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Well, I had an idea to do what I wanted to do all along in this fiesta, but to keep up my naming scheme meme, it meant run 4. Classic Natural with Duplicates. RDM/WHM/THF/BLM. Four White Mages in four runs? That'll never work. I threw some money at the charity and job faired it to Monk just for that extra kick, pun completely intended. Someone on SA was offering donation money for a speedrun, specifically under 10 hours and extra for every hour further under. I did this part for the thrill, part to make this run snappy, and part to prove mostly to myself that I'm more than completionism. I did it on the Japanese version for extra fun. To that end, a turbo report.
Played through as I normally do at first. I was level 10 when I started spamming !Flee. Most bosses after Karnak were dealt with through rod breaking. Except Crayclaw, it's so easy it's not worth bothering. Sandworm was an ordeal and took resets/Cura spam. I decided to grind on Black Flames, had to break rods on them. Luckily they pay out more than a rod costs. I got to level 20 in the process. The only other hard fight in W1 was Archaeoavis. Just being unafraid to use Elixir resources made the difference (in the escape, I just stole and ran, a lot). Kept enough in the bank for spells later. 3:44 gametime before jumping in the gate to the next world.
The only fight I was worried about before Moore was Gilgamesh 3, and it wasn't too bad since Enkidu played nice. Of course I got four Reflect Rings, but I took it further and got four Flame Rings by stealing from the Red Dragon and fleeing. Lots of resets were incurred between both. Couldn't beat Yellows for a shot at Corals, at least not reliably enough for my taste. The Flames paid off against the Seal Guardians, just weakened the fire crystal and I didn't have to worry from there. I grinded to 26 in Ghido's Cave and got three Light Staff drops. I broke them on Exdeath to get to the second phase as fast as possible. 5:58 gametime after beating him.
Had to think about my approach to W3. 4 hours to work with to get sub-10. How hard in on skipping did I want to go, and did I want to grind at all? If I did, I'd certainly be using the trench. Ultimately I decided to go right in after prep at Mirage and with the lamp, while keeping a backup save in case this turned out to be too much.
Calofisteri was easy as always, same for Apanda. Apocalypse played nice and got Bio'd down. Catastrophe of all things was the hardest of the gauntlet since any Earthshaker was a wipe. I went in toaded to Halicarn and beat them before Holy, and Twin Tania got Breaked during the Giga Flare charge (took two tries).
7:00 flat before the final fight. I didn't bother with Necrophobia, going straight to Exdeath with status bug Bone Mail on Lenna. Her and Dedede's job were to throw items. I had 21 Elixirs. I had more enough offense between Chicken Knife (only 125 power...) and boosted -ga spells. Hardest part was getting by phase 1; one time I was even Meteored. Once I made it to NED, it was first try.
Lamp to kill the back part and Break to kill the Almagester. With Protect up, I was relatively safe from the physical part and could reapply it as needed. So it was just down to the roulette wheel. First Grand Cross did Dead, Petrify, nothing, and HP leak. Yikes! Second did Berserk, nothing, Dead, Silence. Also horrible. I had to nuke Dedede with Krile once she was revived - he manged to do this while Berserked.. Third was poison (rendered moot when Dedede died immediately), nothing, nothing, Doom. Fourth was Berserk, Mini, nothing?, mini. Had to nuke him again and use my one Mallet on Faris. But with the physical part having been weakened first and then the Grand Cross part, they were both at critical health.
An AoE spell and one final Chicken Mug finished it, right before that Doom expired.
That wasn't my last fiesta of the year, but it was a challenge in itself. So it'll be in its own article.
Index
Played through as I normally do at first. I was level 10 when I started spamming !Flee. Most bosses after Karnak were dealt with through rod breaking. Except Crayclaw, it's so easy it's not worth bothering. Sandworm was an ordeal and took resets/Cura spam. I decided to grind on Black Flames, had to break rods on them. Luckily they pay out more than a rod costs. I got to level 20 in the process. The only other hard fight in W1 was Archaeoavis. Just being unafraid to use Elixir resources made the difference (in the escape, I just stole and ran, a lot). Kept enough in the bank for spells later. 3:44 gametime before jumping in the gate to the next world.
The only fight I was worried about before Moore was Gilgamesh 3, and it wasn't too bad since Enkidu played nice. Of course I got four Reflect Rings, but I took it further and got four Flame Rings by stealing from the Red Dragon and fleeing. Lots of resets were incurred between both. Couldn't beat Yellows for a shot at Corals, at least not reliably enough for my taste. The Flames paid off against the Seal Guardians, just weakened the fire crystal and I didn't have to worry from there. I grinded to 26 in Ghido's Cave and got three Light Staff drops. I broke them on Exdeath to get to the second phase as fast as possible. 5:58 gametime after beating him.
Had to think about my approach to W3. 4 hours to work with to get sub-10. How hard in on skipping did I want to go, and did I want to grind at all? If I did, I'd certainly be using the trench. Ultimately I decided to go right in after prep at Mirage and with the lamp, while keeping a backup save in case this turned out to be too much.
Calofisteri was easy as always, same for Apanda. Apocalypse played nice and got Bio'd down. Catastrophe of all things was the hardest of the gauntlet since any Earthshaker was a wipe. I went in toaded to Halicarn and beat them before Holy, and Twin Tania got Breaked during the Giga Flare charge (took two tries).
7:00 flat before the final fight. I didn't bother with Necrophobia, going straight to Exdeath with status bug Bone Mail on Lenna. Her and Dedede's job were to throw items. I had 21 Elixirs. I had more enough offense between Chicken Knife (only 125 power...) and boosted -ga spells. Hardest part was getting by phase 1; one time I was even Meteored. Once I made it to NED, it was first try.
Lamp to kill the back part and Break to kill the Almagester. With Protect up, I was relatively safe from the physical part and could reapply it as needed. So it was just down to the roulette wheel. First Grand Cross did Dead, Petrify, nothing, and HP leak. Yikes! Second did Berserk, nothing, Dead, Silence. Also horrible. I had to nuke Dedede with Krile once she was revived - he manged to do this while Berserked.. Third was poison (rendered moot when Dedede died immediately), nothing, nothing, Doom. Fourth was Berserk, Mini, nothing?, mini. Had to nuke him again and use my one Mallet on Faris. But with the physical part having been weakened first and then the Grand Cross part, they were both at critical health.
An AoE spell and one final Chicken Mug finished it, right before that Doom expired.
That wasn't my last fiesta of the year, but it was a challenge in itself. So it'll be in its own article.
Index
