Had to take a break. Had a minor emergency at my house that took a couple days to sort out and now I'm visiting my daughter at college for the weekend. I'll get back to it when things settle down. I also got my SNES Classic in the mail so that will probably steal some time.
Underground Book Storage, 4th Floor Put the Monks to sleep, gunned down the Archers as they climbed to get us, gunned down the Knights, gunned down the Monks. No trouble. Underground Book Storage, 5th Floor I love the visual on this map. Every time she sees it, my wife ends up jealous of the underground library. Ramza had 11 Speed (Level 35 + Thief Hat + Mirage Vest) and went first - he shot and got out of the way. Loffrey came forward to charge Petrify on one of my girls, and we gunned him down. Mullonde Necrohol ...come on. It's Cletienne. One round of physical attacks and he was down. Lost Halidom In many challenge scenarios, this is the most difficult battle in the game. Sometimes, though, you can either equip around what's happening. Critical things to have here may include, depending on your job class: - Flame Shield (absorbs Blaze Gun and fire dragon attacks) - Rubber Shoes or Rubber Suit (nullifies Blast Gun and lightning dragon attacks) - Thief Hat (prevents Disable and Immobilize, both of which the boss can use) - White Robe (half all elemental damage) if you can't nullify elements otherwise Basically, if you're a Geomancer? You're set, you can equip around everything and laugh your way through this one. Otherwise you'll be vulnerable to something. My team, for example, had some very, very low faith units... but that doesn't save you from elemental attacks, just from magic attacks, so the dragons here can still have their way with you. For the first time, the Mediator Support ability Tame actually came in handy! When you use Tame and get an enemy monster into Critical status, it automatically turns Traitor. I got two of the dragons to turn Traitor; one of them immediately turned on and killed the Behemoth, while the other merely served as cannon fodder. This was enough of a distraction for me to hide my two high faith units at the back of the map and have the low faith units Enlighten themselves down to 0. These three charged forward, took out the enemy Chemist (I had no choice, he kept trying to revive the Behemoth and the third Dragon), then slowly chipped away at Spoiler Barich until he finally dropped. And it only took two attempts! Graveyard of Airships Round 1: Hashmalum charges Meltdown on Ramza. All five of us shoot him mid-charge. Ramza drops, everyone else gets out of the way before it hits. Round 2: Hashmalum charges Quake on one of the girls. One mid-charge shot. Ramza gets back up from Reraise, and he and the other three both shoot. The girl drops. Round 3: Hashmalum punches out Ramza, two physical attacks, dead. Graveyard of Airships Phase 1 This took a few tries, mostly not due to phase 1. The AI in this battle is the hardest to manipulate in the entire game, so it tends to be a sticking point in several types of challenge game. The first form wasn't too bad, actually - we spent round 1 gunning down three out of the four support units, then crossed our fingers and hoped for the best from the boss (preferably, a physical attack rather than a spell). Nasty abilities this boss can use include Ultima (with a 2-out-from-center AOE effect), Grand Cross (think FFV final boss - AOE status effects, with a 25% chance to inflict each of things like Frog, Slow, Stop, and Petrify. On my winning run, the boss got two turns; in round 1, she KO'd Ramza and our guest with Ultima, and in round 2, she punched out Ramza, who had re-raised. This phase of the boss has about 1200 HP, so she's really not terribly durable. Phase 2 Here's where the "fun" with the AI starts. The boss can teleport anywhere on the map, so there's nowhere to hide. The same Ultima and Grand Cross worries exist, along with a nasty physical attack. The counterattack is pretty worthless, though, and can actually work to some classes' advantage (Faith Up, which makes your magic do even more damage). I took advantage of the game's rules at the beginning of the fight - Ramza gets back up with 1 HP regardless of whether or not he has a Reraise left. Mine had been KO'd twice, as I said, but he got back up and got another two turns immediately at the beginning of the battle. We poured on some damage and hoped for the best. The boss was... not too smart. Rather than punching out Ramza and giving me a 3-turn limit on doing the remaining 2500 or so of her health, she decided to use Grand Cross on Ramza and a Generic. Ramza was hit with Sleep and Confuse; the other was hit with Frog, effectively taking her out of the fight (which was a shame, as she was Good compatibility to the boss.) The remaining three kept firing. Next, the boss punched out my girl with Ras Algethi. We kept firing, she reraised and fired. At this point, I was toast if the boss either (A) re-killed my girl with Ras Algethi, or (B) punched out Ramza... but she did neither, instead going after the frog twice. Two more rounds of damage did her in. This was fun! I hadn't played through FFT in a while. Even though I've done so at least 30 times, I always enjoy going back to it. I might jump in for another round in the next couple of months, depending on how other gaming time shakes out, and I'm happy to stick around and answer more questions / offer more strategy advice. Edited to add: playtime going into final boss was 17 hours and 15 minutes.
Well done Falcon! I’m at chapter three. I ditched all generics who are not named Alicia and Lavan as soon as Mustadio showed up. I need them for the Gift of the Magi event. It’s all story characters now. Also, I started a game with Game Cleared data, so chapter three unlocks the poachers den and endgame level weaponry. I need to do some leveling and stat manipulating but things should go fast once that’s done.
Ok, blew threw Chapter Three. I hit Weigraf and Riovannes Castle with my very best, only for Weirgraf to decide to use Monk attacks Ive seen that AI glitch before. It makes for an easy fight. Ramza currently has 97 Brave and 93 Faith along with Arithmetic, Equip Guns, and an endgame pistol. He hits like a ton of bricks.
Nothing new yesterday. I'll return to the game today. I'm going to be slowing down at this point because I'm planning to run all the sidequests as they become available in Chapter Four, which will slow down things a bit. It is possible to miss sidequests, so I'm being careful and deliberate. Once Ramza has his arithmetic ability, I've kinda stopped with random battles. I grind some in story battles but not much. As such my supporting team around Ramza is pretty weak, and could use some work. I'm planning to also start running errands using Lavian and Alicia now too. In my head I've got them set up as a kind of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern kinda pair. They run all these errands, try to catch robbers, raise ships, chase monsters, etc. In short, from here I'll be stretching my legs and enjoying the run to the end. Lots to do in Chapter 4.
Managed to get to Riovanes Castle only to get slaughtered a ton of times. I could beat Wiegraf, but then the next shape would kill me. It was time for grinding and that's what I'm still doing. Working on different skills and jobs, trying to get some of the weaker ones a bit up. Do you guys have five people set or do you switch between more?
I typically have favorites. Usually Ive built up a good squad from the generics in Chapter One, though a lot of times Ill use Agrais and Mustadio. In Chapter Four youll get T.G. CID and theres no good reason NOT to use him if you enjoy winning.
I normally keep a set of four generics to go with Ramza, and sometimes if I'm not doing challenge rules, I'll switch in other named characters. Belias is a good place to abuse the following skills: Time Mage - Gravity (does 1/4 of Belias's max health if it hits) or Graviga (1/2 if it hits, but much lower hit rate than Gravity) Mystic - Invigoration (does 1/4 of Belias's max health if it hits; heals the same to you) Summoner - Lich (does 1/2 of Belias's max health if it hits) Those four skills are godlike in assassination missions.
I have family visiting and Im having a hard time finding time to play. Ill do more later. My next goal is the Beowulf missions, all the way out to its end with human Reis.
I have always enjoyed the side quests in Chapter Four. I befriended Beowulf, saves the dragon, acquired Worker 8, cures Reis, and made friends with Cloud. Thats the whole roster of characters until I can get into the Midnughts Deep and find Byblios. Im on the way to Limberry and the plot twists keep coming. Now comes the hard part...learning Ultima while taking on the Marquis of Limberry.
Crazy day. It saw the fall of Limberry, the fall of House Belveouve, the Fall of Mullmonde, the princess getting a knife, Agrias having a birthday party, Reis getting kidnapped, Beowulf saving Reis, putting down rebellious order members, and unlocking Midnights Deep. Whew. Next time I play its time to dive into Midnights Deep. At the bottom a hero of the Great War awaits, or at least whats left of him after his encounter with the lost Zodiac stone.
Seems like you're moving right along. I'm finally back at it. I made it through Chapter 2 and maxed out Arithmatician. That is one powerful job! It takes some planning but I can take out pretty much anything at this point in one hit except for that one boss that had ???? for all stats. Had to switch to Monk for that one. I'm sure things will get tougher though. I've been dismissing all characters as soon as I get them except for the ones that I can't dismiss. What I'm wondering is will I change the story in any way by dismissing everyone? Are there different endings?
Things get a lot easier once you have the Arithmetic ability. You can go back to something physical and use that for support and wreck armies. It's pretty great. My current Ramza is rocking the squire class due to stat growth, with Arithmetic, Shiradori, Equip Guns, and Teleport. What he can't magic, he can shoot and run from. I'd warn you later you'll find Ultima Demons. Many of those have the Atheist trait, meaning magic can't harm them. However, they're often in battles that only require you to defeat a particular target, meaning you can work around them. The biggest impact from dismissing characters is you can't do the sidequests, but that won't change the ending. The ending to the game is set. I also don't think you'll miss any dialogue in the story missions. Good luck! As for myself, I'm working to the bottom of the optional dungeon Midnight's Deep. I'm 3 floors in so far.
Thanks. I've got my hands full with the main quest so I'm not too worried about the side quests. I'll keep dismissing.
Main quest definitely taking enough time. I'm still slooooowly grinding and getting more JP. Still haven't gotten past the Castle. I think it is maybe last part of chapter 3?
I'd actually recommend on your first time through not to take on the subquests. It dilutes the punch of chapter four. Once you're in chapter four all of the Chekov's guns are fired. All of the other shoes are dropped. And it all happens back to back to back. There's a real sense of the world going straight to hell and the endgame playing out. There are a ton of sidequests in Chapter 4, and because of that it's easy to lose sight of what Chapter 4 is trying to deliver.
Riovannes Castle? (sp?) Yeah, it's pretty tough. Good luck! It does make for a fairly epic end to chapter 3 though.
