Final Fantasy VI Classic Jobs Part XIII
Jul. 2nd, 2023 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freshfeelingThis was played on December 3, 2017.
We're finally going to re-recruit Cyan. We entered Zozo with Edgar the knight, Locke the thief, Celes the white mage and Terra the black mage. We went and got Rust-Rid, which, well, it's funny. I used to always read it as "Rust-Aid" like some kind of brand name rust removing product, and it took me a long time to realize it. For some reason I thought "Rust-Rid" was a bit clearer in this hack, but I don't believe the font was actually changed. Perhaps it's just one of those things where when you already know the content you comprehend it differently.
Despite being an area that is typically accessed early in the World of Ruin, Mt. Zozo has pretty excellent gear (and a hard dragon). I was glad to get the Red Cap and equip it on Locke to use the HP boost to empower his Valiant Knife attacks though it's hard to say if this mattered for now.
There were some minor surprises among the enemy encounters, like Luridans having a bunch of dance-based attacks... even Harvester (a.k.a. Forest Healing)! I was somewhat worried because this was the attack that I had re-purposed for my white mages' Pray command. But it didn't seem to have any unusual impact on anything. I had no idea that these dance-based or nature-based attacks were a feature of these enemies.
Despite having beaten at least four dragons, I hesitated about fighting the Storm Dragon just because it's generally one of the hardest ones. But I've got great equipment, not to mention spells: Terra was casting Thundaga for over 9000 damage. This battle was a cinch. This also nets us an additional Force Armor.
After recruiting Cyan but before his nap, I decided to take my three full parties of knights, thieves, white mages and black mages to do at least a little bit of a treasure raid on Kefka's Tower. Teams were set up like this:
I started with Relm + Mog's team with the Molulu Charm, snagging some treasures including a second very significant Force Shield. I ran past Atma / Ultima and also chose to skip the Gold Dragon for now.
I switched to Cyan's team and equipped them reasonably well. Fights seemed to take ages. There was one battle against Duel Armors where Setzer was Level 5 Death'd 6 times... and then gained a level from the fight.
Right after that, actually, we encountered Inferno. Strago used Hastega and other buffs, Setzer was throwing Blizzagas for nearly 5000 damage each, and it generally went according to plan.
Not long after, the same team entered battle with the Skull Dragon. This fight reminded me that I hadn't gotten the esper Alexander yet. I took the time to put the Gladius on Shadow but he only got to use it once because Setzer's Firaga casts were doing 9999 damage.
I switched over the the team with Edgar, Locke, Celes and Terra and double-checked they had good equipment. The battle still felt long but the team felt a little more stable in general. I realized that confusing a Malboro can really impact some battles, particularly when they use Snort and blow another enemy - or more amusingly, themselves! - out of the battle. A battle with two Doom Dragons was going particularly badly, and oddly not due to their Fallen One attack, so Locke ended up fleeing with only himself and Celes left alive. As team #1, they didn't encounter any bosses. I took some time to ready all of the parties so they could stand on switches and such.
After the part with the switches, I brought Cyan's group - who really were not the best equipped - to enter the battle with the Guardian. Once again, Thundaga was hitting really close to 9999 consistently. This battle was a real struggle; confused Setzer ended up proc'ing a Meteor spell against Strago at one point, and it was really hard to keep slow status off of the team. Our damage seems to have come through in bursts where we alternated big offense with periods of recovery. I also dawdled a bit on purpose, hoping to steal something good from Guardian. I don't know what I was expecting, but it ended up being a Ribbon; not bad, but not really a big deal.
I had forgotten that TekBarrier caused reflect, and Setzer reflected a Thundaga onto our team and that created some problems. In order to dance around this issue, I had him start casting Meteor instead toward the end of the fight. It costs more MP to do less damage, but it worked!
I was choosing to fight the goddesses because they all drop useful equips. The one I engaged first was Fiend, who I knew as Doom from other versions of the game. For this, I used my team with Edgar, Locke, Celes and Terra. He does annoying things like freezing me and changing my rows, but he's also generally tough. This ended up taking two attempts, but thankfully I had saved immediately before fighting him. His physical attacks and his strong Blizzaga spells really hurt the first time. The second time I went in, I had a slightly better equipment setup including Force Shields on my mages. Sort of like the Guardian battle, there's a point where Fiend gains reflect status so Terra started casting Meteor (and replenishing her MP with Osmose). He used Force Field twice, but only nullified the lightning and water elements so that didn't really affect the battle at all.
I also tried taking Cyan, Shadow, Strago and Setzer up to Demon (who I knew as Poltrgeist). I learned pretty quickly that it wasn't going to go well and given I had other things to do, I left.
Next, we were heading to Doma, so I took Cyan along with Shadow the thief, Sabin the white mage, and Mog the black mage. Sabin wasn't my lowest-levelled white mage, but he had more learning to do than Celes. In Cyan's dream, Mog woke up, ran from battles until meeting Sabin, and mostly ran from battles until we found Shadow (which took a while, as I wandered through the same paths a bunch of times like a dummy). One battle before we got Shadow had a close call after Mog was confused and Sabin was doomed.
I wasn't too worried about the battle with the Dream Stooges, which isn't really too hard when you know which one revives the others, but I was particularly at ease because Sabin and Mog are both using Force Shields now. We got the team hasted and also put Shell on Shadow, and Sabin even used his spare turns to apply Regen. Mog cast powerful Blizzara spells on Curly (at the top) and got rid of him quickly, and then the rest wasn't too bad. Larry went down second, mostly victim of Fira spells, and Moe shortly after.
Battles inside the dream train were really slow. There was nothing particularly dangerous, but I wanted to fight them anyway because it was important to me that Mog learn Banish (X-Zone) from Fenrir. He learned it almost immediately after we entered the Magitek Armor section. In Magitek Armor, it's amusing seeing the power difference between Shadow (with thief stats) and Sabin/Mog (with white/black mage stats). Sabin and Mog could one-shot most enemies in this section, but Shadow wasn't even close.
Finally, it was onto the dream version of Doma Castle and the one battle therein. It went like this:
We received Alexander, which is pretty useful for our white mages.
I flew around to ensure I had four Reflect Rings - it took me four or five tries to find a place that sold them. We got Cyan's MBlock% up to 141, Shadow's up to 51, Strago's up to 96, and Mog's up to 112. Then we entered the Fanatics' Tower again. We were experimenting with strategies that might allow Cyan and/or Shadow to become berserk. I didn't have much success with that, and realized that with Strago only having defensive and healing magic, it really felt like going through Fanatics' Tower with Mog as my single character. Well, we'll just try it next time.
We're finally going to re-recruit Cyan. We entered Zozo with Edgar the knight, Locke the thief, Celes the white mage and Terra the black mage. We went and got Rust-Rid, which, well, it's funny. I used to always read it as "Rust-Aid" like some kind of brand name rust removing product, and it took me a long time to realize it. For some reason I thought "Rust-Rid" was a bit clearer in this hack, but I don't believe the font was actually changed. Perhaps it's just one of those things where when you already know the content you comprehend it differently.
Despite being an area that is typically accessed early in the World of Ruin, Mt. Zozo has pretty excellent gear (and a hard dragon). I was glad to get the Red Cap and equip it on Locke to use the HP boost to empower his Valiant Knife attacks though it's hard to say if this mattered for now.
There were some minor surprises among the enemy encounters, like Luridans having a bunch of dance-based attacks... even Harvester (a.k.a. Forest Healing)! I was somewhat worried because this was the attack that I had re-purposed for my white mages' Pray command. But it didn't seem to have any unusual impact on anything. I had no idea that these dance-based or nature-based attacks were a feature of these enemies.
Despite having beaten at least four dragons, I hesitated about fighting the Storm Dragon just because it's generally one of the hardest ones. But I've got great equipment, not to mention spells: Terra was casting Thundaga for over 9000 damage. This battle was a cinch. This also nets us an additional Force Armor.
After recruiting Cyan but before his nap, I decided to take my three full parties of knights, thieves, white mages and black mages to do at least a little bit of a treasure raid on Kefka's Tower. Teams were set up like this:
I started with Relm + Mog's team with the Molulu Charm, snagging some treasures including a second very significant Force Shield. I ran past Atma / Ultima and also chose to skip the Gold Dragon for now.
I switched to Cyan's team and equipped them reasonably well. Fights seemed to take ages. There was one battle against Duel Armors where Setzer was Level 5 Death'd 6 times... and then gained a level from the fight.
Right after that, actually, we encountered Inferno. Strago used Hastega and other buffs, Setzer was throwing Blizzagas for nearly 5000 damage each, and it generally went according to plan.
Not long after, the same team entered battle with the Skull Dragon. This fight reminded me that I hadn't gotten the esper Alexander yet. I took the time to put the Gladius on Shadow but he only got to use it once because Setzer's Firaga casts were doing 9999 damage.
I switched over the the team with Edgar, Locke, Celes and Terra and double-checked they had good equipment. The battle still felt long but the team felt a little more stable in general. I realized that confusing a Malboro can really impact some battles, particularly when they use Snort and blow another enemy - or more amusingly, themselves! - out of the battle. A battle with two Doom Dragons was going particularly badly, and oddly not due to their Fallen One attack, so Locke ended up fleeing with only himself and Celes left alive. As team #1, they didn't encounter any bosses. I took some time to ready all of the parties so they could stand on switches and such.
After the part with the switches, I brought Cyan's group - who really were not the best equipped - to enter the battle with the Guardian. Once again, Thundaga was hitting really close to 9999 consistently. This battle was a real struggle; confused Setzer ended up proc'ing a Meteor spell against Strago at one point, and it was really hard to keep slow status off of the team. Our damage seems to have come through in bursts where we alternated big offense with periods of recovery. I also dawdled a bit on purpose, hoping to steal something good from Guardian. I don't know what I was expecting, but it ended up being a Ribbon; not bad, but not really a big deal.
I had forgotten that TekBarrier caused reflect, and Setzer reflected a Thundaga onto our team and that created some problems. In order to dance around this issue, I had him start casting Meteor instead toward the end of the fight. It costs more MP to do less damage, but it worked!
I was choosing to fight the goddesses because they all drop useful equips. The one I engaged first was Fiend, who I knew as Doom from other versions of the game. For this, I used my team with Edgar, Locke, Celes and Terra. He does annoying things like freezing me and changing my rows, but he's also generally tough. This ended up taking two attempts, but thankfully I had saved immediately before fighting him. His physical attacks and his strong Blizzaga spells really hurt the first time. The second time I went in, I had a slightly better equipment setup including Force Shields on my mages. Sort of like the Guardian battle, there's a point where Fiend gains reflect status so Terra started casting Meteor (and replenishing her MP with Osmose). He used Force Field twice, but only nullified the lightning and water elements so that didn't really affect the battle at all.
I also tried taking Cyan, Shadow, Strago and Setzer up to Demon (who I knew as Poltrgeist). I learned pretty quickly that it wasn't going to go well and given I had other things to do, I left.
Next, we were heading to Doma, so I took Cyan along with Shadow the thief, Sabin the white mage, and Mog the black mage. Sabin wasn't my lowest-levelled white mage, but he had more learning to do than Celes. In Cyan's dream, Mog woke up, ran from battles until meeting Sabin, and mostly ran from battles until we found Shadow (which took a while, as I wandered through the same paths a bunch of times like a dummy). One battle before we got Shadow had a close call after Mog was confused and Sabin was doomed.
I wasn't too worried about the battle with the Dream Stooges, which isn't really too hard when you know which one revives the others, but I was particularly at ease because Sabin and Mog are both using Force Shields now. We got the team hasted and also put Shell on Shadow, and Sabin even used his spare turns to apply Regen. Mog cast powerful Blizzara spells on Curly (at the top) and got rid of him quickly, and then the rest wasn't too bad. Larry went down second, mostly victim of Fira spells, and Moe shortly after.
Battles inside the dream train were really slow. There was nothing particularly dangerous, but I wanted to fight them anyway because it was important to me that Mog learn Banish (X-Zone) from Fenrir. He learned it almost immediately after we entered the Magitek Armor section. In Magitek Armor, it's amusing seeing the power difference between Shadow (with thief stats) and Sabin/Mog (with white/black mage stats). Sabin and Mog could one-shot most enemies in this section, but Shadow wasn't even close.
Finally, it was onto the dream version of Doma Castle and the one battle therein. It went like this:
We received Alexander, which is pretty useful for our white mages.
I flew around to ensure I had four Reflect Rings - it took me four or five tries to find a place that sold them. We got Cyan's MBlock% up to 141, Shadow's up to 51, Strago's up to 96, and Mog's up to 112. Then we entered the Fanatics' Tower again. We were experimenting with strategies that might allow Cyan and/or Shadow to become berserk. I didn't have much success with that, and realized that with Strago only having defensive and healing magic, it really felt like going through Fanatics' Tower with Mog as my single character. Well, we'll just try it next time.
