You don't need command lines other than attack when your gear gives you +450 HP, 80% physical evasion, 75% magical evasion, auto-protect, auto-shell, auto-regen, and Reraise that never expires. Oh, and your sword does 50 * physical attack for base damage, which by the time you get Onion Knight leveled to 8, is going to be 999 almost every time. I agree that it's not a very interesting payoff for all the work you have to do - there are much more fun ways to break this game - but Onion Knights, fully leveled, are functionally invulnerable. If you enjoy grinding enough to have an "I Win" button, Onion Knight is your thing.
Orator Challenge The Yuguewood This battle typically isn't much of a threat. We focused down one or two enemies per turn, often catching the mages mid-charge. Rapha helped a little. Stopped after this battle to go get some new equipment. Hermes Shoes, Power Sash, Golden Hairpin for all. I went for maximum HP and Speed, deviating from my previous equipment (Wizard Robe, Celebrant's Miter, Germinas Boots) that was focused on maximizing magic attack and movement. It's time to shelve Talk Skill for a while - we just need to do damage. Though I should note that boosting physical attack means nothing for gun damage. Gun damage is simply (gun attack power)^2, so it's consistent across male/female units and is only altered by Zodiac compatibility and Protect-esque effects. (Magic gun damage is different - it's based on gun attack power and Faith.) Riovanes Castle Gate This one is interesting for Orators. Normally you'd think you would want the higher ground for an advantageous position, but in this case, it works best if you run like hell to the low ground in the corner and wait for the enemy to come to you. I got a little lucky in that two of the Archers had Item secondary and kept lobbing potions at their wounded allies, but once I survived turn 1, I had the fight in the bag. The Knights never got close enough to hit me, and by the time the Archers got down low enough to start shooting me, they were low enough for me to shoot them right back. With 5 of us and 3 of them, the raw numbers were in our favor and we won easily. ...and now, here it is, the most infamous fight in the game. Pretty sure I can handle it at level 19. We'll see how it goes...
Not happening. I can easily do the first half of the battle every time, but the second half is getting me. He has 900-1000 HP, and I'm lucky to do 700 before everyone drops. Going to back out and drop my Faith a bit before I try again.
Thanks! I played the original years ago on Playstation, so while I have some foundation for the basics, it's like a whole new game. Which is why I'm enjoying the journey on Normal, nothing fancy, with of course a slow start since it is complicated with a lot of systems, intricacies, and moving parts.
Did some prep for Riovanes. Took half an hour to do the following: - Nuke 3 people's Faith down a few points - Send Ladd on some missions to unlock Orator since he's a Capricorn and could get me a damage boost on Belias - Checked my wife's Zodiac FAQ on GameFAQs to make sure whether Belias is male or monster (monster, curses - I had a spare female Pisces generic and would have loved to get another Best compat character in there) Swapping out a Bad compatibility generic for Ladd and surviving extra time due to lower Faith should be enough to tip my damage over the edge. Back to Riovanes Gate...
Good luck. Beat chapter 1. Ramza has the arithmetic ability. I need to spend some battles raising his stats with Preach and Steel, but Im over leveled. So its story battles for the win.
Great! Make sure to make a spare save file when you get to the Yuguewood. I'm backing out of Riovanes to get another new character. I did some math and realized I need a couple of criticals to beat Belias as it stands, and I'd rather go hire a new Taurus generic, spend 15 minutes sending her on missions to get her to Orator, and bringing her into the Belias battle at level 2; she'd be doing almost twice the damage of the generic she's going to replace. This way, I'll be taking in five characters with Good / Good / Good / Good / Neutral compatibility instead of my initial loadout of Good / Good / Neutral / Bad / Bad. In the case of this battle, having Bad compatibility and trying to drag out the fight simply doesn't work; I need more damage, and fast. If he's not dead after three of my turns, I can't possibly survive to a fourth no matter what my compatibility is.
Orator Challenge Inside Riovanes Castle Took me a few tries to work out how to beat Wiegraf at level 19 with Mediator, but once I figured it out, it was 100% repeatable. This strategy works for either a Capricorn or Taurus Ramza with the following equipment: Mythril Gun / Green Beret / Power Sash / Hermes Shoes. Beret + Shoes means he has 9 Speed to Wiegraf's 8. This would be possible at level 18 as well, but no lower - you need that Speed point from level 18 to pull this off. Generics: Anyone over level 18 has Mythril Gun / Golden Hairpin / Power Sash / Hermes Shoes. Anyone under level 18 swaps Green Beret in for Golden Hairpin so they all have 8 Speed. My pre-battle formation was as follows: OX XR O = Taurus Orator, R = Ramza XXXXX XX123 1, 2, 3 = other Orators Battle phase 1: Step 1: Move forward 3 spaces, shoot Wiegraf for 80. Wiegraf hits with Lightning Stab for 168 of Ramza's 179 and runs away. Step 2: Shoot Wiegraf for 80 and run backward 3 spaces. Wiegraf moves forward 4 spaces but is not within attack range, so he waits. Step 3: Shoot Wiegraf for 80 and run as far back as possible, but also to the left, such that Ramza is in line with the torch. Wiegraf moves forward but does not have sufficient move range to get behind the torch to finish Ramza with Shockwave. Step 4: Shoot Wiegraf for 80, battle over. Battle phase 2: Ramza moves to his right as far as he can, hopping over the channel of water. (This is a weird carryover bit from the first part of the battle - Ramza's CT is still at 100, and everyone else is at 0.) Ramza has 9 Speed to everyone else's 8 and the demons' 7, so he moves again immediately. He shoots Belias for base 80 (in this run, I criticaled for 128) and waits. Belias comes down and charges Cyclops on O. All four Orators shoot Belias mid-charge, and O moves up to make sure everyone else is out of the blast radius of Cyclops. The four shots do base 120, 120, 120, and 96 damage (total base 536, I had 584). Each Orator moves at least one space laterally along the back wall to set up turn order for later, but no more than two Orators should be in the same + formation. (If you skip movement to save CT, you will move before Belias in this scenario, and you don't want that. If you bunch up in a + formation, Belias can 100% Confuse anyone in that +, and we don't have the space to equip around that.) All three demons gravitate toward Ramza (still at super-critical HP from the Wiegraf duel) because none of them can hit the Orators on the back wall with Gigaflare. Cyclops goes off and O dies. Ramza takes one step forward and shoots Belias for 80 (616 / 664). Belias ignores Ramza and comes down to charge Cyclops on another one of the Good compatibility Orators. Another round of mid-charge gunshots (120, 120, 96; total damage 952 base, 1000 with my critical). This is theoretically enough to kill him because his HP is variable. In my run, he had just over 1000 HP, so it wasn't quite. The demons all charged down the edge of the map; one killed Ramza. Cyclops went off and killed one Orator, leaving me with two... but that was enough, as one more shot for 80 (total 1080) did him in. Riovanes Castle Rooftop The plot reveal in this battle is terrifying if you've been reading rumors in the Tavern and complete nonsense if you haven't (though it will make sense later in chapter 4). Also, Spoiler the death of Lord Barrington is probably the most unintentionally funny moment in the game. This battle can actually be more frustrating than Belias, believe it or not. The goal is to protect Rapha, but that's just the loss condition. The *win* condition is reducing any one of the three enemies to critical. It's easily possible to lose this battle before you get to do anything due to criticals, Rapha being an idiot, or both. One way to get around this if you're not playing a solo game is to completely de-equip one of your characters as bait for one of the enemies. This typically results in one of the two assassins coming down to charge a magic spell at your de-equipped character, which lets you get a couple of mid-charge attacks in, which hopefully ends the battle quickly. In my case, both assassins charged Ultima on Ramza. He and another Orator shot one of them, and Ramza had sufficient move to park himself next to her so the Ultimas finished her off. End Chapter 3. Total playtime 12 hours (4 hours in chapter 3). Ramza level 20, 4 main generics between levels 18-20, two other Orators at level 2 and 10. The end of Chapter 3 is, somewhat oddly, one of my favorite scenes in the game. I hold no great affection for the characters involved, but I enjoy the song "Requiem" and the discussion about the Zodiac stones is interesting (if nowhere near as hilariously mistranslated this time around). Chapter 4 brings two sidequests that are relevant for my Orator team - the Underground Colliery of Gollund (wherein I can Invite at least one enemy with an elemental gun), and a second battle in Dorter Slums, where (bonus character spoiler) Spoiler Balthier from Final Fantasy XII will net me a ridiculously overpowered non-elemental gun. But what am I going to do, say no to an awesome weapon? Anyway, I'm not sure when I can do the Dorter battle, but I can get to the Colliery right away, which I intend to start tonight.
This is that infamous chemist battle right? I recall on my first playthrough years and years ago scoffing at the pistol as a weapon until I hit the battle with all chemists armed with pistols. The battlefield is essentially a bowl and you find yourself on the ropes fast if you're a melee character. To add insult to injury, there's a chance some of those chemists will have Auto-potion, meaning they can heal up damage very efficiently.
Got it in one. That's the first of three battles in the series. I just stomped that one on the first try, seeing as how I brought guns to a gun fight and was able to turn the ground level Chemist Traitor. Round 2 is going to be the interesting one - I really need to land an Entice on the Chemist with the magic gun, but I'm not looking forward to dealing with the Behemoths on this map. Hopefully I can land a Sleep or Beowulf can land a Disable.
No new progress to report, yesterday was busy. But I think instead of increasing faith and brave, Ill work on getting to some of those other skills Im going to need.
Orator Challenge, Chapter 4 Goland Colliery 1 (optional) Turned the Chemist nearest to my party Traitor and opened fire. Beowulf landed a Disable on the rooftop Chemist and we picked the others off one by one. They hardly ever got a chance to shoot, they were too busy healing. Goland Colliery 2 (optional) This battle was a lot easier than I thought it would be - there actually aren't that many enemies. Beowulf took on a Behemoth 1v1 and won while we Enticed the other and shot up the Thieves, then surrounded the Chemist and turned him Traitor as well. Ramza with his 87 Faith equipped his Glacial Gun after the battle. Goland Colliery 3 (optional) Just walked around and shot things - nothing had the range to keep up with me, and the Chemists were too busy healing to do damage. Goland Colliery 4 (optional) Threw on Germinas Boots and ran toward the enemy. Had some bad luck the first time and lost due to the guest getting criticaled, but the second time, it was easy. Ramza one-shotted everything he attacked, and the Floating Eye enemies here are exceedingly weak. Back to the story! Duguera Pass Managed to get the enemies to do some self-damage without turning them Traitor. I landed a Sleep on the Knight, and the game decided that the best way to wake him up would be to have a Lancer Jump on his head for 200+ damage. Thanks, buddy! I also had an Orator get targeted with Thundaga and waltzed her over next to a Lancer so he'd take damage too. All in all it was pretty simple, I had more damage output than they did due to my attack range. Bervenia Free City Everyone moved toward the enemy Ninja and wasted time, the leader came down to fight, and five shots later, she was down. I forgot to mention that Angel Rings are now available thanks to it being chapter 4. I bought a set of 5. They will cut down on the difficulty of the game immensely, as I have no other way to revive. Finath Creek This battle is an odd mix of a random battle and story progression. The six enemies are highly randomized, like so: First attempt: Four red chocobos, one yellow chocobo, and a pig. Second attempt: Five yellow chocobos and one black chocobo. The first attempt was a rough fight where I lost Ramza by just a couple HP; if I'd had him with an Angel Ring, I would have won. I reequipped and went back in... and got a cakewalk of a setup where I would have won anyway. Go figure. Church outside Zeltennia Mostly watched the guest do his thing. The cutscene before the battle took longer than the battle. (Not that I'm complaining, it's a good scene that does a better job conveying the plot than the original version did.) At this point, Spoiler Balthier becomes available. I headed back to Gollund, read the necessary rumors, then went to Dorter... Dorter Slums (optional) This battle was rougher than I remember, but I don't think I've bothered in my challenge games in WOTL before. It's easy enough if you have access to revival. though. Since there's a direct benefit to Orators, I had to give this a go. I ended up having to sell out for Speed via equipment, so back to Green Beret / Hermes Shoes it was on everyone but Ramza, who kept his Angel Ring just in case. My guest started by one-shotting the White Mage in the back, which was pretty great! We ganged up on the Archer and got him to critical, so he ran away. That evened the odds a bit, and from there, we took down one enemy per round with a lot of help from the guest. The Angel Ring was absolutely vital, though - Ramza got beat up pretty badly in round 1 due to the starting positions, and went down in round 2. I might have won anyway, but it would have been close. I gratefully "borrowed" the Ras Algethi from my new team member and moved on. He also donated equipment that I otherwise shouldn't be able to buy yet (Thief Hat, +2 Speed / immune Disable) or shouldn't be able to obtain at all (Mirage Vest, +120 HP, +1 Speed, immune Petrify). But hey, if the game got remade to throw a few tougher battles at me, I'm not going to say no to a little bit of an equipment upgrade. Beddha Sandwaste UGH. This is an underrated tough fight, and I hate listening to Barich prattle on every time. Dude is a total jerk. He's also pretty hard to kill, given that he has the Defense UP support ability from Mystics. This took a couple tries to get him to behave in the way I wanted - Barich really loves to hit and run, which typically leaves him inaccessible behind all his mooks. I ended up having to camp on the back edge of the map and kept edging away from him, to make him chase me and keep him accessible. When I got him down below 100 HP, I held off on shooting any more until he took another turn, then we focused him down. South Wall of Fort Besselat You have a choice between the North and South walls of Fort Besselat; I almost always choose the South. There are more enemies, but they're more spread out and you don't have to climb a ridiculously high tower to get to an Archer that way. Plus, for a party of gun users, the line-of-sight on South Wall is a dream. I picked off the Ninja and Thief in round 1, then the Archers in round 2, and waited for the Knights to come to me. They didn't stand a chance. I didn't even have to move the entire battle. Fort Besselat - Sluice This is one of the most memorable fights of the game, if you ask me. The objective is unique, and four of the generic opponents are also unique among plot battles for their statistics (80+ Faith black mages) and behavior (two enemies will not move, ever, unless you force the issue with Charm, Traitor, Chicken, etc). I really wish Ramza could start on the other side of the battle, but no such luck. With Angel Rings as a buffer, this was a fairly easy fight for my Orators. The only real problem were the Archers, who had ample opportunity to inflict good damage as I charged up to deal with them. Luckily, I was able to land a Mimic Daravon on one of them, then could focus them down one at a time. I had to trigger three of the five Angel Rings to do it, though. Three battle sequences and one other boss fight to go...
Mustadio joined the party. The final run at Lionel castle awaits, but first I have a debt to settle with Gafgarion...
Orator Challenge Germinas Peak Once again, the Archers were the biggest threat. I had Ramza's side of the map charge forward and eliminate the Thief and Ninja, while the other side of the map hid behind the rock along the edge of the map. Once again, the Angel Rings had to carry me through, as I just didn't have enough HP to outgun the Archers before they got a couple people to drop. But, thankfully, they only got people to drop once. Poescas Lake This battle is pretty swingy. Again, the Archers were the biggest threat (I'm sensing a theme here - lack of ability to defend against long-range physical attacks is kind of funny, given that my gameplay has almost exclusively been long-range physical attacks). I took out the Ghosts and Mystic, then waited for the Archers to come down from the high ground, and from there, we had the advantage of numbers. Limberry Castle Gate The Assassins charged Ultima on Ramza. He shot one of them before Ultima took him out. He reraised from the Angel Ring and shot the same assassin again, end of fight. Limberry Castle Hallway This battle can be super difficult depending on your setup. "Shirahadori" (previously known as Blade Grasp) is a supremely overpowered ability, as it does not just grasp blades, it has Brave% chance to block physical attacks from anything, up to and including guns and harps. So. The boss teleported forward and used Muramasa, as he does. The assassins charged an Ultima or two, as they do. I stood next to the boss and let one of the Ultimas hit him, and spent the rest of the first round hitting the boss with three Intimidates to drop his Brave down to 10, and had one Orator run away. 2-3 people went down to attacks, but they popped back up from Angel Rings. With his Brave knocked down to 10, I had a much more sane 90% chance to hit him, and three bullets and a magic bullet later, I won. Limberry Castle Courtyard This battle is new in War of the Lions, and it seems almost specifically engineered to screw with challenge games. Your opponent, whom I will not spoil due to this being a new battle from the original, has the following loadout: 78 Brave, 25 Faith (good luck doing magic stuff with him; in addition to low faith, he's rocking a shield) Dark Knight skills (he heals with his single-target skill, just like Gafgarion) Critical: Restore HP (if you send him to critical HP, he has a 78% chance to restore back to full immediately) Maintenance (you can't break or steal his stuff) Ignore Height (wherever you run, he'll find you) However, he does have some critical weaknesses. Notably, he is not immune to Sleep. So, when he charged forward and hit Ramza for half his health in one shot, I countered with Mimic Daravon and left him to rot for a couple turns while I took out his support. Then, I kept juggling him with gunshots and Mimic Daravon, adjusting his HP so that I could kill him from > 100 in one shot. He never got a second turn. Limberry Castle Graveyard This was significantly easier than I thought it would be. This battle highlighted a bug in the original game's programming; your guest's armor/helmet/weapon breaking skills could not be used on any of the enemies in the fight because none of them have any equipment. Thus, unless she was rocking Item secondary and Phoenix Downs, she was pretty worthless as a guest! In War of the Lions, the skills now work as intended, and she's the powerhouse she always should have been. So, with that said, I could ignore the back line of mooks and focus on Zalera and his two Knights. My overall low Faith kept him from casting much offensive magic, so he focused on using his 100% chance to either Sleep or Doom ability. The problem for him? Doom does nothing to a unit equipped with an Angel Ring... but the AI thinks it does. The 3-count death counter still comes up, but when it hits 0, the Doom status just disappears. The AI sees the death counter and thinks "welp, don't have to worry about that unit, I'll just go do something else. Meanwhile, in this case, those units peppered him with bullets and magic bullets until he dropped. Dorter Trade City (technically optional) If you did not accept the guest offer at the end of Limberry Graveyard, you won't get this battle. If you avoid Dorter on the way back to Eagrose, you won't get this battle. If you do get this battle... who cares, it's Cletienne. (...sorry. Running joke from the GameFAQs forums back in the day. Cletienne is seriously a tool, though. He hopped down and charged a spell, we shot him twice, he ran. Strategy really isn't necessary in this fight, his spells take forever to charge and you'll have plenty of time to pulverize him one way or another.) Eagrose Castle Phase 1: No real issues. The boss one-hit-killed one of my girls, but Angel Ring saved the day once again and two rounds of attacks did him in. Phase 2: One full round of attacks for 542 to start the fight (64 + 64 + 80 + 108 + 226, go Ramza). Boss one-shots another Orator with Holy and starts running down the stairs; Orator pops back up from Reraise. Two people can still hit him, so they shoot him for 64 and 226. He moves around the stairs; we wait. When he gets into range, the only thing he has time to do without us murdering him mid-spellcasting is to Confuse Ramza. Ramza immediately Berserks one of the girls. My remaining three people land two attacks on Adrammelech (64, 108) and the other shoots Ramza to snap him out of Confuse. The Berserked girl moves and attacks, but her shot hits the wall instead. Adrammelech charged up another Holy; we caught him mid-charge for 176 and 96. Holy one-shots another Orator from full, but again, Reraise. Regular attacks for 108 and 80 did him in from there. Not sure why he didn't use his summons? Maybe we were too fast for him. --- Speaking of Speed, I stopped and picked up Thief Hats for everyone before entering the battle sequence at... Mullonde Cathedral This battle is split up into two parties; three people face off against two Geomancers, a Summoner, and a White Mage; two people face off against two Orators. The 2v2 Orator fight wasn't a fight at all - my equipment hopelessly outclassed theirs. The 3v4 was a little more difficult because one of the Geomancers landed a Stop on one of my people. At 2v4, my two remaining people took serious damage, but never dropped. (Geomancy isn't actually that damaging, and the AI doesn't equip well to maximize its damage.) But soon, I'd wiped the floor with the 2v2 Orator fight and my two girls came over to save the day. Inside Mullonde Cathedral The objective here is an outright lie. All you have to do is take out any one of them. So, if you've been reading my previous posts? Just kill Cletienne. He didn't even get a turn. The battle went as follows: - Folmarv uses Helm Crush on Ramza, whom I'd de-equipped knowing this battle was coming. Ramza is KO'd. - Loffrey does nothing. - My other four Orators shoot Cletienne. Battle over. Mullonde Cathedral Sanctuary As with other battles, this one can be REALLY hard, depending on your setup. The enemy leader is very fast, has a ton of HP, has a chance to raise his Speed every time you hit him, and restores 10% of his HP every time he moves. Single-class challenges like Squire have a hard time with this one due to their lack of healing and relative lack of damage. The map is also tiny and its setup precludes most attempts to surround the enemy leader. Luckily, he can't evade gunshots. I sat in place for one turn. He and his support charged forward. Two of the three support charged Dark Holy on my people; I murdered them mid-charge. From there, with the sheer 5-on-2 numbers advantage, I just chipped away at the boss and ignored his support, who couldn't do more than taking out one person each turn... and I'm still using Angel Rings on everyone, so that's really not a threat. Off to the final dungeon. I dont think Im going to worry about getting more elemental guns at this point.
Last time I ran through this I recall skipping all the optional battles. If you do that, Chapter Four is extremely tight and fast paced. It has a ton of side quests that can bog the game down though.
