FF4 Solo Palom Part III
Dec. 1st, 2014 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirsystemerrorThe Cave of Trials opens up on Mt. Ordeals the first time you go to change characters. The enemies in it are quite tame - they're mostly from the Underworld dungeons, with a few exceptions.
Palom's first piece of equipment is beyond a hidden passage a short ways into the dungeon. The Coronet has 7 Defense and 16 Magic Defense. It protects against polymorph effects, has 18 on both evasion stats, and gives him a +5 to Intellect.
Sage's Robe is the next piece located a little later on. It gives +10 to Agility and Intellect. Check out Palom's stats now. Bluff has essentially outlived its usefulness. And it'll be fully obsolete at the end: the last room of the Cave of Trials has five weapons. If the coresponding party member is in your party, you can approach the item to initiate a boss battle.
Master Flan is the guardian of Palom's item. It's an interesting fight in the original release, due to it being given protection from targetting when at least one Flan is alive, but this is changed in the European release and Japanese 1.1.
His attack pattern is to first open with a permanent Reflect. Then cast Thundaga. Then cast Flare...and very probably kill me. Then cast Drain for like 1 damage.
Porom's boss is the T Rex. It actually has an interesting script where it counters elemental magic you use with attacks of the same element. It also casts Earthquake periodically, which did a pitiful 300~ Palom simply blasted it with Flare, taking that out of the picture. The Storm Dragon guarding Yang's weapon has a variety of wind attacks, including a damaging Tornado (not the spell version). Just like before, Flare got him through. Same for the Gigas Worm guarding Edward's Apollo's Harp.
Master Flan continued to be a problem, though. But I came up with something that worked.
So here's the plan: Palom began by throwing out a Spider's Silk before the Master Flan could do anything. He also threw up a Lunar Curtain. he healed after Thundaga hit, and had to hope Flare didn't kill him. If it didn't, he could heal, then fire off Flares off his own wall to finish the fight. Trying to heal more after the second Thundaga didn't work out. The reward for this was Triton's Dagger. While its 62 attack power is not that great, it does give +15 to Int, and casts Flood with a decent multiplier of 7 when used as an item.
As an aside, an uncommon encounter in the Cave of Trials was the Golden Toad. This behaves much like a Metal Slime from Dragon Quest - 65000 Gil and Experience, and it'll randomly run away. Palom could beat them by casting Flare, which caused them to respond with Reflect. Casting Quake caused them to cast it again, giving Palom a wall, which he could finally use to deliver a second Flare and win the battle.
I returned with Cid in tow to fight his boss, the Death Mech. It too, has a nasty array of attacks, including Globe 199. Palom just went with the usual strategy: Flare away and heal as needed.
With the increased Agility, Palom was finally able to beat Leviathan. Same for Odin. Finishing off Rydia's collection of summoned monster kills ran into an unexpected roadblock, though...
The Behemoth bridage before Bahamut turned out to be a luckfest. They counter attacks, counter holy damage (Holy and Meteor) with Maelstrom, and occasionally throw out unprovoked physicals because why not? I think that behavior is exclusive to these remakes. There's really nothing to say about these battles. Either Palom would kill them, or they would kill him. He made a retreat after each one.
The rest of the monsters in the cave were simple enough, though Palom decided to run away from them in favor of conserving his power for the Behemoths.
Bahamut itself...if there's one thing Palom's good at, it's a damage race. And when the opponent isn't dealing damage and Palom can do 9999 every time...well. He won before Bahamut got to 1. Know that much.
That last venture got him up to Level 70. So now let me introduce you to FF4's way of making your characters brokenly powerful: the post-70 level-up system.
It's simple. For every level a character gains up to level 70, their stat gains (aside from HP and MP) are fixed. For every level a character gains over level 70, they randomly gain (or lose!!) stats based on one of eight possibilities, unique to each character. Granted, this is well beyond what you'd need to normally finish the game, and even with the post-game content in GBA/PSP, you'd barely be scratching the surface.
For a solo character though, and especially one who may or may not be doing said post-game, it's something we may as well pay attention to. Let's look at Palom's possible stat changes.
~ -1 Str, ±0 Agi, ±0 Sta, ±0 Int, -1 Spi
~ -1 Str, ±0 Agi, -1 Sta, ±0 Int, -1 Spi
~ +1 Str, +1 Agi, ±0 Sta, +1 Int, ±0 Spi
~ +1 Str, +1 Agi, +1 Sta, +1 Int, +1 Spi
~ ±0 Str, +1 Agi, ±0 Sta, +1 Int, +1 Spi
~ ±0 Str, ±0 Agi, +1 Sta, +1 Int, ±0 Spi
~ ±0 Str, ±0 Agi, +2 Sta, +2 Int, +2 Spi
~ +3 Str, ±0 Agi, ±0 Sta, +3 Int, ±0 Spi
Skipping over the explanation of each stat, which do we want? Well, the 4th option, +1 to all, is obviously nice. the 7th also is beneficial for its large bonuses to Stamina and Spirit. The 8th seems nice, but Palom's weapons don't really have the power to support large bonuses to strength. 3 and 5 are acceptable, but not preferable if I'm near a save point.
So I kept this in mind as I advanced Palom through the Lunar Subterrane, running and being aware of Palom's statups at all times. I suffered some resets as a consequence, but hey, I came prepared with patience going into this quest. White Dragon just got nuked to death, nothing to write about.
Protect Ring!! FF4 breaks from the tradition made by the NES games by not having it protect against death, but this is still a damn fine piece of equipment for anyone but a Dark Knight. It gives resistance to the three basic elements, and a +15 to the Stamina stat.
Interestingly, I was able to pull out Break on several opponents here, taking them out at a cheap 15MP that would otherwise take more MP or multiple hits to pull off.
Here's the play-by-play of this fight: Palom uses Flare for 9999. Dark Bahamut uses Mega Flare and whiffs. Palom uses Flare, Palom uses Flare, Dark Bahamut uses Reflect. Palom charges Meteor. Dark Bahamut uses Flare three times in the duration, whiffs all three times. Palom casts Meteor, charges it again. Dark Bahamut whiffs three more Flares. Meteor resolves, and a Triton's Dagger stab ends it.
A silly solution to Plague is to throw up a Light/Lunar Curtain. Edward would even be able to troll by hiding; Plague would subsequently die from his own reflected Doom. Palom just went to work with Flare and won the race.
The Lunarsauruses only activate their Reflect/Bio AI script if they're attacked physically. Palom had little to worry about out of them. Bad Breath was neutered due to the Coronet protecting against some of its statuses, and Flame wasn't that damaging. Still, with their magic defense of 254, Meteor turned out to be the best spell to use against them. To compare the prize against winning to his current headwear.
- Ribbon's stats: 9 Def/12 Eva/12 MDf/12 MEv, immune to almost all statuses
- Coronet's stats: 7 Def/18 Eva/16 MDf/18 MEv, immune to polymorph statuses, +5 Int
Palom's Intellect was max even without the Coronet, so he decided to make the switchover.
Now then!! Palom had three Sirens. One from the Giant of Babel, two from the Cave of Trials. Shall we...? Looking ahead and SPOILERS, Palom doesn't get very much of note armor-wise in the postgame. He gets the Chocobo Suit.
- Chocobo Suit's stats: 28 Def/35 Eva/30 Mdf/15 MEv, immune to poison, +15 Agi
- Adamant Armor's stats: 100 Def/10 Eva/20 Mdf/12 MEv, immune to Fire, Ice, Lightning, and most statuses, +15 all
Going after this piece of equipment isn't always the wisest idea, even in solos that are going to do the GBA/PSP postgame. First off, Flan Princesses have 20000 HP and 154 attack. They don't have flan-like defenses, but their physical prowess is not to be understated. Palom could easily win the fights against them by casting four Quakes, but others may have a tougher time. Maybe it's worth it, maybe it's not. But hey, may as well.
Just remember, the actual odds of a Pink Tail drop are 5/6272. Well, multiplied by 5, because that's how many there are in a battle.
I'm not sure how long this took. I was beginning to think it wouldn't be worth it. But eventually, I started keeping track of the numbers, after about 20-30 attempts. Things droned on, and I even started to notice a definitive trend in the battle RNG - though not necessarily representative of the drop RNG. But the 67th try after that...
Got'em!
A trip back to Earth to pick up the armor from the guy, and back down it was. The Adamant Armor trivialized the random encounters. Well, most of them anyway.
The way down to the final boss has a lot of dangerous minibosses. My least favorite being these Ivan Ooze looking mofos. They cast Reflect on themselves, then Reflect on your party, and assault you with high-powered spells. And they take ages to run from. You can sometimes encounter them in pairs, too. Palom could fight them, but it was so not worth it.
Random - I actually live near where Ogopogo is supposed to be in real life. Was really mindblowing to move when I was 10 and hey, Ogopogo is actually a thing. That said, Adamant Armor + Cursed Ring could make this a joke. The sea serpent counters every Flare with a Blaze, that ordinarily did a fixed amount of damage around 450, but with the combination, healed Palom for 8000-9999!!
That was too easy, so I tried it without, and won with a single Elixir.
Ogopogo falling meant only Big Z himself was left. He's a counterattacker, throwing back Flare at anyone who attacks him with a non-summon spell. Unless it's a holy-elemental spell (Meteor, Holy), in which case he tosses out Maelstrom. This is the strat I used when going in low level. With Solo Palom, it was just a contest of Flares vs. Flares.
Zeromus' could do wildly variable damage; anywhere from 300ish to 2000ish. Adamant Armor may have all the Defense you could ask for, but its Magic Defense is a bit lacking.
Big Bang is also not a particularly pleasant attack. As you can see, the variable damage one-twoed Palom the first go at the battle. He was hit with a high-damage Flare, then killed with Big Bang before he could react.
The second go down, Palom didn't even reach the final boss - he died to Ivan Ooze, who kept on casting spells as Palom was left unable to run. Third time was the charm, though!!
I was surprised at how quickly he died. The high damage meant Zeromus' pathetic and inaccurate Meteor spell never actually got a chance to be used.
And that's the game, but not the postgame. Since we're playing on GBA, how about we check into it...?
Next | Index
Palom's first piece of equipment is beyond a hidden passage a short ways into the dungeon. The Coronet has 7 Defense and 16 Magic Defense. It protects against polymorph effects, has 18 on both evasion stats, and gives him a +5 to Intellect.
Sage's Robe is the next piece located a little later on. It gives +10 to Agility and Intellect. Check out Palom's stats now. Bluff has essentially outlived its usefulness. And it'll be fully obsolete at the end: the last room of the Cave of Trials has five weapons. If the coresponding party member is in your party, you can approach the item to initiate a boss battle.
Master Flan is the guardian of Palom's item. It's an interesting fight in the original release, due to it being given protection from targetting when at least one Flan is alive, but this is changed in the European release and Japanese 1.1.
His attack pattern is to first open with a permanent Reflect. Then cast Thundaga. Then cast Flare...and very probably kill me. Then cast Drain for like 1 damage.
Porom's boss is the T Rex. It actually has an interesting script where it counters elemental magic you use with attacks of the same element. It also casts Earthquake periodically, which did a pitiful 300~ Palom simply blasted it with Flare, taking that out of the picture. The Storm Dragon guarding Yang's weapon has a variety of wind attacks, including a damaging Tornado (not the spell version). Just like before, Flare got him through. Same for the Gigas Worm guarding Edward's Apollo's Harp.
Master Flan continued to be a problem, though. But I came up with something that worked.
So here's the plan: Palom began by throwing out a Spider's Silk before the Master Flan could do anything. He also threw up a Lunar Curtain. he healed after Thundaga hit, and had to hope Flare didn't kill him. If it didn't, he could heal, then fire off Flares off his own wall to finish the fight. Trying to heal more after the second Thundaga didn't work out. The reward for this was Triton's Dagger. While its 62 attack power is not that great, it does give +15 to Int, and casts Flood with a decent multiplier of 7 when used as an item.
As an aside, an uncommon encounter in the Cave of Trials was the Golden Toad. This behaves much like a Metal Slime from Dragon Quest - 65000 Gil and Experience, and it'll randomly run away. Palom could beat them by casting Flare, which caused them to respond with Reflect. Casting Quake caused them to cast it again, giving Palom a wall, which he could finally use to deliver a second Flare and win the battle.
I returned with Cid in tow to fight his boss, the Death Mech. It too, has a nasty array of attacks, including Globe 199. Palom just went with the usual strategy: Flare away and heal as needed.
With the increased Agility, Palom was finally able to beat Leviathan. Same for Odin. Finishing off Rydia's collection of summoned monster kills ran into an unexpected roadblock, though...
The Behemoth bridage before Bahamut turned out to be a luckfest. They counter attacks, counter holy damage (Holy and Meteor) with Maelstrom, and occasionally throw out unprovoked physicals because why not? I think that behavior is exclusive to these remakes. There's really nothing to say about these battles. Either Palom would kill them, or they would kill him. He made a retreat after each one.
The rest of the monsters in the cave were simple enough, though Palom decided to run away from them in favor of conserving his power for the Behemoths.
Bahamut itself...if there's one thing Palom's good at, it's a damage race. And when the opponent isn't dealing damage and Palom can do 9999 every time...well. He won before Bahamut got to 1. Know that much.
That last venture got him up to Level 70. So now let me introduce you to FF4's way of making your characters brokenly powerful: the post-70 level-up system.
It's simple. For every level a character gains up to level 70, their stat gains (aside from HP and MP) are fixed. For every level a character gains over level 70, they randomly gain (or lose!!) stats based on one of eight possibilities, unique to each character. Granted, this is well beyond what you'd need to normally finish the game, and even with the post-game content in GBA/PSP, you'd barely be scratching the surface.
For a solo character though, and especially one who may or may not be doing said post-game, it's something we may as well pay attention to. Let's look at Palom's possible stat changes.
~ -1 Str, ±0 Agi, ±0 Sta, ±0 Int, -1 Spi
~ -1 Str, ±0 Agi, -1 Sta, ±0 Int, -1 Spi
~ +1 Str, +1 Agi, ±0 Sta, +1 Int, ±0 Spi
~ +1 Str, +1 Agi, +1 Sta, +1 Int, +1 Spi
~ ±0 Str, +1 Agi, ±0 Sta, +1 Int, +1 Spi
~ ±0 Str, ±0 Agi, +1 Sta, +1 Int, ±0 Spi
~ ±0 Str, ±0 Agi, +2 Sta, +2 Int, +2 Spi
~ +3 Str, ±0 Agi, ±0 Sta, +3 Int, ±0 Spi
Skipping over the explanation of each stat, which do we want? Well, the 4th option, +1 to all, is obviously nice. the 7th also is beneficial for its large bonuses to Stamina and Spirit. The 8th seems nice, but Palom's weapons don't really have the power to support large bonuses to strength. 3 and 5 are acceptable, but not preferable if I'm near a save point.
So I kept this in mind as I advanced Palom through the Lunar Subterrane, running and being aware of Palom's statups at all times. I suffered some resets as a consequence, but hey, I came prepared with patience going into this quest. White Dragon just got nuked to death, nothing to write about.
Protect Ring!! FF4 breaks from the tradition made by the NES games by not having it protect against death, but this is still a damn fine piece of equipment for anyone but a Dark Knight. It gives resistance to the three basic elements, and a +15 to the Stamina stat.
Interestingly, I was able to pull out Break on several opponents here, taking them out at a cheap 15MP that would otherwise take more MP or multiple hits to pull off.
Here's the play-by-play of this fight: Palom uses Flare for 9999. Dark Bahamut uses Mega Flare and whiffs. Palom uses Flare, Palom uses Flare, Dark Bahamut uses Reflect. Palom charges Meteor. Dark Bahamut uses Flare three times in the duration, whiffs all three times. Palom casts Meteor, charges it again. Dark Bahamut whiffs three more Flares. Meteor resolves, and a Triton's Dagger stab ends it.
A silly solution to Plague is to throw up a Light/Lunar Curtain. Edward would even be able to troll by hiding; Plague would subsequently die from his own reflected Doom. Palom just went to work with Flare and won the race.
The Lunarsauruses only activate their Reflect/Bio AI script if they're attacked physically. Palom had little to worry about out of them. Bad Breath was neutered due to the Coronet protecting against some of its statuses, and Flame wasn't that damaging. Still, with their magic defense of 254, Meteor turned out to be the best spell to use against them. To compare the prize against winning to his current headwear.
- Ribbon's stats: 9 Def/12 Eva/12 MDf/12 MEv, immune to almost all statuses
- Coronet's stats: 7 Def/18 Eva/16 MDf/18 MEv, immune to polymorph statuses, +5 Int
Palom's Intellect was max even without the Coronet, so he decided to make the switchover.
Now then!! Palom had three Sirens. One from the Giant of Babel, two from the Cave of Trials. Shall we...? Looking ahead and SPOILERS, Palom doesn't get very much of note armor-wise in the postgame. He gets the Chocobo Suit.
- Chocobo Suit's stats: 28 Def/35 Eva/30 Mdf/15 MEv, immune to poison, +15 Agi
- Adamant Armor's stats: 100 Def/10 Eva/20 Mdf/12 MEv, immune to Fire, Ice, Lightning, and most statuses, +15 all
Going after this piece of equipment isn't always the wisest idea, even in solos that are going to do the GBA/PSP postgame. First off, Flan Princesses have 20000 HP and 154 attack. They don't have flan-like defenses, but their physical prowess is not to be understated. Palom could easily win the fights against them by casting four Quakes, but others may have a tougher time. Maybe it's worth it, maybe it's not. But hey, may as well.
Just remember, the actual odds of a Pink Tail drop are 5/6272. Well, multiplied by 5, because that's how many there are in a battle.
I'm not sure how long this took. I was beginning to think it wouldn't be worth it. But eventually, I started keeping track of the numbers, after about 20-30 attempts. Things droned on, and I even started to notice a definitive trend in the battle RNG - though not necessarily representative of the drop RNG. But the 67th try after that...
Got'em!
A trip back to Earth to pick up the armor from the guy, and back down it was. The Adamant Armor trivialized the random encounters. Well, most of them anyway.
The way down to the final boss has a lot of dangerous minibosses. My least favorite being these Ivan Ooze looking mofos. They cast Reflect on themselves, then Reflect on your party, and assault you with high-powered spells. And they take ages to run from. You can sometimes encounter them in pairs, too. Palom could fight them, but it was so not worth it.
Random - I actually live near where Ogopogo is supposed to be in real life. Was really mindblowing to move when I was 10 and hey, Ogopogo is actually a thing. That said, Adamant Armor + Cursed Ring could make this a joke. The sea serpent counters every Flare with a Blaze, that ordinarily did a fixed amount of damage around 450, but with the combination, healed Palom for 8000-9999!!
That was too easy, so I tried it without, and won with a single Elixir.
Ogopogo falling meant only Big Z himself was left. He's a counterattacker, throwing back Flare at anyone who attacks him with a non-summon spell. Unless it's a holy-elemental spell (Meteor, Holy), in which case he tosses out Maelstrom. This is the strat I used when going in low level. With Solo Palom, it was just a contest of Flares vs. Flares.
Zeromus' could do wildly variable damage; anywhere from 300ish to 2000ish. Adamant Armor may have all the Defense you could ask for, but its Magic Defense is a bit lacking.
Big Bang is also not a particularly pleasant attack. As you can see, the variable damage one-twoed Palom the first go at the battle. He was hit with a high-damage Flare, then killed with Big Bang before he could react.
The second go down, Palom didn't even reach the final boss - he died to Ivan Ooze, who kept on casting spells as Palom was left unable to run. Third time was the charm, though!!
I was surprised at how quickly he died. The high damage meant Zeromus' pathetic and inaccurate Meteor spell never actually got a chance to be used.
And that's the game, but not the postgame. Since we're playing on GBA, how about we check into it...?
Next | Index
