sirsystemerror | FFR: Solo Lancer Part III

So with that in my rear view, first stop: the Waterfall. The Ribbon and Defender were here, both very important items. Along the way, Mario hit level 23, which gave him 4-hits, 3-hits while jumping. Here you can see me unleashing it against the 1/64 (slot 8) Gas D encounter in the cave. This is just as unrunnable as the groups of them in the final dungeon. That said, I was still having Mario fight everything he could. I was still having him gain levels, just not going out of my way to grind. Also because sometimes just fighting was the safer option than risking running. That R.BONE death is proof of that.

I ran the BOTTLE errand and descended into the Sea Shrine. Of course, the undead here simply kill you: two of my attempts to get to the upper floor resulted in deaths by GHOSTs. I grabbed the Mage Staff to hopefully deal with them when the time once again came. In the mermaid village, Mario was able to claim the Opal Bracelet. This was his best armor: a Dragoon would be able to use the Dragon Armor in Mirage, but not a Lancer. Otherwise, it has the same absorb as the Flame Armor, just with less of an evasion penalty. And Ribbon provided elemental resistances anyway.

Thankfully, the opposition as I went down into the depth was fairly easy; i.e. only one set of GHOSTs. A set of two showed late into B2, but they failed to kill. Barely, eesh. I picked up the Power Gauntlet and proceeded to never use it.

And on B1, there was a new weapon for Mario. The Trident is an interesting weapon: it has less attack power than the Platnum, but significantly more hit%. 15/50/9 offenses to be specific. I didn't feel like mathing out which was better in the moment, but from the numbers I was seeing, this at least wasn't worse. So I kept it on.

I played KRAKEN safe by using the Defender three times before starting the attack. He wasted his turns on INK, then it was too late to stop Mario. The first JUMP did around 650 and the second settled it.

Mirage had the Holy Spear to claim, but I learned at that moment that this is Dragoon exclusive. It had 30/30/6 offenses and is generally considered to be the Dragoon's ultimate weapon: its higher attack value generally results in more damage than the Trident. And the Tempest in the Floating Castle only 35/15/6 and a property of making JUMP attacks never fail (miss?). It's small enough of a bonus that the extra hit% is usually preferred. The Tempest also turned out to be Dragoon exclusive. Same for the Wyrm armlet and helmet, which I already knew about. And with ProCape out as discussed, the only thing to get here was the Black Shirt for itemcasting and a free ProRing: 8 absorb is the best on anything short of the Wyrm Gauntlets (10, Dragoon/Beastmaster only thus far) and anyone can use one.

I arrived on the bridge shortly after encounter slot 24, so there was no chance of a robotic ambush. Mario jumped on TIAMAT a couple times and brought an end to it.

Here were Mario's stats before heading into the final dungeon. Yeah, I didn't feel like I needed to bother with grinding to 50 for this solo. Might help or even be necessary for some, but the only thing it would do would be making it even easier and heavily reducing the chance of a KRAKEN death.

There really wasn't much to write about the Temple of Fiends Return. On physical only battles, I had Mario use the Defender thrice and wave the Heal Staff around until he was fully healed to save on potions in the first part of the dungeon. It was slow, but the way to go. PHANTOM, LICH, and KARY all died in one JUMP.

KRAKEN would be the only dangerous part, and he used his first two actions on LIT2 and INK. So he that was it. There were no threat of SORCERERs on the Air floor where the encounter table was at, so that meant claiming the Masmune.

And yes, JUMP works at full power with the Masmune. You just stab them like you're a supersoldier with a god complex assaulting a flower girl. Sadly, it doesn't show up on the sprite like the lance do. It works without a weapon too, I guess in that case the Lancer just jumps on them like...well, Mario. It sports the same +50% hit as the Trident and is naturally much stronger, so there was no reason not to switch over. He one-shot TIAMAT with this!

I forgot to take a screenshot of Mario's stats heading into CHAOS, but I'm pretty sure from his HP he was level 34. The gametime was like three hours and twenty minutes at most.

Mario jumped over the first attack and landed for...uh, yeah. That's why TIAMAT got one-shot and I missed the picture there. CHAOS landed an ICE3 and a physical, but this was game over.

After a swing on the tired turn that did a little over 100 damage, the next attack brought an end to the challenge and unlocked the achievement for completing a solo on Renaissance mode.

And that's the solo Lancer! Compared to some of the other classes in FFR, including some of the old ones that got new things, it's wonderfully simple and straightforward. There's nothing more to it than attacking, and it does a fantastic job of doing so. JUMP in particular is fantastic at breaking through the fiends' defenses, to say nothing about NG+ or idiots like the Evoker summons (often superbosses for the point they're encountered). With the critical hit bug fixed, being able to crit on demand stands out a lot more. Between that and high defenses, this is a powerful class indeed, if evident by never having to go out of my way to grind at any point - though the Ice Cave sure tested my patience as usual.

Just don't make any mistake from this report: JUMP has some flaws that didn't affect the soloist. For one, it takes two turns to resolve. The high power on it mostly makes up for the action economy issue, but it is still an issue. It can't benefit from FAST either. And in a full party, the others will be left to take the hits that would've been aimed for the jumper. Like I mentioned, they're not a replacement for a tank despite being durable: they're a wrecking ball best suited for slot 2.

Still, if you're looking to get a solo done for the in-game achievement, it's hard to go wrong with Lancer or Dragoon. Is it the easiest solo? Mm, depends. In New Game+ it's unquestionably so. But you can make a case for Monk, Red Mage, or Time Mage as well in a standard New Game with promotion. The first also just destroys stuff and gains tons of MDef, the second can do everything, and the last is notably immune to paralysis and has FLOAT to lean on for a bit of reprieve, as well as SET TELEPOINT nonsense later on.

So one extra thing: here's SUPER JUMP in action. Nine undead? Try ZERO UNDEAD. I had to do this to unlock another achievement for talking to the dragon in Onrac after promotion, killing 100 enemies with JUMP attacks, and returning to him. This gives the Leaping Boots, which would take up that fourth item slot for a Dragoon and causes JUMP/SUPER JUMP to go and resolve first in a round. Not necessarily the best since luck can cause them to dodge more attacks, but it can wipe randoms before they can move. Yeah, this makes a solo Lancer that promotes/Dragoon laughably busted in the late game.

Of course, you only get it late (and only get one set if you have multiple), but NG+ also has the REPEL item which drives away weak encounters. So you can just ignore all the stunning undead anyway!

Thanks for reading, and let's hope the new classes - Spellblade and Archer - in the next version are fun to play!

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