sirsystemerror (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sirsystemerror) wrote2014-12-01 12:58 pm
sirsystemerror) wrote2014-12-01 12:58 pm
FF2 Solo Monk Part III
Solo got some sick drops in the Whirlwind...he doesn't really go looking for treasure due to his not needing it, but accepts whatever his enemies happen to cough up. It's free money, after all.
Because of the wine, I decided to test one out on the Emperor. Solo could only do about 500 damage on average to those Golems beforehand, and with that one draught, he did this much. Very, very messy results, in other words.
Oh god damn it. There's that low evade at work again.
Enemies' physical attacks work by deaing 1-2 times their attack value, subtracting out defense from each hit. Solo's equipment gives him 50 defense, vs their attack of 120. So every hit does between 70-190 damage, and there's up to 10 of them. The very worst case would be 1900 damage. Even with added defense from the Power Armlet, this would still be incredibly painful.
As an aside, the Genji set of equipment gives 150 defense. So you're still not guaranteed to be bulletproof with it, whereas with evasion, you can just laugh by it - and way earlier than you can access the Genji gear.
But we have a problem here. That problem is, any appearance of these guys is dead. How can we solve it?
Well, two ways. The first is to start packing Elixirs instead. The Sorcerers on the overworld are a nice source of money with their spellbook drops, but can we do better?
Well, we need evade for that. Which means some agility building, which means getting targetted by enemies a lot. I settle in the desert just outside the castle itself. SandWorms get 7x85% hits, Blades get 6x80 hits, and the rare Malboros and Shades get 7x80% and 8x100% respectively, The Blades and Malboros are also assured to physically attack. All these encounters are also a nice way to earn money.
Despite the fact that Shade is a 1/64 encounter, I run into three of them on my grinding adventure. None of them pose any threat, but to their credit, they can at least take a few hits.
That aside, Elixirs were really all there was to the strategy. If we can't consistently evade them, just heal off the damage they cause. Only other thing of note is that I ended up with four Sun Swords between the drops and the fixed one.
With this, the only thing left to do was to get Solo's fist level up to the maximum. This wasn't so bad, especially with uselessly attacking teammates and because he achieved the final two levels instantly due to the same glitch that maxed his evade.
Now Solo could pump out serious damage on 210 defense enemies. So much for the attacking items. The Emperor also happens to have 210 defense, so these slime enemies make a good benchmark of whether or not you have enough physical power.
So into Jade it was. Solo particularly got two Genji Gauntlet drops from Dragons along the way. His magic defense seemed to be preventing the status ailments of the Malboros from taking effect. Or something like that. What I'm saying is, they were a non-issue. Solo punched his way through all the opposition, used Elixirs when his HP got low, and moved on. He fought the chest guardians as well, and had no trouble.
Funny thing - Elixirs can be used in battle, but they're actually a spell in that instance. Solo had so much HP, they didn't restore him to maximum HP if he was at really low health. Elixirs only restore around 4500-5000
Speaking of magic defense though, it rendered those Krulls that hassled the magicians completely inept. Their Blast 10 could not stand up to Solo's absurd magic defense. What was a problem were the DthRiders, who could Blood Sword Solo to death. Incredibly painful enemies, but ones that thankfully didn't show up too often on the ending run.
The Masmune, I'd technically consider usable by Solo. He could've used it in FF1, after all. It'd actually be the better weapon for the Emperor if we took the time to build sword to 16, but who has time for that? It still has a use for us though, as it casts a handy Haste 11 spell when used in battle. It'd considered spread unlike the Shoes, meaning we're less likely to be able to use it successfully with Solo's abyssmal intelligence, but it never breaks.
I had the fortune of running into not one, but TWO Giants along the way. These actually apparently play the boss music when you encounter them in the NES version, pretty crazy. They're most notable for the loot they can give you - both of them coughed up Xcalibrs.
None of the Genji Guardians were really a threat. Astaroth could've been a jerk with his HP Draining physical, but he chose to throw out useless status spells rather than attempt to murder Solo with those.
Only the Emperor remained, and here were Solo's stats before he engaged him.
He too, has an HP-draining special. And this time, all his magic was in-play, including the advent of Meteo(r) in the series, also known as Starfall in some translations. This does heavy non-elemental damage to all targets, but for Solo and his inflated magic defense, this only did 200-300 on average.
Solo guzzled one of the Bacchus' Wines he had been saving up, used the Masmune to power up, and let the Emperor have it. A few rounds later, the Emperor's 11000HP was depleted, and the battle was won.
Another game conquered by the fists of fury. So my thoughts on this? Some people have apparently said that playing through the game with a solo character is arguably easier than playing through with a full party. The Magicians proved this isn't necessarily the case - though the biggest advantage a solo character can have is having all the magic defense growth.
This is one of the things the remake fixes, since spread magic attacks are bugged in the NES version and raise Firion's Spirit instead of anyone's magic defense. Speaking of Firion, his advantage as a solo character is that it is his agility/evasion that determines whether you get ambushed, have a preemptive, or neither. This was mostly an annoyance for Solo, though it was quite amusing to see bosses (even the Emperor himself) get the first attack.
Solo's fist ruled out the evasion abuses. As you saw, this was really debilitating in a few places. All the defense in the world means nothing against those HP drainers, and you still need to worry about the ones with high attack too. Again, agility/evasion really is the most important stat in FF2.
Will I do more with this game? I have a few ideas, yes!! I've considered the opposite of the magicians: a party of front row warriors who have to sit around and take the punishment they receive. And of course, a solo spellcaster is an option for a variant as well. This is a very much unexplored game for variant potential. Maybe I'll be the one to squeeze as much out of it as I can. What a dubious honor that would be.
Index
Re: awesome challenge
Re: awesome challenge
solo game isn't too hard as you did with the monk and you get a fuck ton of evade.
Maybe a no armor challenge? Lmfao then again no armor would probably make the game easier.
Re: awesome challenge