FFR: Solo Dark Knight Part I
May. 8th, 2025 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorThere are many jobs in Final Fantasy Renaissance that can be considered the worst. Thief is still limp wristed, but brings utility to the table with SEARCH. Green Mage is a slow-roller in a rocket tag game, but brings so much defense that it can set the pace. Evoker forces you to fight superbosses and is also a slow-roller due to the charging gimmick, but the utility spells are ridiculous if nothing else.
Dark Knight is also way down there. Let's start with the stats: the growths are horrendous! It has fixed STR growths up through level 6. It then gets growths on 8, 10, and 12, before gaining a point every odd level up to the cap. AGI growths are every even level up through 22, and every odd level from 23-43. These sound fine, but STR in particular is bad for a physical class: even Thief gets more fixed STR! Dark Knight has a higher minimum due to a higher base, but that's still telling. As for the other stats? VIT is fixed on 3 and 6, LUCK is fixed on 6 and 13. That's it. There are no fixed INT growths, bad news when this job can use magic.
The way you're supposed to make up for it is with its CONSUME BAT ability after promotion, which allows them to kill a bat NPC and gain a stat boost depending on where they are. The flaws with this are twofold: first, you need to backtrack to take advantage of these, which is a massive timesink. Second, if you run multiple Dark Knights in a party, only one can take advantage at a time. This is just a "funny" way of papering over its horrendous growths. Or maybe balancing: from stuff I read, I sort of get the impression that Ozmo started with this ability then worked backwards from there.
That's only part of the problem, though.
Negative hit%? You're looking at the gimmick of their one and only weapon type, Greatswords. These have good crit chance and unusually high attack - this starting one had 18 power and 10 crit% - at the cost of low (actually in all but one case outright negative) hit%. The good news is the number of hits is floored at 1. The bad news is it's number of hits that gives you the big damage spikes in FF1. Combined with the possibility of missing, which is much more likely with that negative hit%, and you have a very inconsistent damage dealer. At least they gain 3 on a level: they have the same 5+3 as Black Belts/Monks.
Now, there is one thing they can do to tilt the odds: if an enemy is inflicted with darkness, they gain 32 hit%. They have a near-guaranteed way of inflicting this after class change while dealing damage, but otherwise, you need to spend turns better spent on just attacking. Speaking of, they're also immune to the darkness status, for the few times that comes up (practically: SHADOWs, WzOGREs, NITEMAREs, and maybe KARY).
It gets even worse for this class: ambushes! To calculate the odds of an ambush, you take the first party slot's (AGI+LUCK)÷8, plus a random number between that and 100, then subtract the enemy formation's surprise factor. If the result is less than or equal to 10, it's an ambush. If it's over or equal to 90, it's a preemptive. It should be no surprise that the class with like no LUCK and shaky AGI is going to be ambushed a lot. Then there's running. For that calculation, you compare LUCK to a random number between 0 and (Level+15). So Clesse with his 4 LUCK has a little less than a ¼ chance of running at the start of the game and short of manipulating growths it's only going to get worse from there. While a lot of classes are in a similar boat, they have much more fixed LUCK growths. This class is wildly gimmicky in all the wrong ways!
With all this, I named the character after John Cleese, the actor who portrays the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Black Knight is famously incompetent and yet very persistent. Things that would describe the experience with this character well.
Here's one of the problems of the job on display: even though Cleese could wear Chain, IMPs still roughed him up badly simply because he kept on missing attacks. Just about any other dedicated physical job could kill one per round. Not him.
The other problem of course was all the stat resetting. It was utterly miserable, all that needs to be said. I hard focused in on LUCK, because this job needed it.
For GARLAND, I had Cleese employ BLOOD WEAPON for the first time. This special ability causes the Dark Knight's physical attacks to drain half the damage dealt for the next two rounds. The action economy is normally a problem, but it can be nice for a solo. There are still three things to be aware of: one, it can only drain as much HP as the target has. So no dunking an IMP for like 50 and getting 25 back, you only get 8. Second, you can still miss. When Cleese did so mid-battle, I gave up and just attacked and won. Third and though irrelevant here: it won't drain against the undead or mechanical enemies.
Oh yes, should restate that Dark Knight can use magic. Their low INT makes them poor in comparison with all other mages now that it works, but spells did the job when it didn't work before and some of them are INT agnostic. They get two per level. The two in Coneria were SLEP and BIO - a weak Poison-elemental spell with 10 base power. FIRE and LIT both have 20. It can sometimes inflict the status of the same name, dealing 3-18 damage per turn to an enemy. But it's just sort of there.
Against the PIRATEs, I had Clesse use SLEP. It did a good job of keeping them incapacitated. Being asleep or paralyzed removes evasion from the hit formula, so it increased his chances to hit a bit. He kept missing, because of course. For the record, the accuracy formula is (168 + Hit% - Evade). Hitting a weakness or the enemy being blind adds 40, being darked subtracts 40. You have that expression out of 201 chance of hitting.
The two L2 spells available here were DARK and PAIN. Far from the murderstatus it is in FF8 or murderdamage it is in FF10, this instead targets an enemy and damages it for however much damage the Dark Knight took the previous turn. It's bad in a party - attacks get spread, and putting your Dark Knight first is a recipe to get ambushed a lot (unless you pair it with a Ninja to prevent those). It goes up to questionable in a solo due to the fact that enemies have so much more health. But it has some fun niches, such as the fact that it always goes first.
My next goal was to raise a bit of money. It just meant KYZOKU grinding. There were two purchases waiting for Clesse in Elfland.
This was the first of them. It's effectively FIR2/LIT2 with a chance of a rider effect and in a different element. A very bad element, but one that would suffice for killing groups that don't resist it. Such as KYZOKUs. Instead of flailing around, Cleese could cast magic and wipe them in 1-2 blasts. I quickly made the money back and purchased the Silver Greatsword. It has 40/-15/10 offenses.
With this new weapon, Clesse had 51 attack. And only 5 hit%. It's interesting to compare this to say, a Fighter at the same level. Clesse does 51-102 damage before absorb. A Fighter with a Silver Sword will have 2-hits at 36 base, effectively dealing 72-144 damage against a 0 absorb enemy. The rift between the two only widens as the game goes along. Now, with darkness involved or against high absorb targets? It's a bit of a different story, especially with Greatswords' high crit%. But I went over the problems with darkness, and high absorb mostly means fiends and ASTOS.
Oh yes, here's a rare shot from my grinding. It's rare to see this message in vanilla: poison does 2 damage per turn, possibly due to a bug. It's replicated in FFR because it's ambiguous. There were no ways to poison an enemy in FF1 (and even if there were, surprise surprise: it was bugged), so the only way you could ever see it is if a party member ends up poisoned with 1-2 HP.
Some more grinding later, and I was ready for the Marsh Cave. It took several tries. Sometimes it was the stunning undead. Other times it was missing the WIZARDs. They resist both the poison and status elements, so Cleese could only attack. I made use of BIO2 against CRAWLs on the way out, as it was often enough to get a kill over trying to run. It gave him a much higher chance of escaping, in other words.
One advantage Cleese did have is that he was functionally immune to ASTOS' SLO2. One hit is still one hit, and he hit more than hard enough to consistently punch through the dark elf's absorb. He also had HOLD to lock him down. It didn't hit with the one spell charge Cleese had, but RUB also missed. So I shrugged and had him attack, and eventually won.
That gave the Mystic Key. There wasn't much to get with Cleese, just the Iron Helmet and Iron Gauntlet I guess. Dark Knights can't use shields, not even the ProCape. But what was in Melmond was even better than any treasure.
Say hello to what used to be the best greatsword in the game, right here to buy. Bastard Sword is the only one with positive hit%. It may be only +10, but you take what you get. This used to be better before 2.0, since it had 35 power (though only 3 crit%). It was arguably the best in the game back then. Whatever the case, it was finally enough to get up to 2-hits. In fact, it would get 6-hits at level 50. Just ignore the fact that Masmune gets 7-hits at level 47.
The other contender, the Cobalt Greatsword was in Crescent Lake: 47 power and -10 hit%. It's also the strongest an unpromoted Dark Knight can get. I tend to use it anyway, because the other ones carry a harsher hit% penalty and don't get that much stronger. Which one I preferred depended on whether or not I could get 2-hits with Cobalt. Which, would be in exactly one level.
If you want some numbers as an example: right now, Cleese had 61 damage with Cobalt and 39 with Bastard. So Cobalt did 61-122 on 1 hit, and Bastard did 78-156 on 2 hits. With higher accuracy, of course. Enemy defense does muddy things: against one with 10, Cobalt does 51-112, and Bastard does 58-116. One ding later though, and Cobalt was preferred. Even with the lower accuracy, it was worth the tradeoff.
Compare to Fighter: 39 damage at the same level with the Silver Sword, and 3 hits. 87-174 against a 10 absorb enemy. Yeah. Though conversely on LICH, a Silver Sword Fighter does 1-38 damage on each of their 3 hits. A Cobalt Dark Knight does 21-82 on each of their 2. They're much more likely to deal good damage, even before critical hits. If there is one thing they are good at, it's beating up the fiends.
It's around this point of the game where Dark Knight starts to pick up. Even in a party, getting Bastard makes a huge difference.
Oh yes, more spells were available now. L4 which were back in Elfland (Cleese didn't have the money or the spell slots) had DRAIN and BLEED: these both did 20% of a target's MaxHP, 10% if they're a boss only in the case of DRAIN (reflect presumably lets you hit them for full with BLEED), and absorbs it as healing. It can only drain as much health as an enemy has, and it doesn't work on mechanical or undead enemies. It's still okay on the fiends. BLEED only targets allies so it was useless. L6 was RUB and STUN, but only the latter could be used by Dark Knight.
L5 had BANE, but Dark Knight couldn't use it. There was also BIND. This spell stops the enemies from running if it hits. There are very few practical uses for it: one being if you're on New Game+ where experience yield is massively increased but enemy morale stays the same, and you're using a Blue Mage that wants the enemies to stick around. Otherwise? When have you ever cursed an enemy running away in FF1? Maybe in a solo when you're grinding very hard? I mean, I guess that's the use here...
Now the Earth Cave. No way in hell I was doing that with this class without some more magic defense. So it was over to Crescent Lake to grind. Once Cleese hit level 18, I switched him back over to the Bastard Sword. They're close enough in power for now (41 vs 63) that I preferred having 3 hits to technically slightly more. Even 10 absorb didn't change much.
I also made a purchase I rarely ever make. Steel Armor is, as T-Hawk put it best, a sucker's trap. In a normal party, this 45000G buy isn't worth it: it lasts from now until you get Flame or Ice Armor. Nothing in the Earth Cave, Ordeals, or Volcano/Ice Cave hits hard enough to warrant this chunk of extra defense over Iron Armor. Solos can make use of it. This did mean putting off some of Cleese's magic purchases, but they weren't a big deal.
I decided to grind a bit on EARTHs like I did with James the Thief. Cobalt was actually the better option here: Bastard did 22-62 on 3 hits. Cobalt did 44-108 on 2. This is a genuinely interesting thing about this class: sometimes, you'll want to switch weapons around depending on what gets the most hits. The mid/lategame ones in particular are very close in power. And against bosses, Bastard's advantages disappear.
The same logic applied to the VAMPIRE: Cobalt was better. It actually got one-shot the first time I reached him. Then Cleese died to a nine-pack of undead. It was close: that insane defense actually saw him get the chance to recover several times, he just never moved before getting stunned again. I encounter rolled to 31 before going back in since that's a good undeadless stretch. There were still so many encounters that an encounter with them showed up anyway: four. Yeah, made it out just fine and they held off until he was up the stairs.
There was one more piece of business on B3. I decided I'd at least peer at it for playthrough/demonstrative purposes. The Crimson Greatsword is off in the far corner and unassuming on the surface. Its stats are identical to the Steel Greatsword in Pravoka: 27/-25/10.
However, the weapon has a hidden property: if you use BLOOD WEAPON, physical attacks will drain the full damage done instead of half. The skill still has the problem of action economy, it has low power, the accuracy penalty is the second-lowest, and it's in an out of the way corner of the dangerous floor. But it is the first weapon a Dark Knight can find in a chest, for whatever obscure challenge it's worth. I actually did survive and make it back after picking it up, so it's there if I need it (I never did).
Before grabbing the ROD and heading down to fight the first fiend, I decided I'd take Clesse up to level 24 at least. That would mean 3 hits with the Cobalt Greatsword. Didn't take too long on the Peninsula, which was the quickest place. He didn't have much trouble. Even 4 ZomBULLs he could simply beat in a straight up brawl most of the time.
I had a wonderfully blessed second dive into the Earth Cave. I ran into two big undead groups on B3, but each time was on a chance to strike first. I idled before B4 because the next encounter was slot 2: undead. But it took a ton of steps to lure the encounter out. Either you can't get encounters near the ROD plate or I just got a super lucky roll that I had to burn. I passed through B4 in three encounters, which saved Cleese from having to fight COCTRICEs. Still, another slot 2 was coming up: still IMAGEs on B5. And: chance to strike first!
LICH used ICE2 for 58, while Cleese bashed him for 176. Cleese moved first on the second round for 233, and that was it! Told you they were good at killing the fiends!
I decided I'd go into Gurgu next, just to get rid of the heavy Steel Armor. There wasn't much to get in the dungeon as usual, with the notable exception of the Flame Armor. Red D was a little scary, but I got it done in two shots.
KARY is of course weak to the status element. One HOLD and she was locked down. This was only his second attack, but ouch all the same.
Ordeals wasn't too tough. I died to SORCERERs and MEDUSAs a few times, below average luck for myself, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Ice Cave, I didn't take any pictures of. There is literally no strategy but maybe game the encounter table and hope for the best. I didn't bother with it this time and never really paid the price. I wasn't counting either, I think it took like 20 tries?
Now. I was sort of indirectly challenged by Wrolyn to finish at a lower level than his solo unpromoted Dark Knight, which was around the 30s. I never care for level when it comes to solos. However much it needs or I feel like, that's what I go for. I do these for fun and informative purposes. I certainly can do it if I want, and I decided I'd up the stakes to eradicate all doubt: sure, I'll get it done lower level. Without itemcasts. Or a Ribbon.
I have basically nothing to write about this, because it was so boring. Dark Knight doesn't much much in the north without promotion anyway: it's just the usual stuff everyone gets and the BLND spell. A guaranteed (not actually right now because under 300HP spells are bugged) chance of darkness is not great. Cleese hit RUN and hoped for the best, everywhere. The highlight of it was getting a random encounter Blue D twice when going up Mirage. Which, like a lot of unrunnables, was a reset. Also, I could do this at the Waterfall!
There were tons of unrunnables in the Sea Shrine so that took a bunch of attempts. I actually settled on beating two GHOSTs when clearing out the upper level. LOBSTERs got me twice because low level on a solo is stupid - I could otherwise just hit Zeus once or twice and win. KRAKEN got me once before I hit HOLD and had done with it. The same worked on TIAMAT, and it was the same story actually: Cleese died the first time, paralyzed the fiend the second, and beat her down from there.
Before heading into the past, I went back into the Earth Cave to retrieve the Earth Armlet. This would help stop CRACK. It plus the Flame Armor were about the only difference that I could make with throwing Ribbons off the table.
Well, I went up to 99 attempts before I even got to LICH. Most of them were ended by running into Gas Ds: there was nothing Cleese could do except die to them. After that, he had to get through PHANTOM: with all sorts of status moves, this was another roadblock. It didn't help that Cleese was simply not getting lucky rolls against the thing. Quite a few were ended by Zombie Ds, and surprisingly: BADMANs were also a problem. Nine of them could hurt bad and sometimes kill. I reached the Earth floor several times, but kept getting killed by GrMEDUSAs. I got excellent use out of BLOOD WEAPON against FrGIANT/FrWOLF groups, though.
Once he finally made it to LICH for the first time? Poor rolls, then a ZAP! ended it.
Okay, maybe that was taking it too far. Let's get a Ribbon and this over with. Still no spellcasting items to prove my point, unless I hit another 99 failed attempts. Restart the count.
1. Without its instant death, PHANTOM is nothing. 4 Zombie Ds are still a problem, though.
2. Nor are Gas Ds with BLOOD WEAPON up. It took me 99 tries to even get to LICH before, and this try? I got to him and beat him. Think Ribbon makes a difference? KARY got hit with HOLD after two tries. BLOOD WEAPON and kill. I had an annoying encounter with WATERs, and KRAKEN was a joke in the wrong ways: all three remaining HOLDs missed, but he kept not attacking physically, so I still won. But then TIAMAT did two physicals, and that did kill.
3. 4 Gas Ds still hurt.
4. 4 EARTHs, lifesteal couldn't keep up
5. 4 Gas Ds
6. I just do not care, double run fail against Frost Ds my ass
7. Double HOLD miss against KARY and double critical killed
8. Paralyzed both KARY and KRAKEN. Made it to the Masmune, but kept getting low rolls on TIAMAT and killed from there by a big critical.
9. 4 Gas Ds
10. 4 Frost Ds and double run fail
11. 4 Gas Ds
12. Dead to KARY when the HOLDs wouldn't take
13. Survived Zombie Ds with 11 HP. Eventually dead to KRAKEN
14. 4 EARTHs, lifesteal couldn't keep up
15. KARY double physicalled before I could do anything
16. KARY
17. KARY
18. 4 Gas Ds
19. 4 Zombie Ds
20. KARY
21. 4 Gas Ds
22. 4 Zombie Ds
23. 4 Gas Ds
24. A big crit on KARY let me STUN her. Then 4 WATERs killed.
25. KARY
26. LICH almost cycled to NUKE and killed me. KARY went fine. Insanely lucky KRAKEN where he hit Cleese for 459 only for HOLD to land! I hit a PAIN, then two strong attacks for the victory! Got the Masmune, then made it through TIAMAT thanks to the attack rolls going nicely.
On round 1 of CHAOS, he started out with a 297 damage physical as Cleese used BLOOD WEAPON. ICE3 for 51, then Cleese hit for just 116. LIT3 also for 51, followed by Cleese hitting for 82. Reupped BLOOD WEAPON as CHAOS did another physical, I think for 133.
At this point, it was clear this wasn't happening. I survived for a bit thanks to DRAIN, but SLO2 hit as well and that was the end of that.
You get the idea. I stopped keeping track of exact failures here. KARY and KRAKEN were responsible for most of the deaths, but 4 Gas D resets weren't that far behind. Any unrunnable really. It's a big problem with no spellcasting items. I actually did get killed by LICH occasionally. I was encounter watching enough to not get SORCERERs at least.
Second time I got to CHAOS was try 72. He opened with ICE3 for a nice 69 damage. Then LIT3 for 37. Then SLO2, which...missed! I used BLOOD WEAPON, right as he used CUR4 literally as fast as he could've. He then used a physical for 239.
Cleese hit harder. His next attack did 346. That was it: the only thing that was going to stop me from here was a massive physical from CHAOS. His next one did 183. Then he used CRACK.
And here's DRAIN. This did 200 damage each time to CHAOS, restoring exactly that much to CLEESE. Since he was under 1000 and nowhere near the next CUR4, it was literally down to just using Cleese's five charges!
He actually did physical a lot from here, but never got the massive crits of his own.
Anyway, there. I proved my point and now I just hate myself. I could've beat it easily if I did use spellcasting items (Defense) for KARY and KRAKEN in particular, but logic left my brain for the sake of never being bugged by that again. :P Luckily, that's what the "with promotion" run is for. That said, it wouldn't be very different without these self-imposed extra restrictions: just easier and more enjoyable. And Cleese would have been higher level. I know some people might enjoy it, but it's just not something for me even if I can do it.
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Dark Knight is also way down there. Let's start with the stats: the growths are horrendous! It has fixed STR growths up through level 6. It then gets growths on 8, 10, and 12, before gaining a point every odd level up to the cap. AGI growths are every even level up through 22, and every odd level from 23-43. These sound fine, but STR in particular is bad for a physical class: even Thief gets more fixed STR! Dark Knight has a higher minimum due to a higher base, but that's still telling. As for the other stats? VIT is fixed on 3 and 6, LUCK is fixed on 6 and 13. That's it. There are no fixed INT growths, bad news when this job can use magic.
The way you're supposed to make up for it is with its CONSUME BAT ability after promotion, which allows them to kill a bat NPC and gain a stat boost depending on where they are. The flaws with this are twofold: first, you need to backtrack to take advantage of these, which is a massive timesink. Second, if you run multiple Dark Knights in a party, only one can take advantage at a time. This is just a "funny" way of papering over its horrendous growths. Or maybe balancing: from stuff I read, I sort of get the impression that Ozmo started with this ability then worked backwards from there.
That's only part of the problem, though.
Negative hit%? You're looking at the gimmick of their one and only weapon type, Greatswords. These have good crit chance and unusually high attack - this starting one had 18 power and 10 crit% - at the cost of low (actually in all but one case outright negative) hit%. The good news is the number of hits is floored at 1. The bad news is it's number of hits that gives you the big damage spikes in FF1. Combined with the possibility of missing, which is much more likely with that negative hit%, and you have a very inconsistent damage dealer. At least they gain 3 on a level: they have the same 5+3 as Black Belts/Monks.
Now, there is one thing they can do to tilt the odds: if an enemy is inflicted with darkness, they gain 32 hit%. They have a near-guaranteed way of inflicting this after class change while dealing damage, but otherwise, you need to spend turns better spent on just attacking. Speaking of, they're also immune to the darkness status, for the few times that comes up (practically: SHADOWs, WzOGREs, NITEMAREs, and maybe KARY).
It gets even worse for this class: ambushes! To calculate the odds of an ambush, you take the first party slot's (AGI+LUCK)÷8, plus a random number between that and 100, then subtract the enemy formation's surprise factor. If the result is less than or equal to 10, it's an ambush. If it's over or equal to 90, it's a preemptive. It should be no surprise that the class with like no LUCK and shaky AGI is going to be ambushed a lot. Then there's running. For that calculation, you compare LUCK to a random number between 0 and (Level+15). So Clesse with his 4 LUCK has a little less than a ¼ chance of running at the start of the game and short of manipulating growths it's only going to get worse from there. While a lot of classes are in a similar boat, they have much more fixed LUCK growths. This class is wildly gimmicky in all the wrong ways!
With all this, I named the character after John Cleese, the actor who portrays the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Black Knight is famously incompetent and yet very persistent. Things that would describe the experience with this character well.
Here's one of the problems of the job on display: even though Cleese could wear Chain, IMPs still roughed him up badly simply because he kept on missing attacks. Just about any other dedicated physical job could kill one per round. Not him.
The other problem of course was all the stat resetting. It was utterly miserable, all that needs to be said. I hard focused in on LUCK, because this job needed it.
For GARLAND, I had Cleese employ BLOOD WEAPON for the first time. This special ability causes the Dark Knight's physical attacks to drain half the damage dealt for the next two rounds. The action economy is normally a problem, but it can be nice for a solo. There are still three things to be aware of: one, it can only drain as much HP as the target has. So no dunking an IMP for like 50 and getting 25 back, you only get 8. Second, you can still miss. When Cleese did so mid-battle, I gave up and just attacked and won. Third and though irrelevant here: it won't drain against the undead or mechanical enemies.
Oh yes, should restate that Dark Knight can use magic. Their low INT makes them poor in comparison with all other mages now that it works, but spells did the job when it didn't work before and some of them are INT agnostic. They get two per level. The two in Coneria were SLEP and BIO - a weak Poison-elemental spell with 10 base power. FIRE and LIT both have 20. It can sometimes inflict the status of the same name, dealing 3-18 damage per turn to an enemy. But it's just sort of there.
Against the PIRATEs, I had Clesse use SLEP. It did a good job of keeping them incapacitated. Being asleep or paralyzed removes evasion from the hit formula, so it increased his chances to hit a bit. He kept missing, because of course. For the record, the accuracy formula is (168 + Hit% - Evade). Hitting a weakness or the enemy being blind adds 40, being darked subtracts 40. You have that expression out of 201 chance of hitting.
The two L2 spells available here were DARK and PAIN. Far from the murderstatus it is in FF8 or murderdamage it is in FF10, this instead targets an enemy and damages it for however much damage the Dark Knight took the previous turn. It's bad in a party - attacks get spread, and putting your Dark Knight first is a recipe to get ambushed a lot (unless you pair it with a Ninja to prevent those). It goes up to questionable in a solo due to the fact that enemies have so much more health. But it has some fun niches, such as the fact that it always goes first.
My next goal was to raise a bit of money. It just meant KYZOKU grinding. There were two purchases waiting for Clesse in Elfland.
This was the first of them. It's effectively FIR2/LIT2 with a chance of a rider effect and in a different element. A very bad element, but one that would suffice for killing groups that don't resist it. Such as KYZOKUs. Instead of flailing around, Cleese could cast magic and wipe them in 1-2 blasts. I quickly made the money back and purchased the Silver Greatsword. It has 40/-15/10 offenses.
With this new weapon, Clesse had 51 attack. And only 5 hit%. It's interesting to compare this to say, a Fighter at the same level. Clesse does 51-102 damage before absorb. A Fighter with a Silver Sword will have 2-hits at 36 base, effectively dealing 72-144 damage against a 0 absorb enemy. The rift between the two only widens as the game goes along. Now, with darkness involved or against high absorb targets? It's a bit of a different story, especially with Greatswords' high crit%. But I went over the problems with darkness, and high absorb mostly means fiends and ASTOS.
Oh yes, here's a rare shot from my grinding. It's rare to see this message in vanilla: poison does 2 damage per turn, possibly due to a bug. It's replicated in FFR because it's ambiguous. There were no ways to poison an enemy in FF1 (and even if there were, surprise surprise: it was bugged), so the only way you could ever see it is if a party member ends up poisoned with 1-2 HP.
Some more grinding later, and I was ready for the Marsh Cave. It took several tries. Sometimes it was the stunning undead. Other times it was missing the WIZARDs. They resist both the poison and status elements, so Cleese could only attack. I made use of BIO2 against CRAWLs on the way out, as it was often enough to get a kill over trying to run. It gave him a much higher chance of escaping, in other words.
One advantage Cleese did have is that he was functionally immune to ASTOS' SLO2. One hit is still one hit, and he hit more than hard enough to consistently punch through the dark elf's absorb. He also had HOLD to lock him down. It didn't hit with the one spell charge Cleese had, but RUB also missed. So I shrugged and had him attack, and eventually won.
That gave the Mystic Key. There wasn't much to get with Cleese, just the Iron Helmet and Iron Gauntlet I guess. Dark Knights can't use shields, not even the ProCape. But what was in Melmond was even better than any treasure.
Say hello to what used to be the best greatsword in the game, right here to buy. Bastard Sword is the only one with positive hit%. It may be only +10, but you take what you get. This used to be better before 2.0, since it had 35 power (though only 3 crit%). It was arguably the best in the game back then. Whatever the case, it was finally enough to get up to 2-hits. In fact, it would get 6-hits at level 50. Just ignore the fact that Masmune gets 7-hits at level 47.
The other contender, the Cobalt Greatsword was in Crescent Lake: 47 power and -10 hit%. It's also the strongest an unpromoted Dark Knight can get. I tend to use it anyway, because the other ones carry a harsher hit% penalty and don't get that much stronger. Which one I preferred depended on whether or not I could get 2-hits with Cobalt. Which, would be in exactly one level.
If you want some numbers as an example: right now, Cleese had 61 damage with Cobalt and 39 with Bastard. So Cobalt did 61-122 on 1 hit, and Bastard did 78-156 on 2 hits. With higher accuracy, of course. Enemy defense does muddy things: against one with 10, Cobalt does 51-112, and Bastard does 58-116. One ding later though, and Cobalt was preferred. Even with the lower accuracy, it was worth the tradeoff.
Compare to Fighter: 39 damage at the same level with the Silver Sword, and 3 hits. 87-174 against a 10 absorb enemy. Yeah. Though conversely on LICH, a Silver Sword Fighter does 1-38 damage on each of their 3 hits. A Cobalt Dark Knight does 21-82 on each of their 2. They're much more likely to deal good damage, even before critical hits. If there is one thing they are good at, it's beating up the fiends.
It's around this point of the game where Dark Knight starts to pick up. Even in a party, getting Bastard makes a huge difference.
Oh yes, more spells were available now. L4 which were back in Elfland (Cleese didn't have the money or the spell slots) had DRAIN and BLEED: these both did 20% of a target's MaxHP, 10% if they're a boss only in the case of DRAIN (reflect presumably lets you hit them for full with BLEED), and absorbs it as healing. It can only drain as much health as an enemy has, and it doesn't work on mechanical or undead enemies. It's still okay on the fiends. BLEED only targets allies so it was useless. L6 was RUB and STUN, but only the latter could be used by Dark Knight.
L5 had BANE, but Dark Knight couldn't use it. There was also BIND. This spell stops the enemies from running if it hits. There are very few practical uses for it: one being if you're on New Game+ where experience yield is massively increased but enemy morale stays the same, and you're using a Blue Mage that wants the enemies to stick around. Otherwise? When have you ever cursed an enemy running away in FF1? Maybe in a solo when you're grinding very hard? I mean, I guess that's the use here...
Now the Earth Cave. No way in hell I was doing that with this class without some more magic defense. So it was over to Crescent Lake to grind. Once Cleese hit level 18, I switched him back over to the Bastard Sword. They're close enough in power for now (41 vs 63) that I preferred having 3 hits to technically slightly more. Even 10 absorb didn't change much.
I also made a purchase I rarely ever make. Steel Armor is, as T-Hawk put it best, a sucker's trap. In a normal party, this 45000G buy isn't worth it: it lasts from now until you get Flame or Ice Armor. Nothing in the Earth Cave, Ordeals, or Volcano/Ice Cave hits hard enough to warrant this chunk of extra defense over Iron Armor. Solos can make use of it. This did mean putting off some of Cleese's magic purchases, but they weren't a big deal.
I decided to grind a bit on EARTHs like I did with James the Thief. Cobalt was actually the better option here: Bastard did 22-62 on 3 hits. Cobalt did 44-108 on 2. This is a genuinely interesting thing about this class: sometimes, you'll want to switch weapons around depending on what gets the most hits. The mid/lategame ones in particular are very close in power. And against bosses, Bastard's advantages disappear.
The same logic applied to the VAMPIRE: Cobalt was better. It actually got one-shot the first time I reached him. Then Cleese died to a nine-pack of undead. It was close: that insane defense actually saw him get the chance to recover several times, he just never moved before getting stunned again. I encounter rolled to 31 before going back in since that's a good undeadless stretch. There were still so many encounters that an encounter with them showed up anyway: four. Yeah, made it out just fine and they held off until he was up the stairs.
There was one more piece of business on B3. I decided I'd at least peer at it for playthrough/demonstrative purposes. The Crimson Greatsword is off in the far corner and unassuming on the surface. Its stats are identical to the Steel Greatsword in Pravoka: 27/-25/10.
However, the weapon has a hidden property: if you use BLOOD WEAPON, physical attacks will drain the full damage done instead of half. The skill still has the problem of action economy, it has low power, the accuracy penalty is the second-lowest, and it's in an out of the way corner of the dangerous floor. But it is the first weapon a Dark Knight can find in a chest, for whatever obscure challenge it's worth. I actually did survive and make it back after picking it up, so it's there if I need it (I never did).
Before grabbing the ROD and heading down to fight the first fiend, I decided I'd take Clesse up to level 24 at least. That would mean 3 hits with the Cobalt Greatsword. Didn't take too long on the Peninsula, which was the quickest place. He didn't have much trouble. Even 4 ZomBULLs he could simply beat in a straight up brawl most of the time.
I had a wonderfully blessed second dive into the Earth Cave. I ran into two big undead groups on B3, but each time was on a chance to strike first. I idled before B4 because the next encounter was slot 2: undead. But it took a ton of steps to lure the encounter out. Either you can't get encounters near the ROD plate or I just got a super lucky roll that I had to burn. I passed through B4 in three encounters, which saved Cleese from having to fight COCTRICEs. Still, another slot 2 was coming up: still IMAGEs on B5. And: chance to strike first!
LICH used ICE2 for 58, while Cleese bashed him for 176. Cleese moved first on the second round for 233, and that was it! Told you they were good at killing the fiends!
I decided I'd go into Gurgu next, just to get rid of the heavy Steel Armor. There wasn't much to get in the dungeon as usual, with the notable exception of the Flame Armor. Red D was a little scary, but I got it done in two shots.
KARY is of course weak to the status element. One HOLD and she was locked down. This was only his second attack, but ouch all the same.
Ordeals wasn't too tough. I died to SORCERERs and MEDUSAs a few times, below average luck for myself, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Ice Cave, I didn't take any pictures of. There is literally no strategy but maybe game the encounter table and hope for the best. I didn't bother with it this time and never really paid the price. I wasn't counting either, I think it took like 20 tries?
Now. I was sort of indirectly challenged by Wrolyn to finish at a lower level than his solo unpromoted Dark Knight, which was around the 30s. I never care for level when it comes to solos. However much it needs or I feel like, that's what I go for. I do these for fun and informative purposes. I certainly can do it if I want, and I decided I'd up the stakes to eradicate all doubt: sure, I'll get it done lower level. Without itemcasts. Or a Ribbon.
I have basically nothing to write about this, because it was so boring. Dark Knight doesn't much much in the north without promotion anyway: it's just the usual stuff everyone gets and the BLND spell. A guaranteed (not actually right now because under 300HP spells are bugged) chance of darkness is not great. Cleese hit RUN and hoped for the best, everywhere. The highlight of it was getting a random encounter Blue D twice when going up Mirage. Which, like a lot of unrunnables, was a reset. Also, I could do this at the Waterfall!
There were tons of unrunnables in the Sea Shrine so that took a bunch of attempts. I actually settled on beating two GHOSTs when clearing out the upper level. LOBSTERs got me twice because low level on a solo is stupid - I could otherwise just hit Zeus once or twice and win. KRAKEN got me once before I hit HOLD and had done with it. The same worked on TIAMAT, and it was the same story actually: Cleese died the first time, paralyzed the fiend the second, and beat her down from there.
Before heading into the past, I went back into the Earth Cave to retrieve the Earth Armlet. This would help stop CRACK. It plus the Flame Armor were about the only difference that I could make with throwing Ribbons off the table.
Well, I went up to 99 attempts before I even got to LICH. Most of them were ended by running into Gas Ds: there was nothing Cleese could do except die to them. After that, he had to get through PHANTOM: with all sorts of status moves, this was another roadblock. It didn't help that Cleese was simply not getting lucky rolls against the thing. Quite a few were ended by Zombie Ds, and surprisingly: BADMANs were also a problem. Nine of them could hurt bad and sometimes kill. I reached the Earth floor several times, but kept getting killed by GrMEDUSAs. I got excellent use out of BLOOD WEAPON against FrGIANT/FrWOLF groups, though.
Once he finally made it to LICH for the first time? Poor rolls, then a ZAP! ended it.
Okay, maybe that was taking it too far. Let's get a Ribbon and this over with. Still no spellcasting items to prove my point, unless I hit another 99 failed attempts. Restart the count.
1. Without its instant death, PHANTOM is nothing. 4 Zombie Ds are still a problem, though.
2. Nor are Gas Ds with BLOOD WEAPON up. It took me 99 tries to even get to LICH before, and this try? I got to him and beat him. Think Ribbon makes a difference? KARY got hit with HOLD after two tries. BLOOD WEAPON and kill. I had an annoying encounter with WATERs, and KRAKEN was a joke in the wrong ways: all three remaining HOLDs missed, but he kept not attacking physically, so I still won. But then TIAMAT did two physicals, and that did kill.
3. 4 Gas Ds still hurt.
4. 4 EARTHs, lifesteal couldn't keep up
5. 4 Gas Ds
6. I just do not care, double run fail against Frost Ds my ass
7. Double HOLD miss against KARY and double critical killed
8. Paralyzed both KARY and KRAKEN. Made it to the Masmune, but kept getting low rolls on TIAMAT and killed from there by a big critical.
9. 4 Gas Ds
10. 4 Frost Ds and double run fail
11. 4 Gas Ds
12. Dead to KARY when the HOLDs wouldn't take
13. Survived Zombie Ds with 11 HP. Eventually dead to KRAKEN
14. 4 EARTHs, lifesteal couldn't keep up
15. KARY double physicalled before I could do anything
16. KARY
17. KARY
18. 4 Gas Ds
19. 4 Zombie Ds
20. KARY
21. 4 Gas Ds
22. 4 Zombie Ds
23. 4 Gas Ds
24. A big crit on KARY let me STUN her. Then 4 WATERs killed.
25. KARY
26. LICH almost cycled to NUKE and killed me. KARY went fine. Insanely lucky KRAKEN where he hit Cleese for 459 only for HOLD to land! I hit a PAIN, then two strong attacks for the victory! Got the Masmune, then made it through TIAMAT thanks to the attack rolls going nicely.
On round 1 of CHAOS, he started out with a 297 damage physical as Cleese used BLOOD WEAPON. ICE3 for 51, then Cleese hit for just 116. LIT3 also for 51, followed by Cleese hitting for 82. Reupped BLOOD WEAPON as CHAOS did another physical, I think for 133.
At this point, it was clear this wasn't happening. I survived for a bit thanks to DRAIN, but SLO2 hit as well and that was the end of that.
You get the idea. I stopped keeping track of exact failures here. KARY and KRAKEN were responsible for most of the deaths, but 4 Gas D resets weren't that far behind. Any unrunnable really. It's a big problem with no spellcasting items. I actually did get killed by LICH occasionally. I was encounter watching enough to not get SORCERERs at least.
Second time I got to CHAOS was try 72. He opened with ICE3 for a nice 69 damage. Then LIT3 for 37. Then SLO2, which...missed! I used BLOOD WEAPON, right as he used CUR4 literally as fast as he could've. He then used a physical for 239.
Cleese hit harder. His next attack did 346. That was it: the only thing that was going to stop me from here was a massive physical from CHAOS. His next one did 183. Then he used CRACK.
And here's DRAIN. This did 200 damage each time to CHAOS, restoring exactly that much to CLEESE. Since he was under 1000 and nowhere near the next CUR4, it was literally down to just using Cleese's five charges!
He actually did physical a lot from here, but never got the massive crits of his own.
Anyway, there. I proved my point and now I just hate myself. I could've beat it easily if I did use spellcasting items (Defense) for KARY and KRAKEN in particular, but logic left my brain for the sake of never being bugged by that again. :P Luckily, that's what the "with promotion" run is for. That said, it wouldn't be very different without these self-imposed extra restrictions: just easier and more enjoyable. And Cleese would have been higher level. I know some people might enjoy it, but it's just not something for me even if I can do it.
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