FFR: WHM/BLM/GRM/TIM playthrough Part II
Nov. 6th, 2023 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorOkay, time pulls you back, as the message when EGRESS is cast says. Since I'm doing this, I'm going to set some ground rules. I was expecting this to be a challenge-ish party. Let's try to make it more challenging.
#1: No FLOAT or TELE abuse. These are funny but using them doesn't amount to actually playing the game.
#2: No DOUBLECAST. This ability crosses my threshold of broken nonsense, even by FFR's standards. It's kind of absurd that Time Wizard can spam this every turn while other classes get fatigue attached to their much worse commands.
#4: Let's make this more interesting: no using offensive spellcasting items in battle. I'll keep Defender, White Shirt, and Heal Staff/Helm on the table. Wizard Staff too.
#5: Try to open all chests, at least before ToFR.
What's #3? You'll spend forever looking for it. Ready? Go.
I started back off by going doing into Marsh Cave collect the free Silver Bracelet. 5000G saved by doing so. I actually bought a second in Melmond. I normally wouldn't bother with them, let alone with a party that had four mages in it. But I figured I was going to need at least the one extra to make things go easier.
I picked up the DEMI spell back in Elfland. This L3 spell does 50% of a single target's current HP in damage, but only 25% against bosses. The math on this says it's situation on most targets; it simply does not do enough to be worth using. However, EARTHs seemed like a perfect target. They have enough HP to matter, they resist 6 out of the eight elements; they're weak to fire and are neutral to time.
Dungeon romping with mages is all about restraint, pacing, and using RUN when needed. I cleared out the first floor and the second floor separately. One thing I did was to only have one of Blair or Timea use an AoE spell. It often dealt enough damage to wipe a chunk of the enemies, and any stragglers could be cleaned up with melee. Mages do just enough at this point against everything for that to be viable. The Vampire died in a single round of combat.
LICH also died in a single round of combat: I had all this prep ready too: AICE namely and all the similar spells. Instead Timea confused him with MUDDLE - LICH may have a lot of resistances, but time elemental is just not resisted and he has low magic defense. HRM2 hit for 134, he hit himself for 36, and FIR3 hitting for 288 was enough for the kill.
Gurgu was next, sticking to the "intended order" again, this time just to make my point further after the first playthrough. Grey Ws made clearing out the firewall maze a bit of a pain. They took very little damage from physical attacks due to their high defense, so I had to use precious spellcharges. At least FIREs are vulnerable to ice. I had to use WARP (which Time Mage can use before class change!) and paddle back to Crescent Lake afterwards. That said, I was able to do the entire rest of the volcano in one go. Not even the Red D gave me trouble: it was just MUDDLEd and blown up with ICE2.
KARY was also easy. I piled on the status and buffs. She did manage to break from HOLD, but I had up AFIR and had SLOWed her. I put MARK2 to work here. This spell is like the original, except it's single target only and instead applies 30 marks. With this, even my low offense team was able to start chunking her down. It's actually one of the big kudos I have to give. A lot of FFR's design seems to fall into either "broken/busted" or "bad". But MARK hits a particularly interesting sweetspot: it's a tool for certain parties. Like how the Masmune in the original can let just about any party beat CHAOS.
With KARY down, that meant it was Ice Cave time. I got to it on a very funny part of the encounter table. I would run into no less than three random encounter Frost Ds across my attempts at the cave! Thankfully to my benefit, they are presently bugged in FFR as of version 1.3.3 and will never use their BLIZZARD special. So they weren't a threat, but the MAGEs around the same part of it (or guarding the Cloth, I said all chests) were. I had some poor luck with them ambushing and RUBbing out my mages. One attempt got very deep, only get to half the team wiped out. I could still escape, but then WIZARDs blocked my path. Only Timea and Blair were standing, and I had to burn a lot of spell charges so I was out of LIT2 and FIR3. I tried ICE2 instead. But it didn't do enough and both were killed. That's the Ice Cave for you. A bunch of people had recently come into the FFR Discord because of ProJared, and some were not taking it as well as me, heh. Frustrating reality to them, business as usual for me.
Though it is hilariously ironic that the Lv9 team got through it basically first try and now I was running into all kinds of trouble with a team that's here when they're supposed to be. The EYE however, turned out not to be a threat. I threw out MUTE, MUDDLE, and HOLD all on the first turn. If one of those went before it and hit, it would prevent the XXXX from killing one of my mages. Well, all three hit. With it thoroughly crippled, it wasn't a problem beating it from there.
I didn't need to fall back in the pit and go the rest of the way, however. I had WARP! If you'll recall from my FFZZ playthrough or haven't seen it, this can be used in the Ice Cave to skip the hole and grab the FLOATER directly. It's normally not possible in the vanilla game because WARP is exclusive to after class change, which you need the airship to unlock. So it only meaningfully happens in romhacks or fangames. However, this behavior is not implemented properly as of v1.3.3 of FFR - instead you get in a buggy state where you're in the room while outside of it. It's not possible to open chests and get the FLOATER from the moment you come to the pits, but you can still walk out of the room. Which I did. Hey, I just said no FLOAT/TELE or DOUBLECAST. This is absolutely on the table~
With the airship claimed, my first destination was Castle Ordeals. I had to use EGRESS against a MEDUSA ambush, but it was otherwise smooth sailing through the small dungeon. The Zombie Ds died to HRM2 and FIR3. I claimed my clas change and WARDING CIRCLE.
When I said no offensive spellcasting items, I was serious by the way. I kept the Heal Staff and it would become something that Whitby used on about half of his turns, but I promptly sold the Zeus.
I went and got that from the Waterfall after. Blair's ability to equip the Silver Knife had gotten them to 2-hits by this point. They were good against the MudGOLs that polluted this place that I had to fight with physical attacks or BURST - I didn't have QAKE to kill them either let alone the L6 spell charges to use it. I had neglected to pick up FAST so far which would've made this easier (read: faster). The Defender, Ribbon, and Wizard Staff would all go to Greta.
The Sea Shrine was certainly going to be a different experience without unlimited spell charges to smash my way through it as usual. No trouble with clearing out the upper floor of the place. The Opal Bracelet was a welcome wear for Greta.
As for the bottom half, I was here that I learned for the first time that WARDING CIRCLE did not let you use HOUSEs. I would say that's for a balance reason, but for one, balance left the building a loooong time ago in FFR. And second, I learned you could place multiple WARDING CIRCLEs, one per floor. That's just absurd. It means there's zero threat of a game over, just the threat of dying after placing the circle without saving but after opening chests because of bugs. When that happens, the same thing happens as what happened with FLOAT in Ordeals earlier. I feel once per dungeon would be better for this ability, even if it allowed to use HOUSEs.
It meant I could drop one before KRAKEN with no worries if he decided to murder someone with his big ugly physical. The octopus was zapped into oblivion. He got Whitby pretty good, then I hit SLOW and MUDDLE and that was pretty much the end of that. The White Wizard cast RERAISE on himself in case he broke out of it. It was ultimately KRAKEN who dealt the final blow, thanks in-part to the MARK spell.
A little ways into Mirage Tower, I got the Thor Hammer. I could still use this to beat things over the head, just not its itemcast. The party also collectively reached level 20. Weird how the squishy mage team hasn't had unequal experience yet. Part of this has been incidental but any deaths have always been unrecoverable or run from and fixed with LIFE.
Level 20 also meant L7 charges. And Time Mage got a full set of interesting ones. UNDO in Onrac restored 1 of any other party member's spell charges across all levels. HASTE2 exists (makes everyone more likely to move sooner in the turn order). COMET is a somewhat unreliable non-elemental damaging spell that can sometimes do insane damage, but seems crippled by high magic defense. Then...then, there is this.
Quadruple hits. I'm not going to mince words. This is just wrong. With a Power Gauntlet cast and FAST2, Timea could do stupid amounts of melee damage. Someone who isn't even supposed to be a physical attacker! Now, this is actually pretty funny and fits a L7 spell, kind of a counterpart to SABR. And like SABR (besides the Power Gauntlets in FFR which let you cast it on anyone), it is self-cast only. But...FFR 2.0 is going to change that and not only allow this to target anyone, but allow FAST spells to stack to these same levels. That is just wrong. That is a "what is this game balance thing you speak of?" sort of thing. If a Time Wizard can do this much with this little effort, any actual melee class is just going to destroy anything with the normal game's numbers. I swear, as much fun as Renaissance is, to repeat myself again: a lot of its new content is heavily balanced for the NG+ feature where enemies actually have the HP to endure this sort of abuse.
Rants aside, the Sky Castle went fine. It was just a bit sluggish. The White Shirt and Black Shirt were as before the most important pickups here. I could use INV2 from the former as per my self-imposed restrictions, but I couldn't use ICE2 out of the latter. Still, the absorb bonuses were what really mattered here. Now everyone had decent physical defense.
I did have to take a trip out because I ran out of spell charges. So I threw down the circle at the front of the bridge and--
Yeah, there it is. And it killed Timea frame zero, perfect. I tried to fight it using Blair's LIMIT, but no luck was to be had: it focused fired them down. Reset! Glad I saved.
Then again, I did just save and can reload as many times as I want...
Huh, FIGHTER? Neat, that's the actual 1/64 here. Speaking of which, I noticed in the process that the encounter table was a little off from what I expected it should be. Maybe a blip or bug? Either way, the manip for WarMECH still works if the worst should come to pass. I couldn't hard reset here though, that would spawn me back where I saved outside.
I eventually got to another WarMECH encounter after a bunch of soft resetting. After using EGRESS many times until it didn't ambush, somehow avoiding having Timea die the whole while of trying, I was ready to begin. No hold barred. WarMECH is a superboss. It's time to scrap this thing.
I got up my defenses ASAP, throwing down a double INV2 stack to start out with from Greta and Whitby, casting GAIN on Blair, and popping Blair's LIMIT. Greta was hit hard. I aimed a CUR3 at her while Blair prepared NUKE. I unleashed DOUBLECAST and...
Bodied. While being able to use NUKE before level 25 with a LIMIT is cool, it was all because of Time Wizard that this was practical/semiconsistent. GAIN should really not be a level 1 spell for how much it can do and DOUBLECAST really needs more restrictions on it. Still, screw this guy. If anyone deserves it, it's him. Especially after all the times this damn robot has shown up in my challenge runs.
I used WARP, went back and saved, and got ready for TIAMAT. DEMI did a healthy 250, but her resistance to all elements was going to make this a matter of using ELEMENTAL SEAL to deal damage. Then I actually ended up landing the MUTE when throwing it out on a turn where Whitby had nothing better to do. Again! The odds of that aren't actually great, but I somehow did it twice. I had him and Greta stack INV2 in the meantime, but then Timea got in SLOW to really pile on. For fun, I gave Whitby a TMPR and SABR (Power Gauntlet cast which can now be targeted) and a FAST and set him loose. He did...not a lot of damage, actually. But the battle was effectively over at this point, and I finished her at my leisure.
My plan for the ToFR was as follows: push through the first time and pick up the Masmune. EXIT or TELE out, then run it again with the sword in hand to save on spell charges against TIAMAT and CHAOS. With Green Wizard's save points, I did not anticipate any trouble. If I ran into any, I could just reload.
Actually, the first trip through went very smoothly. I don't even remember much about it other than managing to bring down LICH with a QAKE. I could've just gone to the very end right then and there, but I stuck to my plan.
The second time through went a little rougher. I never actually showed a shot of EGRESS in action before, so here it is better late than never. Gas Ds are seriously no joke. I had Greta try to use APOIS to get around this, but she cast it too late and Blair tied horribly before he could unleash the ICE3. Then Timea nearly died even with Ribbon resistances. Of course, I had WARDING CIRCLE to utterly abuse, but it's getting out with dignity that counts.
Other than that, it went fairly well. It took some resets against LICH when he used an absolutely rude NUKE, but both he and KARY got chopped to bits. I decided to toy with KRAKEN a bit. Note that this isn't even the Time Mage at work; since he doesn't resist the status element, anyone who manages to break his 200 magic defense can do this with CONF or the Wizard Staff. That said, I absolutely was not expecting to break his 200 magic defense. I didn't even reset until I saw this one, it just happened. Maybe INT also increases the chance of spells like this landing?
TIAMAT fell, and that just left the final boss. Everyone was level 24 heading into it. Right up to the very end, everyone's experience was equal. I was not expecting that with this party to say the least.
Round 1 would see some setup: ARUB, White Shirt, FAST, Power Gauntlets. CHAOS began with a physical against Greta: 169 damage. Nice, sort of? Next turn was more buffing: ALIT, CUR3, SLO2 (why not?) and TMPR. CHAOS used ICE3 for 51/37/43/60. Finally, I used AFIR, HEL2, MARK2, and MANAFONT as CHAOS' CRACK fell ineffective. Ready to kill!
Greta started off with a weakish 283+30 from the MARK. Whitby threw up another White Shirt stack, as did Timea throw down another MARK2 stack. Blair's NUKE did an impressive 400. Max damage if this wasn't FFR. CHAOS used LIT3 to deal 54/47/51/56. 1227 left. Very good start to the offense.
On turn 4, HEL3 got me back up to full on everyone. Greta did 233+60, Whitby was hit by SLO2, another MARK2 for 90, and a NUKE for 362. 482 left. Almost there. But will CUR4 happen?
Greta got off another attack, that didn't quite make it. But Timea won the turn order roll and the MARK killed him from there. That was anticlimactic.
Well, I can save mid-dungeon. Let's go again! No LIMIT from Black Wizard this time. And no DEMI either, being able to hit for 500 damage with perfect accuracy is nice and all, but we hardly need that, do we?
Aside from who got hit by the first physical, the opening moves were identical. Turn 2 saw CHAOS use CRACK and Whitby healing Timea instead. AFIR, White Shirt, COMET (45), and ELEMENTAL SEAL were the next moves. 42/62/62/66 went the ICE3. Blair's own did 168. Greta took a physical hit for 56 damage. HEL2, and another COMET did 61. This spell kinda sucks, not gonna lie. 268 was the damage Greta did with her first swing. 1458 left. Not bad, not bad.
A CHAOS physical for 295 on Whitby followed! What caught me even more off-guard was Greta doing 1266 or something equally insane! I couldn't even get the screenshot. How many criticals hits was that in one attack?! So much trying to make this challenging. BURST2 did 28, and another ELEMENTAL SEAL...
I had the others do nothing to see if Greta could finish it and try to get it again. Just about the expected amount of damage. I guess that's it.
Not too difficult a playthrough. Restricting myself didn't even do much. It does amuse me though that a lot of newcomers to FFR via ProJared are discovering just how janky the game can be. There's some tough stuff in it, but you just need to know what to do and be willing to tough it out. Thanks for reading. Final party will consist of the final four jobs I've yet to use. I'll be swinging the other way and going all physical.
Index
#1: No FLOAT or TELE abuse. These are funny but using them doesn't amount to actually playing the game.
#2: No DOUBLECAST. This ability crosses my threshold of broken nonsense, even by FFR's standards. It's kind of absurd that Time Wizard can spam this every turn while other classes get fatigue attached to their much worse commands.
#4: Let's make this more interesting: no using offensive spellcasting items in battle. I'll keep Defender, White Shirt, and Heal Staff/Helm on the table. Wizard Staff too.
#5: Try to open all chests, at least before ToFR.
What's #3? You'll spend forever looking for it. Ready? Go.
I started back off by going doing into Marsh Cave collect the free Silver Bracelet. 5000G saved by doing so. I actually bought a second in Melmond. I normally wouldn't bother with them, let alone with a party that had four mages in it. But I figured I was going to need at least the one extra to make things go easier.
I picked up the DEMI spell back in Elfland. This L3 spell does 50% of a single target's current HP in damage, but only 25% against bosses. The math on this says it's situation on most targets; it simply does not do enough to be worth using. However, EARTHs seemed like a perfect target. They have enough HP to matter, they resist 6 out of the eight elements; they're weak to fire and are neutral to time.
Dungeon romping with mages is all about restraint, pacing, and using RUN when needed. I cleared out the first floor and the second floor separately. One thing I did was to only have one of Blair or Timea use an AoE spell. It often dealt enough damage to wipe a chunk of the enemies, and any stragglers could be cleaned up with melee. Mages do just enough at this point against everything for that to be viable. The Vampire died in a single round of combat.
LICH also died in a single round of combat: I had all this prep ready too: AICE namely and all the similar spells. Instead Timea confused him with MUDDLE - LICH may have a lot of resistances, but time elemental is just not resisted and he has low magic defense. HRM2 hit for 134, he hit himself for 36, and FIR3 hitting for 288 was enough for the kill.
Gurgu was next, sticking to the "intended order" again, this time just to make my point further after the first playthrough. Grey Ws made clearing out the firewall maze a bit of a pain. They took very little damage from physical attacks due to their high defense, so I had to use precious spellcharges. At least FIREs are vulnerable to ice. I had to use WARP (which Time Mage can use before class change!) and paddle back to Crescent Lake afterwards. That said, I was able to do the entire rest of the volcano in one go. Not even the Red D gave me trouble: it was just MUDDLEd and blown up with ICE2.
KARY was also easy. I piled on the status and buffs. She did manage to break from HOLD, but I had up AFIR and had SLOWed her. I put MARK2 to work here. This spell is like the original, except it's single target only and instead applies 30 marks. With this, even my low offense team was able to start chunking her down. It's actually one of the big kudos I have to give. A lot of FFR's design seems to fall into either "broken/busted" or "bad". But MARK hits a particularly interesting sweetspot: it's a tool for certain parties. Like how the Masmune in the original can let just about any party beat CHAOS.
With KARY down, that meant it was Ice Cave time. I got to it on a very funny part of the encounter table. I would run into no less than three random encounter Frost Ds across my attempts at the cave! Thankfully to my benefit, they are presently bugged in FFR as of version 1.3.3 and will never use their BLIZZARD special. So they weren't a threat, but the MAGEs around the same part of it (or guarding the Cloth, I said all chests) were. I had some poor luck with them ambushing and RUBbing out my mages. One attempt got very deep, only get to half the team wiped out. I could still escape, but then WIZARDs blocked my path. Only Timea and Blair were standing, and I had to burn a lot of spell charges so I was out of LIT2 and FIR3. I tried ICE2 instead. But it didn't do enough and both were killed. That's the Ice Cave for you. A bunch of people had recently come into the FFR Discord because of ProJared, and some were not taking it as well as me, heh. Frustrating reality to them, business as usual for me.
Though it is hilariously ironic that the Lv9 team got through it basically first try and now I was running into all kinds of trouble with a team that's here when they're supposed to be. The EYE however, turned out not to be a threat. I threw out MUTE, MUDDLE, and HOLD all on the first turn. If one of those went before it and hit, it would prevent the XXXX from killing one of my mages. Well, all three hit. With it thoroughly crippled, it wasn't a problem beating it from there.
I didn't need to fall back in the pit and go the rest of the way, however. I had WARP! If you'll recall from my FFZZ playthrough or haven't seen it, this can be used in the Ice Cave to skip the hole and grab the FLOATER directly. It's normally not possible in the vanilla game because WARP is exclusive to after class change, which you need the airship to unlock. So it only meaningfully happens in romhacks or fangames. However, this behavior is not implemented properly as of v1.3.3 of FFR - instead you get in a buggy state where you're in the room while outside of it. It's not possible to open chests and get the FLOATER from the moment you come to the pits, but you can still walk out of the room. Which I did. Hey, I just said no FLOAT/TELE or DOUBLECAST. This is absolutely on the table~
With the airship claimed, my first destination was Castle Ordeals. I had to use EGRESS against a MEDUSA ambush, but it was otherwise smooth sailing through the small dungeon. The Zombie Ds died to HRM2 and FIR3. I claimed my clas change and WARDING CIRCLE.
When I said no offensive spellcasting items, I was serious by the way. I kept the Heal Staff and it would become something that Whitby used on about half of his turns, but I promptly sold the Zeus.
I went and got that from the Waterfall after. Blair's ability to equip the Silver Knife had gotten them to 2-hits by this point. They were good against the MudGOLs that polluted this place that I had to fight with physical attacks or BURST - I didn't have QAKE to kill them either let alone the L6 spell charges to use it. I had neglected to pick up FAST so far which would've made this easier (read: faster). The Defender, Ribbon, and Wizard Staff would all go to Greta.
The Sea Shrine was certainly going to be a different experience without unlimited spell charges to smash my way through it as usual. No trouble with clearing out the upper floor of the place. The Opal Bracelet was a welcome wear for Greta.
As for the bottom half, I was here that I learned for the first time that WARDING CIRCLE did not let you use HOUSEs. I would say that's for a balance reason, but for one, balance left the building a loooong time ago in FFR. And second, I learned you could place multiple WARDING CIRCLEs, one per floor. That's just absurd. It means there's zero threat of a game over, just the threat of dying after placing the circle without saving but after opening chests because of bugs. When that happens, the same thing happens as what happened with FLOAT in Ordeals earlier. I feel once per dungeon would be better for this ability, even if it allowed to use HOUSEs.
It meant I could drop one before KRAKEN with no worries if he decided to murder someone with his big ugly physical. The octopus was zapped into oblivion. He got Whitby pretty good, then I hit SLOW and MUDDLE and that was pretty much the end of that. The White Wizard cast RERAISE on himself in case he broke out of it. It was ultimately KRAKEN who dealt the final blow, thanks in-part to the MARK spell.
A little ways into Mirage Tower, I got the Thor Hammer. I could still use this to beat things over the head, just not its itemcast. The party also collectively reached level 20. Weird how the squishy mage team hasn't had unequal experience yet. Part of this has been incidental but any deaths have always been unrecoverable or run from and fixed with LIFE.
Level 20 also meant L7 charges. And Time Mage got a full set of interesting ones. UNDO in Onrac restored 1 of any other party member's spell charges across all levels. HASTE2 exists (makes everyone more likely to move sooner in the turn order). COMET is a somewhat unreliable non-elemental damaging spell that can sometimes do insane damage, but seems crippled by high magic defense. Then...then, there is this.
Quadruple hits. I'm not going to mince words. This is just wrong. With a Power Gauntlet cast and FAST2, Timea could do stupid amounts of melee damage. Someone who isn't even supposed to be a physical attacker! Now, this is actually pretty funny and fits a L7 spell, kind of a counterpart to SABR. And like SABR (besides the Power Gauntlets in FFR which let you cast it on anyone), it is self-cast only. But...FFR 2.0 is going to change that and not only allow this to target anyone, but allow FAST spells to stack to these same levels. That is just wrong. That is a "what is this game balance thing you speak of?" sort of thing. If a Time Wizard can do this much with this little effort, any actual melee class is just going to destroy anything with the normal game's numbers. I swear, as much fun as Renaissance is, to repeat myself again: a lot of its new content is heavily balanced for the NG+ feature where enemies actually have the HP to endure this sort of abuse.
Rants aside, the Sky Castle went fine. It was just a bit sluggish. The White Shirt and Black Shirt were as before the most important pickups here. I could use INV2 from the former as per my self-imposed restrictions, but I couldn't use ICE2 out of the latter. Still, the absorb bonuses were what really mattered here. Now everyone had decent physical defense.
I did have to take a trip out because I ran out of spell charges. So I threw down the circle at the front of the bridge and--
Yeah, there it is. And it killed Timea frame zero, perfect. I tried to fight it using Blair's LIMIT, but no luck was to be had: it focused fired them down. Reset! Glad I saved.
Then again, I did just save and can reload as many times as I want...
Huh, FIGHTER? Neat, that's the actual 1/64 here. Speaking of which, I noticed in the process that the encounter table was a little off from what I expected it should be. Maybe a blip or bug? Either way, the manip for WarMECH still works if the worst should come to pass. I couldn't hard reset here though, that would spawn me back where I saved outside.
I eventually got to another WarMECH encounter after a bunch of soft resetting. After using EGRESS many times until it didn't ambush, somehow avoiding having Timea die the whole while of trying, I was ready to begin. No hold barred. WarMECH is a superboss. It's time to scrap this thing.
I got up my defenses ASAP, throwing down a double INV2 stack to start out with from Greta and Whitby, casting GAIN on Blair, and popping Blair's LIMIT. Greta was hit hard. I aimed a CUR3 at her while Blair prepared NUKE. I unleashed DOUBLECAST and...
Bodied. While being able to use NUKE before level 25 with a LIMIT is cool, it was all because of Time Wizard that this was practical/semiconsistent. GAIN should really not be a level 1 spell for how much it can do and DOUBLECAST really needs more restrictions on it. Still, screw this guy. If anyone deserves it, it's him. Especially after all the times this damn robot has shown up in my challenge runs.
I used WARP, went back and saved, and got ready for TIAMAT. DEMI did a healthy 250, but her resistance to all elements was going to make this a matter of using ELEMENTAL SEAL to deal damage. Then I actually ended up landing the MUTE when throwing it out on a turn where Whitby had nothing better to do. Again! The odds of that aren't actually great, but I somehow did it twice. I had him and Greta stack INV2 in the meantime, but then Timea got in SLOW to really pile on. For fun, I gave Whitby a TMPR and SABR (Power Gauntlet cast which can now be targeted) and a FAST and set him loose. He did...not a lot of damage, actually. But the battle was effectively over at this point, and I finished her at my leisure.
My plan for the ToFR was as follows: push through the first time and pick up the Masmune. EXIT or TELE out, then run it again with the sword in hand to save on spell charges against TIAMAT and CHAOS. With Green Wizard's save points, I did not anticipate any trouble. If I ran into any, I could just reload.
Actually, the first trip through went very smoothly. I don't even remember much about it other than managing to bring down LICH with a QAKE. I could've just gone to the very end right then and there, but I stuck to my plan.
The second time through went a little rougher. I never actually showed a shot of EGRESS in action before, so here it is better late than never. Gas Ds are seriously no joke. I had Greta try to use APOIS to get around this, but she cast it too late and Blair tied horribly before he could unleash the ICE3. Then Timea nearly died even with Ribbon resistances. Of course, I had WARDING CIRCLE to utterly abuse, but it's getting out with dignity that counts.
Other than that, it went fairly well. It took some resets against LICH when he used an absolutely rude NUKE, but both he and KARY got chopped to bits. I decided to toy with KRAKEN a bit. Note that this isn't even the Time Mage at work; since he doesn't resist the status element, anyone who manages to break his 200 magic defense can do this with CONF or the Wizard Staff. That said, I absolutely was not expecting to break his 200 magic defense. I didn't even reset until I saw this one, it just happened. Maybe INT also increases the chance of spells like this landing?
TIAMAT fell, and that just left the final boss. Everyone was level 24 heading into it. Right up to the very end, everyone's experience was equal. I was not expecting that with this party to say the least.
Round 1 would see some setup: ARUB, White Shirt, FAST, Power Gauntlets. CHAOS began with a physical against Greta: 169 damage. Nice, sort of? Next turn was more buffing: ALIT, CUR3, SLO2 (why not?) and TMPR. CHAOS used ICE3 for 51/37/43/60. Finally, I used AFIR, HEL2, MARK2, and MANAFONT as CHAOS' CRACK fell ineffective. Ready to kill!
Greta started off with a weakish 283+30 from the MARK. Whitby threw up another White Shirt stack, as did Timea throw down another MARK2 stack. Blair's NUKE did an impressive 400. Max damage if this wasn't FFR. CHAOS used LIT3 to deal 54/47/51/56. 1227 left. Very good start to the offense.
On turn 4, HEL3 got me back up to full on everyone. Greta did 233+60, Whitby was hit by SLO2, another MARK2 for 90, and a NUKE for 362. 482 left. Almost there. But will CUR4 happen?
Greta got off another attack, that didn't quite make it. But Timea won the turn order roll and the MARK killed him from there. That was anticlimactic.
Well, I can save mid-dungeon. Let's go again! No LIMIT from Black Wizard this time. And no DEMI either, being able to hit for 500 damage with perfect accuracy is nice and all, but we hardly need that, do we?
Aside from who got hit by the first physical, the opening moves were identical. Turn 2 saw CHAOS use CRACK and Whitby healing Timea instead. AFIR, White Shirt, COMET (45), and ELEMENTAL SEAL were the next moves. 42/62/62/66 went the ICE3. Blair's own did 168. Greta took a physical hit for 56 damage. HEL2, and another COMET did 61. This spell kinda sucks, not gonna lie. 268 was the damage Greta did with her first swing. 1458 left. Not bad, not bad.
A CHAOS physical for 295 on Whitby followed! What caught me even more off-guard was Greta doing 1266 or something equally insane! I couldn't even get the screenshot. How many criticals hits was that in one attack?! So much trying to make this challenging. BURST2 did 28, and another ELEMENTAL SEAL...
I had the others do nothing to see if Greta could finish it and try to get it again. Just about the expected amount of damage. I guess that's it.
Not too difficult a playthrough. Restricting myself didn't even do much. It does amuse me though that a lot of newcomers to FFR via ProJared are discovering just how janky the game can be. There's some tough stuff in it, but you just need to know what to do and be willing to tough it out. Thanks for reading. Final party will consist of the final four jobs I've yet to use. I'll be swinging the other way and going all physical.
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