Final Fantasy VI Classic Jobs Part XI
Jun. 30th, 2023 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freshfeelingThis session was played on November 22, 2017.
The goal for the day, as I stated just after I started, was to try recruiting the casters first, mostly, since it made a slight statistical difference for them. To explain that, the esper bonuses were all replaced with MP +10%; the difference is small, but it exists, so it's as good a reason to focus on casters as any. I wanted to recruit Relm, who is a knight, first, since she allows us to recruit Strago. I took Edgar the knight, Gau the thief, Sabin the white mage, and Mog the black mage. It felt novel to have access to the Steal command in Owzer's Gallery; it's fairly natural to recruit Locke late, but here I've got a thief and I enjoyed some of the unusual thievery you have access to here. The battles were otherwise not that interesting, although the dancers who throw knives stood out in terms of annoyance. After a while, I put on Mog's Molulu Charm, but that doesn't prevent some of the event-based battles like the set of four floating treasure chests.
The battle with Chadarnook felt different than usual; normally, you'd have lots of strong abilities, but my best damage came from my black mage's Fira spell. It started to occur to me that it seemed like my spells were triggering counters and it was actually a bit tricky to keep up with healing (perhaps in part due to having one designated white mage). The goddess form's charm effect also de-incentivized me using the attack command. There was a second really close call near the end...
but we won, and with everyone standing.
It was probably the worst battle with this normally-trivial boss I've ever had.
We went to the cultists' tower next, to recruit Strago... and we also abused Mog's Molulu Charm to walk up the tower and grab most of the treasure. This included Terra's Apocalypse sword from Final Fantasy VI Advance, which replaced the Stunner/Kagenui, and can be equipped by all knights.
I thought I'd keep rolling with grabbing equipment from other dungeons, and I headed to Triangle Island to get eaten.
I actually made fun of the dumb behaviour of the Coverts in my first battle in the Zone Eater's tummy, who made themselves invisible before they got hit by magic, only to get slapped around by a bunch of ninja skills and eventually wiped out.
I had the same encounter on the next attempt (and yes, I knew I could turn encounters off completely with Molulu Charm but I figured I should fight some!) and it was also a bit of a struggle. I won, at least! Though the value was questionable. I fought just a couple of additional battles, grabbed the treasures, and got out of there without recruiting Gogo.
Next, I figured I might hunt down Deathgaze. Before battling Deathgaze, I set up a team as well-suited to the task as I could, including ensuring nobody had a level that was a multiple of 5. Then, I set the airship to fly in slightly off-axis straight lines so we'd run into Deathgaze eventually. The first battle actually happened really quickly. It wasn't too scary, although Deathgaze has fairly strong physical attacks and his Blizzaga is pretty nasty.
The second battle took quite a bit longer to start, and when it did, it was quick and didn't go well.
But this screenshot was actually taken the instant that Deathgaze ran away, so we survived. We must've done at least a few thousand damage.
For the third battle, Deathgaze showed up amazingly quickly! He took out Edgar and Gau very quickly this time, and then ran away. Once again, we probably contributed at least a couple thousand damage. Between battle 3 and 4, I commented on the considerable difference it makes to not have access to elemental shields on most characters. If you can mitigate ice, wind and death effects, battles with this guy become pretty low-risk.
The fourth battle also showed up fairly quickly. He Blizzaga'd the whole team on turn 2, but Sabin was able to heal up. Gau couldn't survive his Aero cast on turn 3, and he ran right after turn 4.
It took a few minutes to trigger the fifth battle. I was starting to think I might win; Edgar attacked with Apocalypse for roughly 1000 damage, Gau's hits with the Sniper were also usually around 1000 damage, and Mog's Fira casts were about 2000 damage. But he managed to escape again.
I really thought the sixth battle would be the one, especially with the touch of epicness that Gau landing at 1 HP after a fierce physical attack hit him would lend, but that didn't work out. I am not sure I've ever taken this long to beat Deathgaze. Anyway, in the seventh battle, he died almost right away after just a couple attacks, and it felt somewhat anticlimactic.
I got ready to head to Narshe, as I wanted to get Tritoch/Valigarmanda before the Phoenix Cave.
The goal for the day, as I stated just after I started, was to try recruiting the casters first, mostly, since it made a slight statistical difference for them. To explain that, the esper bonuses were all replaced with MP +10%; the difference is small, but it exists, so it's as good a reason to focus on casters as any.
The battle with Chadarnook felt different than usual; normally, you'd have lots of strong abilities, but my best damage came from my black mage's Fira spell. It started to occur to me that it seemed like my spells were triggering counters and it was actually a bit tricky to keep up with healing (perhaps in part due to having one designated white mage). The goddess form's charm effect also de-incentivized me using the attack command. There was a second really close call near the end...
but we won, and with everyone standing.
It was probably the worst battle with this normally-trivial boss I've ever had.
We went to the cultists' tower next, to recruit Strago... and we also abused Mog's Molulu Charm to walk up the tower and grab most of the treasure. This included Terra's Apocalypse sword from Final Fantasy VI Advance, which replaced the Stunner/Kagenui, and can be equipped by all knights.
I thought I'd keep rolling with grabbing equipment from other dungeons, and I headed to Triangle Island to get eaten.
I actually made fun of the dumb behaviour of the Coverts in my first battle in the Zone Eater's tummy, who made themselves invisible before they got hit by magic, only to get slapped around by a bunch of ninja skills and eventually wiped out.
I had the same encounter on the next attempt (and yes, I knew I could turn encounters off completely with Molulu Charm but I figured I should fight some!) and it was also a bit of a struggle. I won, at least! Though the value was questionable. I fought just a couple of additional battles, grabbed the treasures, and got out of there without recruiting Gogo.
Next, I figured I might hunt down Deathgaze. Before battling Deathgaze, I set up a team as well-suited to the task as I could, including ensuring nobody had a level that was a multiple of 5. Then, I set the airship to fly in slightly off-axis straight lines so we'd run into Deathgaze eventually. The first battle actually happened really quickly. It wasn't too scary, although Deathgaze has fairly strong physical attacks and his Blizzaga is pretty nasty.
The second battle took quite a bit longer to start, and when it did, it was quick and didn't go well.
But this screenshot was actually taken the instant that Deathgaze ran away, so we survived. We must've done at least a few thousand damage.
For the third battle, Deathgaze showed up amazingly quickly! He took out Edgar and Gau very quickly this time, and then ran away. Once again, we probably contributed at least a couple thousand damage. Between battle 3 and 4, I commented on the considerable difference it makes to not have access to elemental shields on most characters. If you can mitigate ice, wind and death effects, battles with this guy become pretty low-risk.
The fourth battle also showed up fairly quickly. He Blizzaga'd the whole team on turn 2, but Sabin was able to heal up. Gau couldn't survive his Aero cast on turn 3, and he ran right after turn 4.
It took a few minutes to trigger the fifth battle. I was starting to think I might win; Edgar attacked with Apocalypse for roughly 1000 damage, Gau's hits with the Sniper were also usually around 1000 damage, and Mog's Fira casts were about 2000 damage. But he managed to escape again.
I really thought the sixth battle would be the one, especially with the touch of epicness that Gau landing at 1 HP after a fierce physical attack hit him would lend, but that didn't work out. I am not sure I've ever taken this long to beat Deathgaze. Anyway, in the seventh battle, he died almost right away after just a couple attacks, and it felt somewhat anticlimactic.
I got ready to head to Narshe, as I wanted to get Tritoch/Valigarmanda before the Phoenix Cave.
