FF4 Solo Palom Part II
Dec. 1st, 2014 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorIn preparation for the first battles in the Underworld, Palom went out and...cast Poison on himself? The point of this is related to status priorities, as I was talking about before. The Calcabrena dolls were destroyed in a single casting of Quake.
The battle against Golbez features a problem and what would be a solo exception for Rosa and Yang. He paralyzes you, then the Shadow Dragon kills everyone but Cecil, before Rydia shows up. Kain can jump out of the way, those two would have problems. Palom, however, is not targetted by this...yet the paralysis is still a factor. But because poison has a higher priority than paralysis, the status never triggers, and we can do whatever in the meantime instead of being paralyzed. Sneaky, right?
Golbez appears to be magically immune before the Mist Dragon appears, though physical attacks work as they should. But once it does appear, and with Palom having powered up with Bluff in the meantime, he blows Golbez away with a single casting of Thundaga. Rydia doesn't even get a chance to appear.
A pair of Quakes drops Barnabas and Lugae together, taking out the explosion factor in the battle.
As for Lugaeborg, Palom had the Prisoner's Garb equipped to protect against his Sleeping Gas. He bluffed twice, then unloaded with Thundaga all over him. Each strike did over 5000 damage, separating him from his 9321 without incident.
The enemies in the Tower of Babel was more of the same as we've been seeing as of late. Enemies who are quite threatening with their physical punch to Palom, but who he can easily mop the floor with as well. To demonstrate, this is how bad things could turn out on a back attack - assuming we survive. Well, back attacks, and those incidents where we kinda sorta forget to shift Palom back into the proper slot after we switch Yang back in, just to be sure nothing screws up.
The Elban Cave was a nice break by comparison. Nothing here could really threaten Palom. He made a nice pickup in the underground shop in the Black Robe. He also had the option of wearing a Black Belt he had found, for increased evasion. I decided to give him the latter for defensive purposes.
The second part of Babel had some interesting enemy groups, including the Mad Ogres. It was rather interesting seeing them only able to hit Palom for single to double digit damage, when they previously destroyed him if he tried to open the chest with them inside in Elban Castle.
On the subject of breaking bosses you're not supposed to...Palom COULD'VE done so, killing King or Queen Elban before he finished their speech. It would've required grinding up though, so I decided not to undertake it.
As for Rubicante...um, yeah. Don't be turned around by that damage - Scorch did anywhere from around that to 1000, doing around 1500 on average. Palom's max HP was 1744. So several attempts could end just because of a bad roll on damage.
As for Palom's own damage output? Blizzaga produced a healthy 9999. Since Rubicante absorbs ice when his cloak is up, he took the opportunity he had in-between to fire Bios at the guy, which did just under 2000. He made sure to be at full health to ensure the best chances of surviving Scorches - he had no way of reducing the damage, unlike Cecil and Kain, who could slap on Ice equipment.
It took about a dozen tries before everything lined up, but the deed was eventually done.
And so Palom settled in the floor below, in attempt to farm Light Curtains. They were being incredibly stubborn to drop. Palom hit level 50 in the process, learning Meteor!! Look out. This spell has a spell power of 800, and hits everything on the screen. Though the massive downside is it takes ages to charge - it's 10, unless you're playing the Japanese EasyType, in which case it's 5.
Palom managed to pick up a single Light Curtain...but by that time, he hit Level 52. Then he didn't need them anymore.
So the next dungeon is the infamous Sealed Cave, bane of two solo variants thus far. I was farming those Light Curtains off a cue from Sofis. The catch of this place is the numerous Trap Doors. They use their first turn to pick a target, and their second turn to use Ninth Dimension, instantly killing the victim. The spell is reflectable, however, which can be exploited to kill the Trap Door instead.
Palom simply didn't care about fancy stuff like Avengers or Light Curtains. He could just blow them away with Nuke/Flare before they could even do anything!! Flare has a spell power of 400. It is single-target only, costs 50MP, and it is instantly cast when used. Fantastic spell.
But before I do that (actually, that image is from after I did that), I decided it was side-dungeon time.
The Sylph Cave was a nice time to be Palom, unless he got back attacked by Mammon treea and killed. If you resist one ailment inflicted by an attack that inflicts multiple, you resist the entire attack. This fact and a Rune Armlet completely neutered the Malboros.
He also had a hilarious solution to the obnoxious Bog Witch encounters who cast Toad on you - casting Toad on the Bog Witch!! She actually does this on her own when all the toads are dead, but doing this early...well, her command to make them attack is much like the Generals from way earlier. It's a spell. So with Toad on, she can't make them attack. Even better, he could use Osmose on the toaded witches to drain hundreds of MP. Unless it was that formation. In that case, an oversight in the targetting system made it impossible to actually target her.
There was a good pickup here in the Fairy Rod. Giving +10 intellect, it casts Charm when used as an item. That all said, Palom had no problem getting through the cave.
Asura's hook is her constant barrage of Protect and Curaga spells. Both of them meant nothing to Palom, who could pump out 9999 damage with Flare or Meteor. She counterattacks every time you hit her, but the damage was negligible. Leviathan...is a problem.
Some guides I see say that Asura is the hard fight and Leviathan is the easy one. In my experience, this is not necessarily true. Asura is just a gimmick fight with several ways to overcome. The traditional way is to cast Reflect on her, but besides simply outdamaging her with spells, going in with the Mage Masher works, and is particularly effective at low levels. Comparatively, if you don't have the levels or resources to pull against Leviathan, you're simply sunk.
Leviathan's Tidal Waves are tuned to 1/4th your maximum HP. His Blizzaras did 400-600 points of damage to each casting on Palom. Even with a Spider's Silk, this was a tough fight. One that...I actually couldn't beat? I probably could've with Hermes Sandles thrown in, but I'd rather save them for the more dangerous fights. So what else can we do? Well, I didn't explore the Sylph Cave entirely...I left a few monsters in boxes inside. Each of them has 6 of a certain spirit enemy in it called an Evil Dreamer, and like all the spirit enemies, they have a particular drop.
The Cursed Ring is one of the game's many 1/64 items - which, again, are actually closer to 1/1250 factoring in the odds of an item actually dropping. Also, I cannot believe I got that in just 20ish fights against these things. For as rare and only slightly more useful these things are, this is by far the most unique and interesting of the lot. First off, it's the only piece of equipment a Dark Knight can equip that are not its armor. This is mostly useless. Second, it gives a number of reductions in base stats. -15 in each, actually!! So why would you want to use it?
All your elemental resistances become elemental absorptions when it is equipped. Palom is wearing a Light Robe here, which he picked up from the Land of Summoned Monsters. It resists lightning, which becomes absorption with the Cursed Ring.
Still, you REALLY don't want to understate those stat reductions, particularly in regards to Agility. Palom went into that demonstration fight with full HP, and those Hell Flappers damaged him near-death before he could get off the Thundaga. Definitely not an item to be ignored, but not one you can wear under any circumstance.
Still, there's a problem with my plan. Leviathan's assault is entirely ice-based. e.g. even level 1 Cecil could destroy him with a piece of ice-resistant equipment and a Cursed Ring, though it'd take ages. But...Palom can't get ice resistance on any headwear or bodywear. There's some that give it that are armwear, but then he can't equip the Cursed Ring. Miscalculated there.
So onto the Sealed Cave it was. As stated before, Palom could simply destroy each Trap Door that blocked his path in a single Flare. The boss was marginally more threatening. With Gaia Gear to protect against petrification, and Flare around to do 8000+ damage with an instant cast time. Chimera Brains are scary for full parties with their max-HP based icy Blaze, but a single Quake could settle it.
The Moon and the Babel Giant were by comparison NOT nice places. The...whatever the Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes are supposed to be, did heavy damage to Palom. At least the flans and bombs were a joke. Palom could even cast Thunder on the latter, making them respond with Chain Reaction which made everything on the field explode.
Speaking of Thunder, it's the most common weakness in the Babel Giant. But Palom kept getting back attacked by enemies who could do insane physical damage to him. Trying to outsmart the game by putting him in the front row still didn't work as well as I thought, as Palom would still take heavy damage just from his lowered ATB bar from the nature of back attacks. And of course, it made ambushes (which don't swap your row but do lower your ATB) a thing to be feared.
The Four Elemental Lords/Archfiends was a fun fight, at least!! The hardest, strangely enough, turned out to be Scarmiglione. He would occasionally throw out a Curse - this status halves the physical attack and physical defense of the victim. Very, very bad. This was a frantic battle of healing with Hi-Potions while hoping he didn't do too much damage. As for damage, Flare did 9999 after a couple Bluffs, so it was the spell of choice against all opponents.
Rubicante would cast Fira (low damage), Firaga (heavy damage), and Scorch (less than Firaga and not too bad now) in order. Cagnazzo sometimes threw out a Tidal Wave for 1/4th damage, but he mostly ended up sticking to physicals. I used this opportunity to heal up, as he didn't really do anything dangerous. Finally, Barbariccia's attackss included a physical, Ray, and Maelstrom. The latter two never became a factor. Each archfiend took three Flares to defeat. Palom won on the second try...
...then died to a back attack so I had to do it over again.
Once that was that, that brought Palom to the CPU. He had it much trickier than Cecil and Kain. The CPU uses Reflect to protect itself from magic. Meteor goes right through this, but the problem is, it destroys the nodes as well. If the nodes are destroyed, the CPU counters with Globe 199, the strongest attack in the game. With the sphere's magic attack, it will almost always deal 9999 damage. In other words, it's invariably fatal. And no, I tested to see. There's no small interval in which you can hit it when Reflect is down. It'd be cool, but it just doesn't work.
So is Palom simply to beat the big ball to death with his little stick and hope for the best? Not necessarily. Remember, we picked up some Light Curtains, which cast Reflect when used as an item. The strategy is simple. The CPU has 30000 HP. First, we Flare the Defense Node. Then we use the Light Curtain (its Reflect lasts the battle), Bluff a bit, and reflect Flares off our own wall.
If we can hit it twice, we can do a physical, then cast Meteor for the victory. If we hit the Attack Node, we die. Simple, right?
This lined up on - amazingly - the first try, though I didn't have Palom Bluff enough and had to do a little extra damage with his physicals. Hi-Potions could outrace the 1/10 Max HP damage of the Attack Node easily. That's one advantage to low HP.
At this point in this version, you unlock the ability to switch in your old party members. So Palom can really be in the party for real at this point. Furthermore, a new dungeon opens that contains ultimate equipment for these characters. It'll be the first thing we do in the third update of this challenge.
Next | Index
The battle against Golbez features a problem and what would be a solo exception for Rosa and Yang. He paralyzes you, then the Shadow Dragon kills everyone but Cecil, before Rydia shows up. Kain can jump out of the way, those two would have problems. Palom, however, is not targetted by this...yet the paralysis is still a factor. But because poison has a higher priority than paralysis, the status never triggers, and we can do whatever in the meantime instead of being paralyzed. Sneaky, right?
Golbez appears to be magically immune before the Mist Dragon appears, though physical attacks work as they should. But once it does appear, and with Palom having powered up with Bluff in the meantime, he blows Golbez away with a single casting of Thundaga. Rydia doesn't even get a chance to appear.
A pair of Quakes drops Barnabas and Lugae together, taking out the explosion factor in the battle.
As for Lugaeborg, Palom had the Prisoner's Garb equipped to protect against his Sleeping Gas. He bluffed twice, then unloaded with Thundaga all over him. Each strike did over 5000 damage, separating him from his 9321 without incident.
The enemies in the Tower of Babel was more of the same as we've been seeing as of late. Enemies who are quite threatening with their physical punch to Palom, but who he can easily mop the floor with as well. To demonstrate, this is how bad things could turn out on a back attack - assuming we survive. Well, back attacks, and those incidents where we kinda sorta forget to shift Palom back into the proper slot after we switch Yang back in, just to be sure nothing screws up.
The Elban Cave was a nice break by comparison. Nothing here could really threaten Palom. He made a nice pickup in the underground shop in the Black Robe. He also had the option of wearing a Black Belt he had found, for increased evasion. I decided to give him the latter for defensive purposes.
The second part of Babel had some interesting enemy groups, including the Mad Ogres. It was rather interesting seeing them only able to hit Palom for single to double digit damage, when they previously destroyed him if he tried to open the chest with them inside in Elban Castle.
On the subject of breaking bosses you're not supposed to...Palom COULD'VE done so, killing King or Queen Elban before he finished their speech. It would've required grinding up though, so I decided not to undertake it.
As for Rubicante...um, yeah. Don't be turned around by that damage - Scorch did anywhere from around that to 1000, doing around 1500 on average. Palom's max HP was 1744. So several attempts could end just because of a bad roll on damage.
As for Palom's own damage output? Blizzaga produced a healthy 9999. Since Rubicante absorbs ice when his cloak is up, he took the opportunity he had in-between to fire Bios at the guy, which did just under 2000. He made sure to be at full health to ensure the best chances of surviving Scorches - he had no way of reducing the damage, unlike Cecil and Kain, who could slap on Ice equipment.
It took about a dozen tries before everything lined up, but the deed was eventually done.
And so Palom settled in the floor below, in attempt to farm Light Curtains. They were being incredibly stubborn to drop. Palom hit level 50 in the process, learning Meteor!! Look out. This spell has a spell power of 800, and hits everything on the screen. Though the massive downside is it takes ages to charge - it's 10, unless you're playing the Japanese EasyType, in which case it's 5.
Palom managed to pick up a single Light Curtain...but by that time, he hit Level 52. Then he didn't need them anymore.
So the next dungeon is the infamous Sealed Cave, bane of two solo variants thus far. I was farming those Light Curtains off a cue from Sofis. The catch of this place is the numerous Trap Doors. They use their first turn to pick a target, and their second turn to use Ninth Dimension, instantly killing the victim. The spell is reflectable, however, which can be exploited to kill the Trap Door instead.
Palom simply didn't care about fancy stuff like Avengers or Light Curtains. He could just blow them away with Nuke/Flare before they could even do anything!! Flare has a spell power of 400. It is single-target only, costs 50MP, and it is instantly cast when used. Fantastic spell.
But before I do that (actually, that image is from after I did that), I decided it was side-dungeon time.
The Sylph Cave was a nice time to be Palom, unless he got back attacked by Mammon treea and killed. If you resist one ailment inflicted by an attack that inflicts multiple, you resist the entire attack. This fact and a Rune Armlet completely neutered the Malboros.
He also had a hilarious solution to the obnoxious Bog Witch encounters who cast Toad on you - casting Toad on the Bog Witch!! She actually does this on her own when all the toads are dead, but doing this early...well, her command to make them attack is much like the Generals from way earlier. It's a spell. So with Toad on, she can't make them attack. Even better, he could use Osmose on the toaded witches to drain hundreds of MP. Unless it was that formation. In that case, an oversight in the targetting system made it impossible to actually target her.
There was a good pickup here in the Fairy Rod. Giving +10 intellect, it casts Charm when used as an item. That all said, Palom had no problem getting through the cave.
Asura's hook is her constant barrage of Protect and Curaga spells. Both of them meant nothing to Palom, who could pump out 9999 damage with Flare or Meteor. She counterattacks every time you hit her, but the damage was negligible. Leviathan...is a problem.
Some guides I see say that Asura is the hard fight and Leviathan is the easy one. In my experience, this is not necessarily true. Asura is just a gimmick fight with several ways to overcome. The traditional way is to cast Reflect on her, but besides simply outdamaging her with spells, going in with the Mage Masher works, and is particularly effective at low levels. Comparatively, if you don't have the levels or resources to pull against Leviathan, you're simply sunk.
Leviathan's Tidal Waves are tuned to 1/4th your maximum HP. His Blizzaras did 400-600 points of damage to each casting on Palom. Even with a Spider's Silk, this was a tough fight. One that...I actually couldn't beat? I probably could've with Hermes Sandles thrown in, but I'd rather save them for the more dangerous fights. So what else can we do? Well, I didn't explore the Sylph Cave entirely...I left a few monsters in boxes inside. Each of them has 6 of a certain spirit enemy in it called an Evil Dreamer, and like all the spirit enemies, they have a particular drop.
The Cursed Ring is one of the game's many 1/64 items - which, again, are actually closer to 1/1250 factoring in the odds of an item actually dropping. Also, I cannot believe I got that in just 20ish fights against these things. For as rare and only slightly more useful these things are, this is by far the most unique and interesting of the lot. First off, it's the only piece of equipment a Dark Knight can equip that are not its armor. This is mostly useless. Second, it gives a number of reductions in base stats. -15 in each, actually!! So why would you want to use it?
All your elemental resistances become elemental absorptions when it is equipped. Palom is wearing a Light Robe here, which he picked up from the Land of Summoned Monsters. It resists lightning, which becomes absorption with the Cursed Ring.
Still, you REALLY don't want to understate those stat reductions, particularly in regards to Agility. Palom went into that demonstration fight with full HP, and those Hell Flappers damaged him near-death before he could get off the Thundaga. Definitely not an item to be ignored, but not one you can wear under any circumstance.
Still, there's a problem with my plan. Leviathan's assault is entirely ice-based. e.g. even level 1 Cecil could destroy him with a piece of ice-resistant equipment and a Cursed Ring, though it'd take ages. But...Palom can't get ice resistance on any headwear or bodywear. There's some that give it that are armwear, but then he can't equip the Cursed Ring. Miscalculated there.
So onto the Sealed Cave it was. As stated before, Palom could simply destroy each Trap Door that blocked his path in a single Flare. The boss was marginally more threatening. With Gaia Gear to protect against petrification, and Flare around to do 8000+ damage with an instant cast time. Chimera Brains are scary for full parties with their max-HP based icy Blaze, but a single Quake could settle it.
The Moon and the Babel Giant were by comparison NOT nice places. The...whatever the Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes are supposed to be, did heavy damage to Palom. At least the flans and bombs were a joke. Palom could even cast Thunder on the latter, making them respond with Chain Reaction which made everything on the field explode.
Speaking of Thunder, it's the most common weakness in the Babel Giant. But Palom kept getting back attacked by enemies who could do insane physical damage to him. Trying to outsmart the game by putting him in the front row still didn't work as well as I thought, as Palom would still take heavy damage just from his lowered ATB bar from the nature of back attacks. And of course, it made ambushes (which don't swap your row but do lower your ATB) a thing to be feared.
The Four Elemental Lords/Archfiends was a fun fight, at least!! The hardest, strangely enough, turned out to be Scarmiglione. He would occasionally throw out a Curse - this status halves the physical attack and physical defense of the victim. Very, very bad. This was a frantic battle of healing with Hi-Potions while hoping he didn't do too much damage. As for damage, Flare did 9999 after a couple Bluffs, so it was the spell of choice against all opponents.
Rubicante would cast Fira (low damage), Firaga (heavy damage), and Scorch (less than Firaga and not too bad now) in order. Cagnazzo sometimes threw out a Tidal Wave for 1/4th damage, but he mostly ended up sticking to physicals. I used this opportunity to heal up, as he didn't really do anything dangerous. Finally, Barbariccia's attackss included a physical, Ray, and Maelstrom. The latter two never became a factor. Each archfiend took three Flares to defeat. Palom won on the second try...
...then died to a back attack so I had to do it over again.
Once that was that, that brought Palom to the CPU. He had it much trickier than Cecil and Kain. The CPU uses Reflect to protect itself from magic. Meteor goes right through this, but the problem is, it destroys the nodes as well. If the nodes are destroyed, the CPU counters with Globe 199, the strongest attack in the game. With the sphere's magic attack, it will almost always deal 9999 damage. In other words, it's invariably fatal. And no, I tested to see. There's no small interval in which you can hit it when Reflect is down. It'd be cool, but it just doesn't work.
So is Palom simply to beat the big ball to death with his little stick and hope for the best? Not necessarily. Remember, we picked up some Light Curtains, which cast Reflect when used as an item. The strategy is simple. The CPU has 30000 HP. First, we Flare the Defense Node. Then we use the Light Curtain (its Reflect lasts the battle), Bluff a bit, and reflect Flares off our own wall.
If we can hit it twice, we can do a physical, then cast Meteor for the victory. If we hit the Attack Node, we die. Simple, right?
This lined up on - amazingly - the first try, though I didn't have Palom Bluff enough and had to do a little extra damage with his physicals. Hi-Potions could outrace the 1/10 Max HP damage of the Attack Node easily. That's one advantage to low HP.
At this point in this version, you unlock the ability to switch in your old party members. So Palom can really be in the party for real at this point. Furthermore, a new dungeon opens that contains ultimate equipment for these characters. It'll be the first thing we do in the third update of this challenge.
Next | Index
