FFR: Solo Geomancer Part I

The name 'Geomancer' can send a chill down the spine of Final Fantasy players everywhere. It debuted in the third game in the series and has since then consistently been a frustrating RNG class and always being at the mercy of what's around it. Even in FFT where they're at their best and can always do the same thing as long as they're on the right terrain, it's primarily for its stats and equipment making it an excellent carrier class. Thankfully, while FFR makes them take after the main series, they're a lot better.

What's in a name? Geomancers in canon are said to use feng shui to perform their psuedo-magic. Their Japanese name, Fūsuishi, directly references this. One of the first uses of the term in recorded history is in The Book of Burial, which is commonly attributed to the poet Guo Pu. He is also renowned as a geomancer himself. Why not? I could only think of one fictional character who used it (Mononobe no Futo), but a little bit of a historical reference wouldn't hurt.


Here's the base stats of the class. Geomancer is everything you'd expect out of a magic class: lots of INT and not much of else. This being FF1, it was naturally possible to manipulate growths, and I would do that for STR and VIT at every level up, as well as INT when reasonable in the event that it did not have a fixed growth, and sometimes AGI as well.

Geomancy has no base power provided, but instead seem to scale off level. It can be used one of two ways in FFR. First, you can select one of four spells from the MAGIC menu. These all begin with one spell charge, and they gain an additional spell charge for the first on the list (which is always a damage spell of some kind) on levels ending in 5, and one for the rest on levels ending in 0. Alternatively, you can use the TERRAIN command to use a random one for free. When doing so, there is a decent chance to restore one spell charge for all levels in the current terrain, and around a 5% chance of one of two rare spells specific to the terrain that can only be used in this way.

This one simple change alone does a lot to help Geomancers' viability. Instead of rolling the dice every time, you have a certain degree of control over what is going to happen. A small degree. Do keep in mind their very limited spell slots.


It's worth noting that, aside from a weird bug I ran into later, each different terrain has its own spell slots. For example, I could use the second slot LEAF SWIRL in the forest, then go to the grass terrain and still use the second slot SHINING FLARE. These were multi-targeting spells that respectively did non-elemental and fire damage. At level 1, these weren't enough to consistently kill IMPs, but they usually did at level 2.


Though there are some flaws with Geomancy. One of the biggest being this: the aritifical terrain. This horrible terrain set is used in many different places: the Temple of Fiends (and return), the Marsh Cave, Northwest Castle, Ordeals, the Waterfall, and Mirage Tower. Of the four you can use naturally, CARVE MODEL is simply a ST non-elemental attack. Geomancer later gets equipment to boost certain elements, so this is notably underpowered by comparison. CLOSE-IN is an AoE non-elemental that can inflict darkness. MARBLE ARMOR just boosts party absorb by 20%, and FORGED IN IRON damage/critical by 10%.

The last two don't help a solo Geomancer much. Them showing up in TERRAIN is annoying. But what's worse is the rare spells. CHASM isn't too bad: it's a Stone-elemental AoE that can sometimes instantly KO an enemy. But MIRROR is awful: this, yeah, let's say this inflicts reflect on all party members. You want control of when reflect happens, and it's badly flawed in FFR anyway: half the enemies you'd want to use it on can just decide to jump around in their AI scripts, completely removing the point of it. It works the other way too: you can reflect spells onto the enemies. You can do funny things like killing undead with healing spells. But geomancy can be reflected too. Keep spamming TERRAIN after a MIRROR, and you might just give the enemy a buff.

That said? It's GARLAND I was up against for now. He's the biggest fraud in all of Final Fantasy. It just took a bit of luck with CARVE MODEL and TERRAIN and I won.


Pravoka uses the ocean terrain. It's actually not the worst thing on the ocean due to THUNDERBOLT, a ST attack that can inflict stun (a one-turn paralysis). CALM WATERS heals and sets regen, healing the recipients for 10% of their max HP at the end of every turn. The other two are AoE water spells - a new element added for FFR. There's not a consistent rhyme or reason to what's weak to it besides fire enemies (KARY included), but it should be obvious that anything water-related resists it. The PIRATEs don't count and were easily washed away by this.

That said, yeah. It was hard to be on the water. KYZOKUs were destroyed, and single SHARKs were fried. Everything else was bad and I ran from.


But Geomancy was good enough to play on the Peninsula of Power even at a low level! TANGLEVINE was a multi-target spell that had a high chance of paralyzing stuff. The basic grass set is actually one of the best; the other two are WIND GUST, a solid wind-elemental ST move that GIANTs were unfortunately resistant to, and SUNBATH, a healing spell. Healing spells in geomancy are crazy. At their best, they leave HEL3 in the dust and come a lot sooner.


Oddly, FrWOLFs were the big target again! They were very vulnerable to paralysis (contrast GIANTs who were rarely affected or ZomBULLs who weren't as much) and SHINING FLARE finished them off. I got Guo Pu to level 10 before heading down into the Marsh Cave.


It was the Marsh Cave all right. The strategy on the randoms was to run like hell. The strategy on the WIZARDs was to just use CLOSE-IN and hope they were wiped before me. Oddly, while darkness status is normally unnoticeable, it absolutely made the difference and saved Guo Pu in one try. But it still sucked. I got annoyed after five failed attempts at or after beating the WIZARDs (to say nothing of getting to them) and went back to add more levels. This was supposed to be more of a fun/chill run. I expected to add even more for the Earth Cave and Ice Cave anyway. I got to level 15 for now.

The problem with Geomancer was turning out to be spell charges. While they're technically unlimited through lucky use of TERRAIN, they are at the same time very limited. As a point of comparison, at the level 15 I eventually went in at, the other pure caster classes have 5 charges of level 3 spells and 4 charges of level 4 spells. Red and Blue both have 4 and 3 there respectively. Geomancer is stuck with 2 AoE spells and 3 ST spells.

It didn't take too long after that. One thing I did on my winning run was use CARVE MODEL to kill CRAWLs whenever one (not two) showed. This worked and one shot them each time, but I was out of them by the time I hit the WIZARDs. It was a two pack and a close game, but I made it through. The dangerous fights on the way out were actually GARGOYLEs! Those things hit really hard and killed a few runs on their own. This was not one of them. I saved as soon as I made it out and smirked when I saw I was one step away from another encounter.


That said, if there is one thing Geomancy is good at? Sheer damage on the ST attacks. I was actually flipping a coin (rolling a 1d20?) and trying to see if I could get MIRROR out of TERRAIN. Instead I got a high damaging CARVE MODEL, and a second finished him. First try, no RUBs today.

I bought a Silver Bracelet at Melmond after taking care of the key business, then went to Crescent Lake to grind. My goal was level 20 for the Earth Cave. One of the most fun spells in forests was SNARE. This is supposed to work like STUN, BLND, and XXXX - that is, anything under 300HP that does not resist the element gets hit, in this case, with an earth-based instant death move. Unfortunately, it was bugged and still sometimes missed, and Ozmo couldn't reproduce it so hasn't fixed it.

The Earth Cave had STALACTITE and EARTH EMBRACE and a single and multi target offensive option respectively. They were unsurprisingly in the Earth-element. It's terrible in FF1 and even FFR: it existed solely to make enemies resistant to the QAKE element. Only FFR's RAMUH is weak to the element and, being an Evoker boss, would not be seen here. Despite this, the element is actually solid in the dungeon. COCTRICEs and EARTHs obviously resisted it, as did the VAMPIRE, GAROGYLEs, IMAGEs, and even the rare OOZE. But it would work fine on WIZARDs and even LICH himself.

There were also two support spells here. EARTH BLESSING was another good heal spell, AoE not that it mattered, that increased absorb by 10% as a small bonus. And MINERAL SHELL gave Earthspikes, which causes half the damage dealt to be reflected back at the attacker. Might have to use both against the VAMPIRE.


Waiting for me in this formerly empty upper left room was the first bell of the game. Aside from a special late game one, these weapons universally have 15 attack, 15 hit%, 0.5% crit, and boost geomancy spells of one element. Naturally, the Earth Bell boosted earth spells. By how much? Well, I saw the rare CAVE-IN spell do like 200 to the wolves in here without the bell, but it cracked over 400 with it. So I'm thinking anywhere from 1.5× to 2× damage, or some sort of other potency boost.

The only downside to these is that they only affect one element, and often come midway through their relevant dungeon. Of course, there's ways to make that not as big an issue.

Guo Pu only had 18 luck, which did not give him good odds of running. At his level of 20, he had just over a 50% chance. Instead of trying to win a coinflip against the legions of undead, it often felt better to use EARTH EMBRACE instead. This was enough to one-shot the zombies, if he was lucky enough to go before them or not get paralyzed. No such luck with IMAGEs or COCTRICEs though. It would take multiple castings.


The first time I reached the VAMPIRE, he instantly paralyzed Guo Pu and that was the end of it. I employed spikes as planned the next time, but there was a problem: the buff only lasted two rounds. My luck with dodging paralysis or DAZZLE was going to run out long before his HP, and that's what happened. The third time, I just threw up my arms and used STALACTITE just to see how much it would do before preparing for bell-based violence.


Oh. Well. That works. Got him in two. I had to fight him one more time when I failed my run out, but it went just as well as before.

I gained a level outside, got the ROD, and went back in. It shockingly only took attempts to make it to the bottom from here! It was an insane run that I really shouldn't have won. Guo Pu had to tangle with small groups of IMAGEs and a five-pack of COCTRICEs. I just tried to end them with EARTH EMBRACE instead of trying to run. Between these, a WIZARD group, and a couple MUMMYs, there obviously wasn't enough spell charges. So I actually had to roll with TERRAIN, sometimes against the deadly enemies themselves! He 1v1'd an IMAGE for a while and avoided petrification. Even after this, a TROLL kept critting him at absurdly low odds on the bottom floor. Thankfully, I did survive that and moved onto LICH.


After all the trouble the Earth Cave usually gives me in solos? Going first and instantly killing the boss was catharthic. Like I said, LICH does not resist earth. Strange, but it's true: even in vanilla, I've murdered him with QAKE a couple times in the final dungeon.

Moving onto the midgame, all three of the damn things were horrible! For different reasons that I'll get to when relevant. I started off in Ordeals as usual. This would get me a Gold Bracelet and Zeus.


It wasn't just bad luck in Ordeals, it was the geomancy set. Artificial is horrendous, I can't stress that enough. Geomancy's scaling seems to level out after a point, and not only do these skills not benefit from any elemental bonuses, but they also seem to just be weaker. Not only that, but TERRAIN rolling is equally bad. At least in the elemental dungeons you might get healing or a moderate offensive buff if you want to fight with bells. In artificial? Anything from bad buffs to actually bad buffs.

The first time I made it to the Zombie Ds, they showed in a pack of two. Artifical sucked so bad that Guo Pu just died miserably. Even the second go at them - after a lot of runs failed due to being damaged to death by physicals or FIR2 and the odd MEDUSA petrify - it was a tight win.


The Ice Cave needs no introduction. Besides a single target and multi target spell, it has two others in its geomancy set: ICEWALL was a strong heal and AICE. FORGED IN ICE gives a 20% power bonus and infuses the weapon with ice. Even with changes to the formula made in version 2.1 to make the Spellblade job actually work, nothing here was weak to ice. Unlike the Earth Cave, undead universally resist the ice element, so I had to use Zeus. It was better than trying my luck with running.

Actually, there was an update released partway through this that silently nerfed (not even listed in patch notes) spellcasting items by making them no longer benefit from INT. Strange change after having them work like that for so long. I wasn't about to let that affect this challenge midrun, especially given why it was made, so I stayed on the old version.

But besides the usual suspects, everything else could also be a problem. I actually died a couple times to FrGIANTs and even a GrPEDE because of their ice resistance. I had to either spam Zeus and hope it rolled well or try to physical them down with a lousy bell. The only things in the cave that didn't resist ice were the EYE, SORCERERs, and MAGEs. Yeah, the boss and the worst possible things to be fighting. Actually, I could splatter single SORCERERs nicely with ICE PILLAR. MAGEs could theoretically be silenced by WHITEOUT, but it rarely seemed to proc and their ambush rate was too high. Many attempts made it far. Then one run failed for a novel reason: an unwanted level up on the way. That was the last straw, and I pulled out to go gain some more levels.


After a bit of time on the peninsula, I went down into Gurgu. One nice thing about Geomancer is that they render the party immune to damage tiles if they're the visible character. You also still don't get encounters on them, so it's just a good little bonus. Much like the Ice Cave, a lot in here was resistant to fire. FIREWALL and FORGED IN FIRE were other elemental equivalents. HOTSPOT just did single target fire. MAGMA SURGE was the AoE spell that could inflict burn. Nothing in the documentation says what this new status does. I mean, it's some sort of poison variant given how I saw something die from burn damage, but any other effects? Opacity sucks.

Guo Pu again suffered deaths at the hands of hard-hitting fire-resistant enemies from time to time. My target was way on the bottom floor: the Flame Bell was here. This would boost the damage of SHINING FLARE.

I thought I could fight KARY while I was at it, but she did too much damage and Guo Pu had no way to kill her before she killed him. So it was back down to grab the bell again before going back on the grind. I hit level 28, good for 79 magic defense, before making more attempts at the Ice Cave.


I wasn't encounter watching since it was late, and regretted it: I kept getting MAGEs and SORCERERs. Although now I was high enough level that the latter would sometimes run, which led to a bit of comic relief at least. This actually happened twice.

And that was all there was to it: resetting a lot until you get through. When it comes to a FF1 solo, the Ice Cave is not a matter of skill, but a matter of patience and how much you're willing to grind to tilt the odds. Same for the Earth Cave. It's sort of why I'm starting to sour on them, might have to do more party-based challenges. Someone on the FFR server, I believe yusiko, made a remark to the effect that the Ice Cave is the actual final dungeon of a solo. And my fellow soloist Wrolyn says every one homogenized afterward. Honestly, I'm inclined to agree with both. This isn't to say things were going to be smooth sailing for Guo Pu for the rest of the game after this or that it would be identical to every other solo, but this was the last major obstacle.

I was about at the end of my patience for level 28 when I finally got a run that made it through. Way too many were ended on B3 by MAGEs. Actually, twice they jumped me in the tiny room in between the square room and pit room. That's just spite. I actually survived all four RUBs, only to die to the LIT3s when WHITEOUT didn't silence them.

Final dungeon down? Well, there's still the rest of the game to deal with.

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FFR: Solo Geomancer Part II

My past three FFR solos didn't promote to complete the game. In the case of Evoker, not much of consequence was added. Green Mage would've gotten a once per floor save point, which is pretty nuts even if you can only use TENTs at them. In the case of Lancer, it was more equipment and a broken ability that invalidates randoms. Those two would've snapped the game apart had I taken full advantage of them. But this time, I was considering it. Elementalist has a small yet big change from Geomancer that really helps the class. But Geomancer without promotion would also be more of a 'challenge' run.

The answer I arrived at was to do both if there was merit, and report both! And there certainly was merit here.


Because after promotion, what are now Elementalists gain a good ability that fixes the problems with geomancy: SAMPLE. No longer are you bound by the set of the dungeon you're in. Instead, you can use the world ability to get a second set of spells! They have their own spell slots (copied from your current max), cannot be refreshed (not even at an inn) without resampling, and cannot be used in the same terrain they're from, for no reason other than sensible balance.

I figured promotion would be the more interesting run to go through as the "prime" run just because of this one ability. The run was otherwise going to be reduced to the usual spellcasting items spam. But to up the stakes? I'm banning them moving forward for Elementalist. Zeus is fine on runs like this for the Ice Cave, but after that? Yeah. Let's go.


So what can SAMPLE do? Take the Waterfall, for example. Actually, in earlier versions of this, it featured the river terrain. This is even worse than artificial if you can believe that: a single target Water-elemental attack, another single target Water-elemental attack, a single target Water and Death elemental KO move in the vein of XXXX, SNARE, etc, and a multi target status heal. With two more Water-elemental attacks in AoE flavor if you get lucky. As you might expect, every single enemy on rivers resist Water, so it is completely useless on them.

It could play havoc here against MudGOLs which are weak to the element, but it was technically a bug (it had no terrain formally set so just carried over the river terrain) and Ozmo put artificial here instead. Why artificial in a damn cave behind a waterfall? Some sort of kink, maybe?

Actually ironically artificial was better to have here just because it gave an AoE for the spike. I failed my first run in because I got a bit too eager with fighting and gained a level. Eesh, thought I had plenty of wiggle room to get in and out and be ready to level after. Made sure that didn't happen the second time.


That said, the Sea Shrine was going to be tougher with my restrictions than it would be for the unpromoted class which I would allow to spam the usual Zeus. Nothing's really amazing to take into here: only the Ocean and Floating Castle terrains have a lit attack, and both are single target. Aquatic enemies resist earth and fire as well as their own element.

So I decided I would take grass terrain inside as I cleared the upper half. This would give me an edge up on GHOSTs, give a non-elemental AoE, and not a lot in the shrine resisted wind so that gave me another attack besides a melee one. It wasn't too much trouble, and I got to the SLAB, Opal Bracelet, etc. and back on the first try.


Guo Pu took the Sea Shrine's own terrain with him into Gurgu Volcano to take on KARY. She was not only weak to the water element, but there was a second spell in it that was helpful: PRESSURE. This reduces the target's attack value by 20%. No save, no roll, it just works. This meant that she went from a base of 40 to 32 and then 25.


Suddenly, her individual hits usually did 1 damage to Guo Pu; I'm pretty sure it's actually stronger than shown because she should have been able to hit for as much as 50 damage on any of her six attacks. Which was still just 13 against Guo Pu's absorb. Maybe she just got unlucky and rolled on the lower end each time.


With this in play and his own offensive spells doing heavy damage, this one became a formality.


I also had business back in the Ice Cave, where I no longer feared to tread thanks to having a Ribbon. What a big difference immunity to status and death elements did, huh? Another elemental bell was here ready to be claimed, that I really didn't care to dawdle around to grab the first time. These all had a specific use later.


I took the Ice Cave's terrain down into the Sea Shrine's depths. The underwater terrain's native PRESSURE would help for GHOSTs and KRAKEN, and the former weren't resistant to water. The ice element meanwhile, would help deal with WATERs. It shouldn't be a surprise that a Water Bell was down here to grab too. PRESSURE was useful in general actually. It definitely reduces attack more than by 20%. I usually threw it up and used TERRAIN to refresh before running from encounters. Against those I couldn't, two shots of water AoE was still enough for R.SAHAGs. There was also this hidden move. It's supposedly poison-elemental, not death-elemental like I thought it would be. Also used by the rare new HADES encounter down here.

I actually died once to WATERs when they did too much damage before I could do anything. I used the Ice Bell instead of the Water Bell to prevent that on the next go.


To further show how great PRESSURE is, this is how much KRAKEN did on the first swing. Ouch.


And this is what he was reduced to after just one. The reason why I say it has to be more than 20% is that he has an attack value of 50. 20% of that is 40, which should be statistically impossible to hit for 1 against Guo Pu's 37 absorb and very unlikely to hit that low on all hits (the range is anywhere from one to two times). But it was. After crippling him further, I healed up with ICEWALL, used FORGED IN ICE several times, and began smacking him.


It still only did like double digit damage, so I tried geomancy instead. Yeah, that did it. And that's without a weakness too, just an elemental boost from a bell. Geomancers can do some scary damage even without getting into the broken nonsense that is their LIMIT.

I gained some levels going up and down the Mirage Tower for two reasons. One was that I was fetching the last two remaining bells. The Wind Bell is on the north side of Mirage's F2 treasure room, and the Thunder Bell was in the upper right of Floating Castle F2. The other was that I was testing a bug: each terrain is supposed to have its own separate spell slots, but in this version, any charges you used in artificial were used in celestial. It didn't happen the other way around. Even Ozmo wasn't sure how that happened.


The Blessed Bell combines the effects of all the other bells into one omni*-elemental boosting package, and also has 20/20/1 offenses. Non-elemental, poison, and time (only seen in Astral terrain accessible with an Evoker) are unaffected, however. It also has a very special secondary effect I may or may not show off. Depends.

Floating Castle had a new terrain, and it was not wind based as you might expect. Instead, it had PLASMA, a single target lit elemental attack. There was also METEOR SHOWER, a multi-target attack. Since it was non-elemental, that meant it couldn't benefit from the Blessed Bell's bonuses and did sad damage. Then there was STARDUST, which inflicted random statuses on all enemies. But the big one was COSMIC RAYS. This was a 30% boost to ally magic damage! After a couple of these, PLASMA was approaching like 2000 damage on the hapless randoms.

If you're curious, the Astral plane has a ST and AoE Time-elemental spell, and clones of STARDUST/COSMIC RAYS as the other two. The two classes have nice synergy in how you can benefit from them sooner, and it just so happens there's a relatively useless summon you can keep around to keep sampling Astral terrain. Wouldn't be seen in a solo, of course.

I grabbed the ProCape and--


--got killed by WarMECH. You must really have a deathwish, robot.

I hard reset and went back up, aiming for encounter 20 to challenge it. Now, every promoted class in the game has a LIMIT skill, a one-time ability. You either need to use an Inn (not a HOUSE) or the Red Wizard's LIMIT to recharge. Not all are created equal. For example, Dragoon's executes an immediate SUPER JUMP and removes tiredness on JUMPs, but it only lasts for three rounds and it still counts air time. It's mediocre. Summoner instantly resummons the last summon. This can be great. Green Wizard gives status immunity. Questionable outside of one superboss you can fight with a Rune Fencer.


This is Elementalist's: GEOSTORM. It's an AoE elemental nuke normally, fairly modest. But with the Blessed Bell? This happens. Not something I intended to use, but if anything deserves it, it's this thing. And that was on the lower end of rolls. I hit him for over 10000 damage once. I don't know if that was a nerf or what. Still, that was--


--yeah, yeah. Knew I was about to screw myself here. I missed the VIT roll on this level, so I couldn't save this attempt. Although if I gain a level, level 40 has a guaranteed STR and VIT gain. So if I do that, then I can murder this thing and get away with it. So I went ahead and did that, returned, hard reset, and went back up ready for murder.


What, you think I need that cheap parlor trick to win? Hah!


Crushed under enough PRESSURE, even WarMECH's physicals were reduced to nothing. Even his NUCLEAR was neutered thanks to BUBBLE CURTAIN, which causes enemy magic/skills to deal half damage. It's identical to Green Wizard's SHELL2.


He used it all of once for a mere 50 damage. With that in place and some buffing with COSMIC RAYS, it was just a matter of using WATERSPOUT until the robot blew up.


Blam. No spellcasting items, no GEOSTORM cheese, just pure geomancy against the big bad robot to achieve victory. I actually had to go back and fetch the ProCape due to where I was on the encounter table. Then I had to stall the encounter table so I didn't get a second one on the way back. Yeah, could've nuked that one with GEOSTORM, but again, level ups.


Against TIAMAT, I tried rolling with STARDUST, and cracked up laughing when this was the result. It's non-elemental, so anything is fair game against this as long as it gets through magic defense. FFR does give certain monsters outright immunities to certain status, but this is limited to CHAOS and original enemies. With her good and confused, I had Guo Pu start stacking COSMIC RAYS. I wanted to see just how high damage his could get. He used all five charges by the time TIAMAT recovered, and unleashed hell.


Or so I thought. That was underwhelming. I took underwater terrain partly because water is specifically one of the elements she does not resist. Maybe it doesn't stack, or she's resistant to water even if the in-game bestiary doesn't say so. Still got her in two casts, but ugh.

Almost there for this. The last part and the unpromoted run are left.

Next | Index

FFR: Solo Geomancer Part III

The questions before diving into the past were this: did I want to go to 50 with this promoted character? I absolutely would for unpromoted. And second, which SAMPLE to take? It didn't take me long to settle on underwater. PRESSURE would be excellent insurance on KARY and KRAKEN, and the snakelady was still weak to water. BUBBLE CURTAIN would be fantastic on LICH, TIAMAT, and CHAOS. Finally, the water floor aside, there wasn't a lot that resisted it. As for levels, I decided no, let's do it at 41 (which I reached for the next strong HP up) and see what happens.


Look at this awful damage. Just look at it! This is why artificial terrain is bad. You could legitimately get just as much damage out of FIR2 or something. It's like CLOSE IN has a much lower multiplier than other abilities. It was thankfully sufficient on some of the water floor enemies (which had the potential to be the biggest threat), but against these menaces and their 200 magic defense? Yeah, it was bad. I just had to hope I didn't run into them.

LICH got off NUKE before I could BUBBLE CURTAIN. Wasn't too tough to kill before the second one at least, but that did not bode well. I was down to half my heal potions before the midway point. Never a good sign.


I actually bumped into the 3/64 slot on the fire floor. They were promptly washed away.

KARY got off a hit before PRESSURE, but she was reduced to uselessness from there. WATERSPOUT dealt with her. And thankfully, the water floor played nice. That was what I was most concerned about. KRAKEN got PRESSUREd before he could attack. From there, CARVE MODEL handled him.


But this was bad. I was down to just 9 potions after claiming the Masmune. I took advantage of a new item FFR added, the WARP stone, which you can claim from Coneria's king after breaking the black orb. Its intended purpose is to let anyone escape from the temple one time without needing one of the vanilla mages or a Time Mage. I instead used it to skip part of the walk back after getting the legendary sword.


Yup, WORMs ran me out, then TIAMAT attacked physically before I could get PRESSURE off. That and BUBBLE CURTAIN did neuter her offense. I just had Guo Pu buff and attack with the sword from here and eventually finished her off.


Here's the stats. And to say it again: just 135HP. I am royally screwed, needless to say.


It was die or do this (and move first which Guo Pu did), and I told the game in no uncertain terms where to shove it. I mean, it was just going to boil down to "run the temple until I don't lose too much health", and without this delicious cheese I'd just end up employing the same strategy against CHAOS I'm going to in the unpromoted game. I just felt like it wouldn't prove anything except that I had the patience to do so. And well, I did - it's just that I have other games I want to play. No need to run it a second time (and probably many more times) just for that.

After all, I was about to run through the latter half of the game a second time!

######


Waterfall was basically the same unpromoted, only that without a water SAMPLE, I couldn't easily kill these things before getting the Defense. They could hit pretty hard if Guo Pu failed enough runs.

Since I didn't take them off the table for unpromoted Guo Pu, he could merrily Zeus through the Sea Shrine just like anyone else. Later on, I could add Mage Staff and Black Shirt (if I wanted to spare the slot) into the mix. Yay spellcasting items!


KRAKEN could still be PRESSUREd. And Defense Sword was in play here too just like anyone else could use. I went with PRESSURE anyway because that renders him harmless sooner: one turn versus three. I defensed up too, because why not?

I got WarMECHed again in the Floating Castle. I knew it was coming, but I thought I could try to get across the bridge in one encounter since I had one a step before going into the bridge. Didn't happen. I tried STARDUST in desperation but nothing got rolled.


TIAMAT could be Bane Sworded just like anyone else could. I didn't need to: I could still mess with her with STARDUST. This doesn't have perfect accuracy, so this was hilarious to see. She stayed paralyzed for the rest of the battle while I tested COSMIC RAYS stacking. Results were unclear, but it made PLASMA do enough through resistance (398 on the finishing blow) together with the bell.

Blessed Bell can still be obtained with Geomancer. However, I found it couldn't be used by Geomancer! I know it could in earlier versions, so this had to be a bug, a silent nerf, or I was wrong. Either way, you really shouldn't be able to trade for it and lock yourself out of bells with the class, so I filed a complaint, heh.


KARY was confused with the Wizard Staff as usual. But she kept breaking out so I just stopped. Defense up for extra safety and attack with Geomancy anyway since even resisted it was a bit more consistent than physicals. I fought fire with fire because it did more than attacking, and got a rare roll to finish her.

Oddly, I was at the end of the game at a lower level than I was with Elementalist: 33 vs 41. Fighting less and trying to figure out a bug will do that. But I went ahead and took him to 50 anyway on the VAMPIREs. It only occurred to me that I should've been listening to a Castlevania soundtrack, but Sonic 3D Blast is a good one too.


Here's what Guo Pu's stats looked like before starting the descent. Could I have gone lower? Yes. Didn't feel like it, though, and I had something extra in mind.

It's ToFR where things started to get different. Geomancer Guo Pu would have one big advantage over Elementalist Guo Pu: spellcasting items, meaning the ability to Defense and Heal Staff. I wouldn't have to worry about running out. However, the huge downside was limited spell charges and being limited to that awful artificial set.


Turns out that spellcasting items really do simply and homogenize things. I had Black Shirt ready for Gas Ds, but none showed up. PHANTOM got killed in two CARVE MODELs. Nothing helped against LICH so I just splattered him with two CARVE MODELs too.


But KARY and KRAKEN's physicals could still be dealt with with Defense. That is the other side of the spellcasting item coin: without them, against KRAKEN specifically, it's just "reset until he doesn't kill you". It's subjective which option is better. But more importantly, so could everything else's physicals be annulled. I didn't even need to bother with that flimsy Heal Staff. Guo Pu simply had enough potions to make it through.


I actually used geomancy against TIAMAT. I wanted to save the big stacks for CHAOS. True, Power Gauntlet exists, but there was a very convincing reason not to use it in this case. I was just past six hours on the game clock when I started the final battle.


I didn't talk about or use the FORGED IN spells very much. They're better suited for supporting a party than a solo Geomancer. FORGED IN IRON increases power and, more importantly, critical hit chance by 10%. This was how I intended to beat CHAOS last time and how I had to this time. CARVE MODEL only does so much, and I'd have to resort to TERRAIN rolling eventually due to only have six spell charges at max. That would be more than enough time for CHAOS to kill him with accumulated damage into a NUKE.


Defense thrice, and once SLO2 didn't land (first try, woo!), that was basically game set. He used a lot of his skills at first; Guo Pu got to resist SWIRL and TORNADO due to a change to the Ribbon in this version that hasn't yet been walked back and might not be. They're now of the water and wind element respectively, and as of 2.1, Ribbon's resistances expanded to include those (not WALL, though). Even if this wasn't the case, I still could've resisted SWIRL by equipping the Water Armlet from the Sea Shrine at least.


The first attack stunk, but then the criticals started rolling in. Actually, he hit for 1220 damage on one swing before CUR4 negated it. But with this, Guo Pu swiftly brought an end to things.

And that's solo Geomancer complete, both with and without promotion. This was one that I wanted to do for a while, just because of how good it is in FFR compared to that awful FF5 Geomancer. It's funny how while it's still very much recognizable in its luck-based roots, just a couple small changes turn a class into a legitimate force of nature. Allowing you to cast geomancy directly is huge, and yet, it kept a shackle on with the limited spell charges. You eventually do have to start rolling with TERRAIN if you want to keep going. It's pretty neat design, and like I said in my job comments - while Geomancer technically has unlimited spell charges, the same can be said about any mage who holds a spellcasting item. Any new class that can break from ITEMS spam is good in my book. I do think artificial terrain sucking so bad and being so prevalent was taking it too far, but the good outweighs the bad here.

I liked the idea of doing a run where I promoted and another where I didn't. Probably not going to do it for every challenge I do, that said. But in this case, they played differently enough to make both runs worthwhile. SAMPLE does a lot to help Elementalist in elemental dungeons, makes for interesting gameplay, and it didn't feel out of place. No terrain really stands out over another, and most have at least one good reason to take them. I personally felt it made for the more interesting run.

Is that it? No, there was still one last thing to do before I could call it a challenge.


EAT SHIT. That said, this took a bit of luck to take it on without PRESSURE's nonsense, even at a higher level. I tried to get STARDUST to land but it never did. It boiled down to Guo Pu not getting ambushed, and then an insanely lucky WarMECH miss on turn 1 after just one Defense use. After three, I used COSMIC RAYS and attacked away with PLASMA. I just had to hope it didn't use NUCLEAR too much, and it didn't.

Okay, now that's it. Don't expect more soon: I have to save Concordia and become the hero Erdrick, and am way overdue with killing the Seven Heroes. My next FFR challenge might be something of a party variety. I have a few different ideas. Thanks for reading, and see you then!

Index