FF2 Solo Monk Part II

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Even though Solo isn't exactly optimized for it, it doesn't stop him from landing a successful Captain kill. Still, it takes a lot of luck to pull this off - namely, his using Bow instead of attacking, or if the latter, a lot of the evades triggering. Not quite satisified, I decide to get a little more daring at this point...


I manage, through a combination of saving and occasionally engaging Mines/Bombs (who Solo is more than capable of beating! They won't explode if they're instantly splattered!) to make my way over to Mysidia Cave. If you recall, there's a very nice piece of equipment on the first floor...


To review, the Black Robe gives +40 defense, has 0 weight, and gives a +10 bonus to Agility. This unfortunately does not stack with other agility bonuses. It's a pretty daring move to go and get this so early in the game.


Getting to the cave itself was easy because of save mechanics. Getting in and out without being killed, though, is not exactly easy. Especially when I decide to push things further and go for the Gold Hairpin as well. Still, after several resets, I get a few lucky encounters, and manage to get it done.


I decide to send Solo into the Black Mask Cave first. You can purchase EarthDrms there, which cast Quake 10 when used as an item. Even better, they're reusable, much like Garlic - except they only have a 5% chance of breaking. In short, with a few of these, Solo has a lot less to fear from Slimes moving forward. He can just beat his drum and take them out if they're stubborn.


It takes four hits to down the BigHorn, a battle that sees heavy blows being thrown from each side. A bit of a scary fight, to be honest. A bad roll could've been a game over.


This took Solo to Dist Cave. Again, look at his stats and particularly the evasion evasion. 11 chances to evade, at 19% odds - him finally having started to gain some Agility. That's better than before, but again, not that great.


The going was absolutely brutal. These Revenants have the HP drain effect, Blood Swording Solo to death. The Gigas hit hard, and can take a few hits themselves. Both were formidable foes. Once Solo's stock of XPotions ran out, he was forced to just cross his fingers and hope he survived.


On the winning run, Solo got through with a mere 7 HP. Those EarthDrms really came in handy to wipe out the large undead groups at once.


Lamia Queen time, An amusing glitch was exposed here, in how Solo's sprite was being used on the field, instead of Soul's. Solo himself ran out of the room, dressed in white, then came back in to fight.


That was funny. What isn't funny is how brutal this fight turned out to be, especially with my going for a Ribbon again. She has all sorts of things to make Solo's life miserable. Wink 9 confused him - whatever attack he had queued still went through, but after that, he proceeded to kill himself with his physicals. Her own physicals inflicted Sleep status when they hit. Finally, she tops it off with Blink 16. The Lamia Queen actually has a very high evade rate at 70%. A single casting of this was essentially battle over.


After that...more glitches!! Gordon was dead when he left the party, yet returns alive. With the same amount of HP that he had. So we basically have a zombie here. One that died as soon as he was pegged with a hit-all spell though, so no big deal.

Earlier, I encountered a Behemoth on the way to Mysidia Cave (a rare encounter). Solo was mauled by it then. Against this fixed boss one, Solo just beat it in a few punches. Hooray for exponential growth!


This also worked with Layla a short while later. Gotus, I reset against several times to pick up this. Bacchus' Wine is a consumable item that increases Attack power by 40 when used. Very useful against those high-defense foes, of which the final Emperor is one.


Solo's stats around this point. Due to a strange bug in the skill system, possibly some kind of underflow, his Evasion growth skyrocketed shortly after Dist, taking him from 12 to 16 in a few fights. This is actually pretty interesting as far as evading is concerned. He has all these evasions, yet a fairly low chance of them triggering. He actually gained a bit of MP, due to MP-draining enemies knocking him around a bit.

His other stats are continuing to climb gradually. I was just surprised he hadn't maxed his Power yet. He only was wearing the Ribbon and the Black Robe - two pieces of weightless armor - allowing for the maximum evasion possible. Fists don't give any bonus, so it's simply his Agility minus equipment weight.


There's nothing really to say about Phin's Basement or Mysidia Cave when I'm actually supposed to be doing Mysidia Cave. Solo had more than enough power and resources to make it through the latter dungeon, and the former is never difficult.

This enemy group is at least somewhat interesting. The EarthDrm's Quake 10 attack is considered Matter-elemental. It has the interesting property of ignoring resistance to the Matter element. However, absorption is not ignored, and thus the attack healed the Soul enemies. If Solo wanted to beat a drum to beat the Slimes, removing the Souls first was important.


Solo picked this up in Leviathan. He didn't equip it though. The Power Armlet gives a +10 to Strength, and has a weight of 3. I want Solo to gain as much Agility as possible though, meaning he had to forgo this.

He actually died once on the boss due to my being stingy with healing beforehand. I kept to my guns the second time, and ended up taking less damage when walking through the creature's body.


Solo was getting strong. He could now actually damage the Puddings without a critical hit! Granted, it was for like 2 damage, but still.


Solo...actually lost to the Ice Gigas? What?! Well, it seemed as though XPotions simply weren't enough. The enemies in the tower were simply too damaging.for a full stock of them. Long story short, Solo had to use an Elixir for the first time here.

The Tower was at least host to something very interesting for Solo...no, not the Black Shirt. I didn't want to chance fighting that Dragon, and the elemental resistances were pointless since the Ribbon gives them to him anyway.


The Shoes are another reusable battle item, it casting Haste 8 on the user. They can break at 10% odds, but they're still very nice to have around. Solo gave them a try on the Thunder Gigas for kicks, landing 13 hits on the overgrown magician.


YESSSS!!! Agility bonus goes to Solo! He didn't get the Power bonus, sadly. After this dungeon, Solo got the Hir-DRAGON. This provides an unlimited use of Fire 7 in battle. Basically, Solo doesn't have to worry about running out of Earth Drums anymore, or he would if more Slimes were in his future.

What is in his future is the Emperor, his castle, Jade, Pandemonium, and the Emperor again.

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