FFR: Solo Green Mage Part II
Nov. 13th, 2023 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorOkay, the biggest hurdle in the game is down. With the CANOE claimed, the next stop was Castle Ordeals. With the Zeus Gauntlet in hand, Green would be able to hit big groups hard. It was stronger and more reliable than EXUVIATION and did more than their physicals in many cases They would also get the Gold Bracelets for more absorb. The Heal Staff was here too in case I needed it.
My first attempt through actually went through the warp chamber without an encounter. I thought I was home free until some R.GOYLEs showed up just beyond the NITEMARE spike. I naturally had Green use AFIR, but they segued into HOLD while they were trying to escape. That ended that run. It would take several more attempts to make it through, with encounters being ended by a variety of things, but compared to the Earth Cave, this was nothing at best and just business as usual at worst. The Zombie Ds were dealt with through RUSE castings then beating them with the Iron Staff. I didn't bother with the TAIL. I didn't even pick it up. This is a solo Green Mage run, after all. I had every intention of beating the game without making use of class change, especially since Green Wizard's ability to make a save point once per floor is pretty stupid. It would suck all the challenge out of this. Thankfully, Green Mage isn't that hampered by the lack of it. They can actually get two L8 spells on their own: WALL and REGEN4.
Zeus made a world of difference. Instead of having to RUSE and/or run, Green could actually start reliably fighting encounters. Thanks to their bloated HP pool, they could win without any defensive buffs too. It went a long way to preserving their spell charges, although I still had to watch the HEALs.
Ice Cave of course, was Ice Cave. Here's a funny bug from the current version of FFR: AGAMAs can show up here in the small side-room despite not being an encounter in vanilla. I actually almost lost to them once when Green failed several runs. But the biggest problem were the undead. They were absolutely relentless, and of course, I had to get through the spiked tile on the bottom floor twice. Most of my attempts died in the second room to the big groups of paralyzing ghost enemies. The best way to deal with these and the COCTRICEs was to use the Zeus Gauntlet. The odds of a successful run were so low with the formula fixed that it was a little more consistent to try to kill them straight up. This especially applied to those birds who could simply be wiped out by the LIT2 instead of hoping their physicals didn't proc petrify. Only one of my attempts made it to the EYE. I actually beat it with a REFLEC: it resists no statuses so it used BRAK on itself. But over fifty attempts didn't even make it that far. Clearly, I was bashing my head against the wall.
I had another idea. What if it was possible to avoid these stun chances? I checked the algorithms guide, and sure enough, found something. The base chance of any enemy landing a status on a hit is 100. Magic defense is subtracted out of this, and a number between 0 and 200 is rolled. If the number is than less or equal to the roll, the status is inflicted. Repeat this for each hit. This means with 100 or more magic defense, these will never be inflicted.
Reaching the required level of 41 to guarantee this was impractical for more reasons than grinding that much in the first place. Enemies will start to run in the face of a high level character. Not all have a low enough morale to do so, but a lot can, including WIZARDs and the peninsula enemies. They do so if Morale - 2*[Leader's Level] + (0...50) < 80. So say Green was trying to fight ZomBULLs for that last level. Their morale is 136. Subtracting out 80, this results in 56 before the random number is factored in. This meant they would have roughly a 50-50 shot of fleeing. Enemies with 180 or more morale will effectively never flee without FEAR being involved - you can use this spell on KARY in particular since she's vulnerable to its status-element. (Also note that no, you cannot practically use this on CHAOS despite what certain sites say. He is resistant to status. So you have to roll a 3/256 multiple times and if you're doing that, you may as well try for an instant kill. This was spread around by a memetic four White Mages TAS that went for a stylish finish).
All this didn't mean I couldn't or shouldn't add levels, of course. The more I could squeeze in, the less chance Green had of getting inflicted with paralysis or even the SORCERER's instant KOs. And it would also give them more HP to work with. I settled on a goal of level 33. That would get them to 84 magic defense, reducing the chances of getting inflicted with stun or be KO'd by a SORCERER to 16% per hit. The enemy fleeing eventually started to become problematic to where I just had Green use the Zeus Gauntlet instead of bothering with RUSE. There was just too high a risk of enemies fleeing and they could tank the damage by this point. At least, FrWOLFs had 200 morale and would never run. This led to a strange situation where they were the most desired encounters to see here! Only in variants.
I eventually did hit my goal. I noticed the difference immediately after returning to the cave. Whereas before Green was struggling to even make it through the second room, the increase in magic defense was definitely making a difference! In fact, I made it to the EYE without incident three times! The same strategy still worked; I wonder if REFLEC skipping is specific to certain bosses? It's still pretty dumb. I was also at the point where SORCERERs were starting to flee on sight. That's always one of the most cathartic things about playing a solo character.
This still wasn't going to be a total walkover. Twice after making it through that and claiming the FLOATER, MAGEs showed up. I attempted to use REFLEC the first time but Green went after and got killed by RUB. The second was an ambush that they had no chance against. The third run was almost ended by the undead spike. Green was knocked down to under 100HP. I was having them use RUSE for extra insurance whenever there. I had to use it again for safety. I killed them with Zeus out of spite. Then sure enough, another MAGE formation reared its ugly head for the third time. No ambush, but I had to get out. Again, I figured the best way out was over their dead bodies.
One went first with RUB...missed! The other used a physical. REFLEC triggered and the MAGE used LIT3 next turn. It promptly reflected, died...and then the other one just gave up. I forgot to take a picture of the victory screen, but it was just standing there during the victory celebration. I don't even think I got the experience for it. Nothing else would accost me, so Green made their way out and claimed the airship!
The first thing I would have Green do on the northern continent was run through the Waterfall. This would get them their Ribbon and further spellcasting items. Defense was of course an infinitely reusable version of the RUSE spell that had helped them get to this point. The Wizard Staff would cast CONF. It was much more niche, but it would have its uses in the near future. I actually forgot to refresh their spell points on the way in; I had just done some basic running around the night before. This didn't affect much, but they were low on RUSEs for what it was worth. I would've simply laughed at myself if they had actually died to the MudGOLs who assaulted them steps away from the Defense.
After running the BOTTLE errand and picking up the REGEN4 spell (nothing else in L7 or L8 that I could get was worth it for a solo), I sent them into the upper floors of the Sea Shrine. This was a fantastic place to have unlimited LIT2 charges and was very likely going to be the place where Green would get their remaining levels. Zeus annihilated just about everything here as it normally does. The Mage Staff was here waiting to be claimed, which would destroy everything resistant to lightning. I also picked up the Light Axe for much later on and threw it into one of the backpack's inventories, just in case. FIR2 was going to be superior in all cases: every undead except LICH2 is weak to Fire. This causes its 30 effectivity to increase by 1.5 times to 45, beating out HRM2's 40.
After getting the SLAB and Opal Bracelet, it was off to Gurgu. KARY was never going to be a threat, not on the level of anything else so far at least. If I had come here before the airship, a combination of RUSE, AFIR, and FOG2 (she also has HOLD) would have dealt with her. Instead, I was here after. This was where the Wizard Staff came in handy. Instead of gradually weakening her with physical blows - Green was up to 2-hits now but was still shaky on anything with actual defense - I could exploit her status-elemental weakness to have her do the work for me! I tried to speed things up with EVUIVIATION but it did a piddly 70 damage. It was no surprise that KARY ultimately dealt the final blow to herself with this attack which included a critical it.
I actually had to run frequently throughout the Sea Shrine and the Sky Castle, but for a different reason than before. I still wanted to maintain Green's consistent strength gains for the very end of the game. Every level from 30 onward alternates between needing 32800 experience and 32799 experience to level up. This may sound like a lot, but when you're gaining 2000-4000 a battle, it can add up real quickly. Again, without access to the SAIVL tables, I had no way of knowing which levels were safe. It was all going to be worth it in the end.
Green actually died near the end of the Sea Shrine. I thought they could kill 5 WATERs without RUSE. Low rolls prevented that from happening, and they couldn't get off a REGEN4 in time. It wasn't too much trouble to run it back, however. Just goes to show that you can't ever stop paying attention, heh. I got the Power Gauntlet for later and moved on.
I decided to flex on both remaining bosses. I used the Wizard Staff to harass KRAKEN while I whittled him down. I had bought Green BLINK for his second incarnation later just in case. I doubted it was going to be necessary, but it'd certainly help more than an anti spell.
There were no giant robots to bother me. I wouldn't have tried to fight WarMECH anyway, not yet at least. It pays out 32000EXP which was almost sure to give Green a level up. They were able to claim two more pieces of equipment here. The Black Shirt would cast ICE2, which would be useful a bit later. And the ProCape gave them the max amount of absorb possible. With Thor in the weapon slot along with Mage, Defense, and the Iron Staff to beat things with, there was no problem with putting Zeus away. It was just a question of whether I needed Black Shirt.
Then I had Green defeat TIAMAT without resorting to the Bane Sword! I actually ended up missing the final hit, a critical that smacked the fiend from like 50 health to empty. Between SHELL2 and the entire REGEN line (now restoring hundreds of health per tick), victory was inevitable as long as I paid attention. Which I was making sure to after that WATER incident.
The Sea Shrine was the best place for getting to level 50. Most of the enemies there had high morale so they wouldn't run. I would just blast them until Green was near a level up, save in Onrac, and get the level, resetting if their STR didn't increase. Nothing troublesome, it just took a while.
Here were their stats at level 50. Yes, in Final Fantasy Renaissance, there is no three digit limit on HP. I was wondering if they were going to exceed 999 since there was room for a fourth digit, or if that would be exclusive to the BUBBLE spell (+50% MaxHP) they could not cast since it was exclusive until after class change. You can really see how insane Green Mage's HP gets through this. Even at lower levels it's closer to the dedicated melee jobs like the Monk. Between that and their abnormally high VIT, they actually make very effective tanks. I didn't expect that going into my mages run, but it was the right decision from the start.
I considered it and decided against going after WarMECH: Green could certainly survive, but I would need to find a way for them to consistently deal over 50 damage per turn. The robot is a regenerative enemy, restoring 5% of its 1000 health at the end of each turn. So with that in mind, I simply went into the final dungeon. It was time to finish this! Here were the encounters as they went along.
- 4 Zombie Ds. 3 Mage Staff uses
- 3 Gas Ds. Black Shirt. I switched it in over ProCape just for them!
- PHANTOM. Got off a big critical - it's one of the few enemies with a significant chance to inflict one with 20% odds (if it can get by the odds to use a skill or a spell), but died in some Mage Staff uses.
- 2 FrGiants, 6 FrWOLFs. I used REGEN2 to recover health after wiping the wolves.
- 1 WORM. Defense up and beat it.
- 3 Frost Ds. Mage Staff.
- 4 MudGOLs. Defense and bash.
- 2 RockGOLs, 1 MudGOL. Same.
- 2 MudGOLs, 1 RockGOL. Same.
This brought Green to the second LICH fight. I again tried to employ REFLEC, and once again LICH started to jump around in his spell order. I wondered, is it a thing specific to him, does it happen in general, or is this some weird bug? I didn't see EYE jump around all the times when I was using REFLEC against it. Either way, LICH jumped from NUKE into NUKE, so it worked out anyway. Light Axe castings helped beat him down.
- 2 Grey W. Defender up and blast them.
- 3 AGAMAs. 3 Thor uses ended this.
Here's one last EXUVIATION for the road. It was far better to just spam itemcasts here. KARY still resisted it all. But again, this was with eight things dispelled! This command is absolutely not worth using unless you have multiple sources of anti spells in the party
- SeaTROLLs, SeaSNAKEs, LOBSTERs. It was a preemptive so I just ran.
- 5 WATERs. I had thought about switching the Black Shirt back in for this floor, but either way, 3 Defenders and 5 Thor casts did them in. Maybe I should've used the Black Shirt, but oh well.
KRAKEN was nothing to write home about. I got up a BLINK at the start, and he just spammed LIT2 a lot. You can see the effects of a successful BLINK here. Once RUSE was up to three it was just a matter of using Zeus.
- 4 RockGOLs. RUSE and run. The Masmune awaits!
- 2 Zombie Ds, 2 WzVAMPs? I forgot this formation exists, heh. I fought it with Mage Staff for the novelty factor.
- 4 RockGOLs. Again, RUSE and run. Almost there.
Finally, at long last, I could lay claim to the ultimate weapon. This weapon made a world of difference. The next set of encounters had yet more RockGOLs, but they were quickly chopped to pieces by the new weapon.
TIAMAT fared only a little better, but not by much. I switched in the Power Gauntlet over the ProCape for this and the final battle..
I stalled for a bit at the beginning of the fight. I used one RUSE as CHAOS threw out ICE3. REFLEC again as CHAOS went with CRACK, but CHAOS went CUR4 instantly the next turn. Again with pointlessly making that unreliable. But I hadn't damaged him and it was what I wanted to see: skipping SLO2, which had foiled Sullla's attempt at this battle with a solo White Mage in the Original Mode. The wall was still up so I attacked for 104 damage. Green did 131 next turn when it wore off. I popped REGEN4, the Power Gauntlet, and decided to go on the attack on the spot - I was banking on the passive healing over getting more RUSE casts. 201 as CHAOS used FAST. Then 190. Then 111. This was going very slow. Worse, the TORNADO did over 200. Not the worst, but. He dropped his big NUKE next turn, I looked away while capping that and missed Green's damage - it had to be very good though.
Got up another REGEN4! He went ICE3 and LIT3 right after. I had to REFLEC because wow he was rushing right through his spells again! CHAOS responded with a big physical. That was the conundrum in this battle. If that SLO2 hit, which it had about a coinflip shot of due to being non-elemental, I would lose. But that also meant that Green couldn't RUSE, SHELL2, REGEN, etc. And CHAOS really liked doing physical attacks this run. Maybe it was that stupid reflect behavior coming into play again.
On the next turn, Green ripped out this big hit! CHAOS responded with over 400 damage with a physical of his own. But...
Green did another solid hit. It was all over!
So there you go, the solo Green Mage (no class change) run of Final Fantasy Renaissance has been completed. This wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. The Earth Cave was the biggest obstacle to this run as I expected heading into it. It was before big grinding was practical and I had no choice but to whittle down LICH because of the reflect quirk. This has to be the stupidest part of the class, and the Evoker's CARBUNCLE by proxy. There isn't even any consistency with it, since bosses will simply jump around their spell list at seemingly random. Once I was through the Ice Cave, everything was smooth sailing. Those spellcasting items can really make a difference.
Solo Green Mage felt a lot like a solo White Mage: it seems intimidating on paper, yet it really isn't. The two classes have a lot in common as solos: low offense, yet unparalled defense and healing. Green had it even better thanks to its obscene HP and the REGEN spells. By the end of the game, REGEN4 was healing them for over 200HP a tick. And unlike White Mage, it gets access to its big heal before class change for the purposes of no class change challenges. It's just too bad EXUVIATION is unreliable at best. That was the biggest disappointment about this solo. I was expecting it to be a huge nuke when you dispel a bunch anti-spells, but no such luck. Green performed very well throughout the game, and I still maintain that Green Mage isn't the worst class in FFR: that's Evoker (or Time Mage, that's the dirt worst for how it's either broken or nothing). Sure, the Green Mage can be niche and really needs more multi-target spells to match it, but at least it can perform its actual job well. The charging mechanic does not work in the confines of FF1, so Evoker is just a Green Mage with multi-target versions of some of their support skills who spams items as its main offense unless you hold back on doing so. BAHAMUT is nuts, sure, but it's the same problem Black Mage has in vanilla: they only stand out over Reds until they can cast NUKE several times at like level 29, which you might not even reach.
Will I do more solos in the future? Maybe. It would be interesting to use Evoker and see how it performs against the solo Green Mage. The Earth Cave is always the big frustration for me whenever I decide to do so, though. So we'll see. As for other variants, I have a few more in mind, but we'll see what 2.0 brings before I go too crazy on those. Thanks for reading!
Index
My first attempt through actually went through the warp chamber without an encounter. I thought I was home free until some R.GOYLEs showed up just beyond the NITEMARE spike. I naturally had Green use AFIR, but they segued into HOLD while they were trying to escape. That ended that run. It would take several more attempts to make it through, with encounters being ended by a variety of things, but compared to the Earth Cave, this was nothing at best and just business as usual at worst. The Zombie Ds were dealt with through RUSE castings then beating them with the Iron Staff. I didn't bother with the TAIL. I didn't even pick it up. This is a solo Green Mage run, after all. I had every intention of beating the game without making use of class change, especially since Green Wizard's ability to make a save point once per floor is pretty stupid. It would suck all the challenge out of this. Thankfully, Green Mage isn't that hampered by the lack of it. They can actually get two L8 spells on their own: WALL and REGEN4.
Zeus made a world of difference. Instead of having to RUSE and/or run, Green could actually start reliably fighting encounters. Thanks to their bloated HP pool, they could win without any defensive buffs too. It went a long way to preserving their spell charges, although I still had to watch the HEALs.
Ice Cave of course, was Ice Cave. Here's a funny bug from the current version of FFR: AGAMAs can show up here in the small side-room despite not being an encounter in vanilla. I actually almost lost to them once when Green failed several runs. But the biggest problem were the undead. They were absolutely relentless, and of course, I had to get through the spiked tile on the bottom floor twice. Most of my attempts died in the second room to the big groups of paralyzing ghost enemies. The best way to deal with these and the COCTRICEs was to use the Zeus Gauntlet. The odds of a successful run were so low with the formula fixed that it was a little more consistent to try to kill them straight up. This especially applied to those birds who could simply be wiped out by the LIT2 instead of hoping their physicals didn't proc petrify. Only one of my attempts made it to the EYE. I actually beat it with a REFLEC: it resists no statuses so it used BRAK on itself. But over fifty attempts didn't even make it that far. Clearly, I was bashing my head against the wall.
I had another idea. What if it was possible to avoid these stun chances? I checked the algorithms guide, and sure enough, found something. The base chance of any enemy landing a status on a hit is 100. Magic defense is subtracted out of this, and a number between 0 and 200 is rolled. If the number is than less or equal to the roll, the status is inflicted. Repeat this for each hit. This means with 100 or more magic defense, these will never be inflicted.
Reaching the required level of 41 to guarantee this was impractical for more reasons than grinding that much in the first place. Enemies will start to run in the face of a high level character. Not all have a low enough morale to do so, but a lot can, including WIZARDs and the peninsula enemies. They do so if Morale - 2*[Leader's Level] + (0...50) < 80. So say Green was trying to fight ZomBULLs for that last level. Their morale is 136. Subtracting out 80, this results in 56 before the random number is factored in. This meant they would have roughly a 50-50 shot of fleeing. Enemies with 180 or more morale will effectively never flee without FEAR being involved - you can use this spell on KARY in particular since she's vulnerable to its status-element. (Also note that no, you cannot practically use this on CHAOS despite what certain sites say. He is resistant to status. So you have to roll a 3/256 multiple times and if you're doing that, you may as well try for an instant kill. This was spread around by a memetic four White Mages TAS that went for a stylish finish).
All this didn't mean I couldn't or shouldn't add levels, of course. The more I could squeeze in, the less chance Green had of getting inflicted with paralysis or even the SORCERER's instant KOs. And it would also give them more HP to work with. I settled on a goal of level 33. That would get them to 84 magic defense, reducing the chances of getting inflicted with stun or be KO'd by a SORCERER to 16% per hit. The enemy fleeing eventually started to become problematic to where I just had Green use the Zeus Gauntlet instead of bothering with RUSE. There was just too high a risk of enemies fleeing and they could tank the damage by this point. At least, FrWOLFs had 200 morale and would never run. This led to a strange situation where they were the most desired encounters to see here! Only in variants.
I eventually did hit my goal. I noticed the difference immediately after returning to the cave. Whereas before Green was struggling to even make it through the second room, the increase in magic defense was definitely making a difference! In fact, I made it to the EYE without incident three times! The same strategy still worked; I wonder if REFLEC skipping is specific to certain bosses? It's still pretty dumb. I was also at the point where SORCERERs were starting to flee on sight. That's always one of the most cathartic things about playing a solo character.
This still wasn't going to be a total walkover. Twice after making it through that and claiming the FLOATER, MAGEs showed up. I attempted to use REFLEC the first time but Green went after and got killed by RUB. The second was an ambush that they had no chance against. The third run was almost ended by the undead spike. Green was knocked down to under 100HP. I was having them use RUSE for extra insurance whenever there. I had to use it again for safety. I killed them with Zeus out of spite. Then sure enough, another MAGE formation reared its ugly head for the third time. No ambush, but I had to get out. Again, I figured the best way out was over their dead bodies.
One went first with RUB...missed! The other used a physical. REFLEC triggered and the MAGE used LIT3 next turn. It promptly reflected, died...and then the other one just gave up. I forgot to take a picture of the victory screen, but it was just standing there during the victory celebration. I don't even think I got the experience for it. Nothing else would accost me, so Green made their way out and claimed the airship!
The first thing I would have Green do on the northern continent was run through the Waterfall. This would get them their Ribbon and further spellcasting items. Defense was of course an infinitely reusable version of the RUSE spell that had helped them get to this point. The Wizard Staff would cast CONF. It was much more niche, but it would have its uses in the near future. I actually forgot to refresh their spell points on the way in; I had just done some basic running around the night before. This didn't affect much, but they were low on RUSEs for what it was worth. I would've simply laughed at myself if they had actually died to the MudGOLs who assaulted them steps away from the Defense.
After running the BOTTLE errand and picking up the REGEN4 spell (nothing else in L7 or L8 that I could get was worth it for a solo), I sent them into the upper floors of the Sea Shrine. This was a fantastic place to have unlimited LIT2 charges and was very likely going to be the place where Green would get their remaining levels. Zeus annihilated just about everything here as it normally does. The Mage Staff was here waiting to be claimed, which would destroy everything resistant to lightning. I also picked up the Light Axe for much later on and threw it into one of the backpack's inventories, just in case. FIR2 was going to be superior in all cases: every undead except LICH2 is weak to Fire. This causes its 30 effectivity to increase by 1.5 times to 45, beating out HRM2's 40.
After getting the SLAB and Opal Bracelet, it was off to Gurgu. KARY was never going to be a threat, not on the level of anything else so far at least. If I had come here before the airship, a combination of RUSE, AFIR, and FOG2 (she also has HOLD) would have dealt with her. Instead, I was here after. This was where the Wizard Staff came in handy. Instead of gradually weakening her with physical blows - Green was up to 2-hits now but was still shaky on anything with actual defense - I could exploit her status-elemental weakness to have her do the work for me! I tried to speed things up with EVUIVIATION but it did a piddly 70 damage. It was no surprise that KARY ultimately dealt the final blow to herself with this attack which included a critical it.
I actually had to run frequently throughout the Sea Shrine and the Sky Castle, but for a different reason than before. I still wanted to maintain Green's consistent strength gains for the very end of the game. Every level from 30 onward alternates between needing 32800 experience and 32799 experience to level up. This may sound like a lot, but when you're gaining 2000-4000 a battle, it can add up real quickly. Again, without access to the SAIVL tables, I had no way of knowing which levels were safe. It was all going to be worth it in the end.
Green actually died near the end of the Sea Shrine. I thought they could kill 5 WATERs without RUSE. Low rolls prevented that from happening, and they couldn't get off a REGEN4 in time. It wasn't too much trouble to run it back, however. Just goes to show that you can't ever stop paying attention, heh. I got the Power Gauntlet for later and moved on.
I decided to flex on both remaining bosses. I used the Wizard Staff to harass KRAKEN while I whittled him down. I had bought Green BLINK for his second incarnation later just in case. I doubted it was going to be necessary, but it'd certainly help more than an anti spell.
There were no giant robots to bother me. I wouldn't have tried to fight WarMECH anyway, not yet at least. It pays out 32000EXP which was almost sure to give Green a level up. They were able to claim two more pieces of equipment here. The Black Shirt would cast ICE2, which would be useful a bit later. And the ProCape gave them the max amount of absorb possible. With Thor in the weapon slot along with Mage, Defense, and the Iron Staff to beat things with, there was no problem with putting Zeus away. It was just a question of whether I needed Black Shirt.
Then I had Green defeat TIAMAT without resorting to the Bane Sword! I actually ended up missing the final hit, a critical that smacked the fiend from like 50 health to empty. Between SHELL2 and the entire REGEN line (now restoring hundreds of health per tick), victory was inevitable as long as I paid attention. Which I was making sure to after that WATER incident.
The Sea Shrine was the best place for getting to level 50. Most of the enemies there had high morale so they wouldn't run. I would just blast them until Green was near a level up, save in Onrac, and get the level, resetting if their STR didn't increase. Nothing troublesome, it just took a while.
Here were their stats at level 50. Yes, in Final Fantasy Renaissance, there is no three digit limit on HP. I was wondering if they were going to exceed 999 since there was room for a fourth digit, or if that would be exclusive to the BUBBLE spell (+50% MaxHP) they could not cast since it was exclusive until after class change. You can really see how insane Green Mage's HP gets through this. Even at lower levels it's closer to the dedicated melee jobs like the Monk. Between that and their abnormally high VIT, they actually make very effective tanks. I didn't expect that going into my mages run, but it was the right decision from the start.
I considered it and decided against going after WarMECH: Green could certainly survive, but I would need to find a way for them to consistently deal over 50 damage per turn. The robot is a regenerative enemy, restoring 5% of its 1000 health at the end of each turn. So with that in mind, I simply went into the final dungeon. It was time to finish this! Here were the encounters as they went along.
- 4 Zombie Ds. 3 Mage Staff uses
- 3 Gas Ds. Black Shirt. I switched it in over ProCape just for them!
- PHANTOM. Got off a big critical - it's one of the few enemies with a significant chance to inflict one with 20% odds (if it can get by the odds to use a skill or a spell), but died in some Mage Staff uses.
- 2 FrGiants, 6 FrWOLFs. I used REGEN2 to recover health after wiping the wolves.
- 1 WORM. Defense up and beat it.
- 3 Frost Ds. Mage Staff.
- 4 MudGOLs. Defense and bash.
- 2 RockGOLs, 1 MudGOL. Same.
- 2 MudGOLs, 1 RockGOL. Same.
This brought Green to the second LICH fight. I again tried to employ REFLEC, and once again LICH started to jump around in his spell order. I wondered, is it a thing specific to him, does it happen in general, or is this some weird bug? I didn't see EYE jump around all the times when I was using REFLEC against it. Either way, LICH jumped from NUKE into NUKE, so it worked out anyway. Light Axe castings helped beat him down.
- 2 Grey W. Defender up and blast them.
- 3 AGAMAs. 3 Thor uses ended this.
Here's one last EXUVIATION for the road. It was far better to just spam itemcasts here. KARY still resisted it all. But again, this was with eight things dispelled! This command is absolutely not worth using unless you have multiple sources of anti spells in the party
- SeaTROLLs, SeaSNAKEs, LOBSTERs. It was a preemptive so I just ran.
- 5 WATERs. I had thought about switching the Black Shirt back in for this floor, but either way, 3 Defenders and 5 Thor casts did them in. Maybe I should've used the Black Shirt, but oh well.
KRAKEN was nothing to write home about. I got up a BLINK at the start, and he just spammed LIT2 a lot. You can see the effects of a successful BLINK here. Once RUSE was up to three it was just a matter of using Zeus.
- 4 RockGOLs. RUSE and run. The Masmune awaits!
- 2 Zombie Ds, 2 WzVAMPs? I forgot this formation exists, heh. I fought it with Mage Staff for the novelty factor.
- 4 RockGOLs. Again, RUSE and run. Almost there.
Finally, at long last, I could lay claim to the ultimate weapon. This weapon made a world of difference. The next set of encounters had yet more RockGOLs, but they were quickly chopped to pieces by the new weapon.
TIAMAT fared only a little better, but not by much. I switched in the Power Gauntlet over the ProCape for this and the final battle..
I stalled for a bit at the beginning of the fight. I used one RUSE as CHAOS threw out ICE3. REFLEC again as CHAOS went with CRACK, but CHAOS went CUR4 instantly the next turn. Again with pointlessly making that unreliable. But I hadn't damaged him and it was what I wanted to see: skipping SLO2, which had foiled Sullla's attempt at this battle with a solo White Mage in the Original Mode. The wall was still up so I attacked for 104 damage. Green did 131 next turn when it wore off. I popped REGEN4, the Power Gauntlet, and decided to go on the attack on the spot - I was banking on the passive healing over getting more RUSE casts. 201 as CHAOS used FAST. Then 190. Then 111. This was going very slow. Worse, the TORNADO did over 200. Not the worst, but. He dropped his big NUKE next turn, I looked away while capping that and missed Green's damage - it had to be very good though.
Got up another REGEN4! He went ICE3 and LIT3 right after. I had to REFLEC because wow he was rushing right through his spells again! CHAOS responded with a big physical. That was the conundrum in this battle. If that SLO2 hit, which it had about a coinflip shot of due to being non-elemental, I would lose. But that also meant that Green couldn't RUSE, SHELL2, REGEN, etc. And CHAOS really liked doing physical attacks this run. Maybe it was that stupid reflect behavior coming into play again.
On the next turn, Green ripped out this big hit! CHAOS responded with over 400 damage with a physical of his own. But...
Green did another solid hit. It was all over!
So there you go, the solo Green Mage (no class change) run of Final Fantasy Renaissance has been completed. This wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. The Earth Cave was the biggest obstacle to this run as I expected heading into it. It was before big grinding was practical and I had no choice but to whittle down LICH because of the reflect quirk. This has to be the stupidest part of the class, and the Evoker's CARBUNCLE by proxy. There isn't even any consistency with it, since bosses will simply jump around their spell list at seemingly random. Once I was through the Ice Cave, everything was smooth sailing. Those spellcasting items can really make a difference.
Solo Green Mage felt a lot like a solo White Mage: it seems intimidating on paper, yet it really isn't. The two classes have a lot in common as solos: low offense, yet unparalled defense and healing. Green had it even better thanks to its obscene HP and the REGEN spells. By the end of the game, REGEN4 was healing them for over 200HP a tick. And unlike White Mage, it gets access to its big heal before class change for the purposes of no class change challenges. It's just too bad EXUVIATION is unreliable at best. That was the biggest disappointment about this solo. I was expecting it to be a huge nuke when you dispel a bunch anti-spells, but no such luck. Green performed very well throughout the game, and I still maintain that Green Mage isn't the worst class in FFR: that's Evoker (or Time Mage, that's the dirt worst for how it's either broken or nothing). Sure, the Green Mage can be niche and really needs more multi-target spells to match it, but at least it can perform its actual job well. The charging mechanic does not work in the confines of FF1, so Evoker is just a Green Mage with multi-target versions of some of their support skills who spams items as its main offense unless you hold back on doing so. BAHAMUT is nuts, sure, but it's the same problem Black Mage has in vanilla: they only stand out over Reds until they can cast NUKE several times at like level 29, which you might not even reach.
Will I do more solos in the future? Maybe. It would be interesting to use Evoker and see how it performs against the solo Green Mage. The Earth Cave is always the big frustration for me whenever I decide to do so, though. So we'll see. As for other variants, I have a few more in mind, but we'll see what 2.0 brings before I go too crazy on those. Thanks for reading!
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