once I switched to throwing money with Lenna, should've had her hold one too.
- I only had one Diamond Helm which would've stopped Lightning. I also forgot to have them on in the first place, but the attack never showed.
- With those in place, I should've switched to Ice Shields on Lenna and Faris after the battle began to completely neuter Snowstorm. There wasn't much left that Aegis was better off blocking at that point and they have more evasion.
Still, I win, no problem. With that done, the final boss was just a formality. Holy and attacks cut the tree down to size. I went with no !Mix and no AoE for the final boss. The Dragon Lance helped assault the Grand Cross form of Neo Exdeath, constantly resetting its AI script and making sure I saw zero of them. Huge HP and Shell made Almagest a non-issue.
Impulsively at the very end, I decided to fight the desperation phase, i.e. only one part remaining and having it go crazy. This is worth watching just for the first Meteor and my reaction to it.
But this fiesta isn't over! There's postgame content for this ludicrously overpowered party to style on! My personal rule for it in a fiesta setting is that you can use Beastmaster or Thief strictly for the parts they're required, as well as Necromancer if you want to do the boss rush. Because it's rather silly to restrict it to fiestas that happen to luck into both of those two jobs. Then again, a lot of the design in the Sealed Temple is really silly.
The early portions of the temple were just a formality. Most of the early enemies were just from the Rift, with the odd new one like Soul Eaters. Berserk was pretty useful against certain enemies like those.
I eventually came to the first boss, Gil Turtle. This is just Gil Turtle verbatim. I was even stronger now and it was still the same, so the same Blink strategy worked. Ice Brand and Sage's Staff ripped it apart: no Holy since it's immune, unfortunately. I didn't prepare float, but Shell helped me eat the finishing Earthquake.
The dungeoneering got me the Mace of Zeus, which is an even stronger Morning Star (still outdated compared to Holy at this point), and Gladius, a Holy-elemental knife (better for the Chemist). Grand Aevis is the first formal new boss. It comes accompanied by two Dark Elementals who can sling Aeroga and heal it with White Wind (5500 max HP). If they both go down, it revives them. The dragon itself likes zombification, immediately using it if a party member is down. Because of this, I status bugged Angel Rings (alternative would be !Mix which is on the table at this point and very necessary because this thing is way too fast) as well as Aegis and Bone Mail since poison and death is also a thing.
The Aevis has 42000 HP and absorbs fire, ice, lightning, and wind. It is also floating. Because of this, Lenna made the best Gladiator in the fight: her finisher was the only one that did anything! After splattering one elemental, I weaken the other and just wear it down. Both of the physical attackers have Long Reach to hit for full damage in and to the back row. I spent a while scrambling with healing, especially since they kept going after Faris - both the only one who didn't get death immunity (I brought !Mix to life shield her) and the last to get Shell. It went down before I could move on to doing other things with !Mix.
One thing I was noticing as I went through the temple, I thought I'd grinded enough for the money cannon. Turns out, it disppears pretty fast when you spam Giltoss too much. It was around this time that I had to calm down and only use it when I really needed it. A good target was the Exorays: imagine the flowers that show up at the Dragon Pod, as 6000HP random encounters who can also cast Firaga and throw out Zombie Powder on a counter. Throwing money wiped all five every time, however. Mirage Vests were the armor of choice: it was nice having on free Blink on three of my four party members every turn.
I made it down the temple, bypassing the Thief check as discussed, and before heading back up, decided to challenge a new superboss.
Video link!
Omega Mk-ii is basically the same fight, just with a wallchange gimmick, a counter for Rapid Fire specifically, and somewhat higher stats. The first I ignore, the second I can't use aside from the Hayate Bow, and the third just means more HP. This shows off what I would've done to the original if I didn't feel like just !Calming it. Which also works here, aside - same weakness to Song/Stop. Nothing special, just six minutes of setting up and three of crushing it.
This victory also gave me the first new piece of equipment of real note, the Force Shield. It nullifies all elements, but only gives +10% evasion and has a massive weight value with an agility penalty. Still really good, however.
Video link!
One wasn't enough, so I swung into the area to the side to fight the other. It's full of dragon-type enemies, including the new Claret Dragon, but they're mostly ones from the main game who are simple at this point. I found another way to beat up Shield Dragons: Berserk them off my own Reflect and kill!
Neo Shinryu is absolutely not just like the original, and doesn't retain the Berserk weakness either. It has a tough but manageable script, which notably includes Curse: a big roulette of status ailments. It's a mechanically interesting fight: it's actually two enemies in one. One of them is invincible does almost all of the attacks. The other constantly shuffles False Image status (same as Wendigo and Pantera) on and off, so it's effectively only vulnerable half of the time. If you watch the ATB bars closely, you can see this happening when they pause. This also, amusingly, seems to stop the Mighty Guard at the start of the battle from being applied. It apparently sometimes does, but like, I have Dispel so.
The Mix buffs here were comparatively very simple: Goliath Tonics to double HP, Protect/Shell, Dragon Kiss, and some boosts for my damage-dealing Gladiator. It's still classified as a Dragon, so Dragon Lance works for extra damage. I also threw down some Resist mixtures down when I could. It eventually casts Mute, but it didn't seem to work: I could still heal with White Magic. It goes into some big physical chains at this point. Its parting move was pathetic and I walked away with the Ultima Weapon: a sword (not knightsword) that is the strongest in the game, even more than the max power Brave Blade. There's only two weapons that can rival it under normal circumstances: the Chicken Knife with its twin strength/agility modifiers and a katana with a 50% crit chance I'll be picking up shortly. Though there's times when a killer weapon will be better.
I went back up briefly but quickly moved onto Archeodemon. This is a weird gimmick boss: it absorbs all elements and counters anything that isn't magic with Death on his undead self. Using an Ether (which caps his MP to 9999) followed by some Dark Ethers on him allows me to strip him of his MP in short order and kill him easily from there, considering most of his moveset is MP-based. With 0 magic evasion to boot, Archeodemon and Omega Mk.ii are the only Sealed Temple bosses where you're allowed an easy exploit against them. I remembered to swap out the Ultima Weapon for the Artemis Bow on the Gladiator partway through because that deals extra damage to beasts, to which he is one. Just sped things up.
Next was to go back down to fight the next boss. I stole an Earthbreaker just because along the way, and grabbed the katana I mentioned. Guardian is Sol Cannon 2.0, with an added twist of a fourth part that can do some actions. Also if you let the gun charge you die instantly to a double Wave Cannon. I didn't let it act at all.
That just left Enuo, and here's another video. I came in with Bone Mail resistances on 3/4 party members, as well as Angel and Aegis resistances on all. I needed ProShell and Blink (to dodge a stupidly strong physical), but no problem with HP buffing and Dragon's Kisses either. I also used a single Dragon Power on all of my party members so their level wouldn't be divisible by 3. With all this buffing and White Magic around, that just left damage. !Zeninage and !Finisher both could cap while being in the back row, but the former needed me to reduce Enuo's defense first. Twice actually, since he has two forms. Due to the status resistance bug, all the Grand Crosses did was poison on someone who didn't get it, and Toad on Bartz. I proceeded to disrespectfully slay the Void's creator with a froggy !Finisher.
One last thing to do before I'd done everything possible with this fiesta is the Cloister of the Dead, the boss rush of the game. You face 30 enemies in groups of 5, all buffed to be something of a challenge. The only trouble is that this includes Minotaur, Omniscient, and Archeodemon (the only temple boss to show up).
There was really nothing special about it. I played conservatively early on, and the result was not needing to use a single Elixir.
- First wave is Wing Raptor (physical attacks), Garula (same), Siren (same), Magisa and Forza (same!), and Gil Turtle (beat him many times before and this was no different).
- Second wave is Liquid Flame (attacks, charm for fun), Soul Cannon (giltoss then attacks), Purobolos (giltoss), Minotaur (attacks), and the three little pigs (giltoss).
- Third wave is Byblos (attacks), Tyrannosaur (Phoenix Down), Dragon Pod (Death Potion), Archeodemon (same as before) and Apanda (attacks)
- Fourth wave is Manticore (Death Potion), Adamantoise (same), Jackanapes (you know, the random encounter? Kiss of Blessing out of sheer spite then attacks), Calofisteri (attacks and Holys), and Twintania (Holy spam w/Excalibur too)
- Fifth wave is Omniscient (Holy, the odd silence and hit), Wendigo (search and destroy), Sandworm (same except I can see it), Atomos (Sleep Blade into Holy), and Halicarnassus (!Finisher, !Mix, and !Zeninage all work through toad)
- Final wave is the Seal Guardians (giltoss), Melusuine (Succubus Kiss and attacks, had a weird bug in the menus with Bartz here where his items weren't working), Catastrophe (first time I needed wide-scale healing), Azulmagia (stripped his MP for fun), and Necrophobe (Giltoss the barriers, attack with Holy and Excalibur)
And that's it! This fiesta is super done! But I wasn't done with the fiesta this year...
Run 2 | Index
