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Valkyrie Profile Classic Jobs Part V
Jan. 20th, 2025 12:10 pmThe fifth session of this playthrough using Jayle the knight, Lucian the thief, Shiho the white mage and Gandar the black mage was played on January 19, 2025. It was compromised of most of chapter 4.
Starting up chapter 4, there were a couple of main things to focus on. For one, we hadn't checked for any new divineable (sp?) items. There were a few boring, linear equipment upgrades... but the Radiance Sword seemed like an asset for both Lucian and Jayle.
I also knew I would want to transfer two einherjar right away, so I geared up and trained up both Nanami and Jun. The only other character that was lying around at the start of the chapter was Yumei, and she might be useful later because of her built-in swimming skill. I transferred them now since chapter 4 is when I want to start lowering the valkyrie's seal rating.
Speaking of lowering the seal rating, there's a way you can lower it by meeting up with Lucian for the first time here. I wasn't sure whether this would work as expected given that Lucian has been in my party for the entire game. Some games use a mixture of the party state and event flags for things like this, whereas other games would strictly use event flags, and I wasn't sure if some aspects of the best ending path might be compromised.
I can't really speak to the longer term effects of this, but for now, when I went to Gerabellum (eventually!) the scene with Lucian played out normally.
This alleviated some worry for me, actually.
Next up, I got Aelia's recruitment. This was also kind of funny because Gandar, who has been my black mage all along, appears here.
Next, spiritual concentration found the Dark Tower of Xervah. This was a nice place. I remembered the gimmick well and didn't struggle too much with the mouths and such until the very end of the dungeon.
The dungeon was fairly simple although a few enemies had status ailment attacks that were tricky. I ended up teaching Shiho Cure Condition, which helped somewhat. There was a fair bit of petrification going on but nothing that made me feel in danger. There was a single fight with a tougher Iron Golem that we beat without too much issue.
Toward the end we also got a Sap Power spell for Gandar, which I realized soon after I could've gotten much earlier by transmuting a Dampen Magic spell. With that, Gandar's spell list is actually complete!
The boss here is one I remembered fairly well: two eyeball fellows named Hel's Servant that can revive each other, and thus the gimmick is you need to weaken them and take them out at the same time.
There was actually quite a bit of... biding our time. To end the battle, it was important that Jayle, Lucian and Gandar were all without CT while the enemies' health was low. They are also fairly tough on the offense, so this required a bit of manual item usage.
On the turn when we were finally ready to go... I thought: "Gandar can cast a spell, which might not finish them off, and Shiho has no means to attack, so I would need to split up Lucian and Jayle and if the enemy guards this won't work.". I considered that idea and focused in on the "Shiho has no means to attack part" and realized I might have an item to throw.
While these Hel's Servants were both fairly weak, I had Shiho throw a Holy Crystal. It worked like a charm!
The artifacts afterward included the Manual of Resurrection and the Holy Sword "Seraphy". Since the sword gives a chance for enemies to drop more crystals, I gave it to Lucian.
Next up, spiritual concentration found another Cave of Oblivion. The order surprised me, but I figured we may as well dive in. This ended up being a good idea! We defeated everything here without any substantial issue.
One of the early enemies here even dropped a Sacred Javelin spell! This is one of two offensive spells that Shiho can use as a white mage, and I was seriously excited to get it! So excited that I blanked on the opportunity to transmute it into the Mystic Cross spell instead. Oh well, this is already great. It's like a 33% improvement in my offense.
Honestly, it felt like more than a 33% gain in offense. The holy elemental is wonderful against a lot of enemies, and I quickly learned that Sacred Javelin lends well to combos, too.
The next dungeon we found was the Cave of Thackus. It's a nice place, and the enemies are easy. Early on we got an awful lot of crystals.
It took me a little bit of time to figure out every aspect of the sluice gate thing, but it wasn't bad.
Once again, there was a big ol' tutorial block as we encountered the boss roughly halfway through the game. Anything this would've taught us about the RDM stat would've been more useful at the start of this dungeon.
All that, and then we very nearly defeated the Kraken boss here in a single turn.
This was a good session. The team feels much stronger now that Shiho has an attack. It's funny observing the differences between the characters because, statistically, the two "warriors" and the two mages should be nearly the same... but somehow, Gandar is quite a bit better in terms of intelligence than Shiho. I suspect it's because he actually has quite a high starting INT stat, which is barely noticeable in normal gameplay. He's making quite an effective black mage.
I don't think there's much left in chapter 4, but there will be Flenceberg and the Tower of Lezard Valeth, which are important. For now, here are our stats at level 19:
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Starting up chapter 4, there were a couple of main things to focus on. For one, we hadn't checked for any new divineable (sp?) items. There were a few boring, linear equipment upgrades... but the Radiance Sword seemed like an asset for both Lucian and Jayle.
I also knew I would want to transfer two einherjar right away, so I geared up and trained up both Nanami and Jun. The only other character that was lying around at the start of the chapter was Yumei, and she might be useful later because of her built-in swimming skill. I transferred them now since chapter 4 is when I want to start lowering the valkyrie's seal rating.
Speaking of lowering the seal rating, there's a way you can lower it by meeting up with Lucian for the first time here. I wasn't sure whether this would work as expected given that Lucian has been in my party for the entire game. Some games use a mixture of the party state and event flags for things like this, whereas other games would strictly use event flags, and I wasn't sure if some aspects of the best ending path might be compromised.
I can't really speak to the longer term effects of this, but for now, when I went to Gerabellum (eventually!) the scene with Lucian played out normally.
This alleviated some worry for me, actually.
Next up, I got Aelia's recruitment. This was also kind of funny because Gandar, who has been my black mage all along, appears here.
Next, spiritual concentration found the Dark Tower of Xervah. This was a nice place. I remembered the gimmick well and didn't struggle too much with the mouths and such until the very end of the dungeon.
The dungeon was fairly simple although a few enemies had status ailment attacks that were tricky. I ended up teaching Shiho Cure Condition, which helped somewhat. There was a fair bit of petrification going on but nothing that made me feel in danger. There was a single fight with a tougher Iron Golem that we beat without too much issue.
Toward the end we also got a Sap Power spell for Gandar, which I realized soon after I could've gotten much earlier by transmuting a Dampen Magic spell. With that, Gandar's spell list is actually complete!
The boss here is one I remembered fairly well: two eyeball fellows named Hel's Servant that can revive each other, and thus the gimmick is you need to weaken them and take them out at the same time.
There was actually quite a bit of... biding our time. To end the battle, it was important that Jayle, Lucian and Gandar were all without CT while the enemies' health was low. They are also fairly tough on the offense, so this required a bit of manual item usage.
On the turn when we were finally ready to go... I thought: "Gandar can cast a spell, which might not finish them off, and Shiho has no means to attack, so I would need to split up Lucian and Jayle and if the enemy guards this won't work.". I considered that idea and focused in on the "Shiho has no means to attack part" and realized I might have an item to throw.
While these Hel's Servants were both fairly weak, I had Shiho throw a Holy Crystal. It worked like a charm!
The artifacts afterward included the Manual of Resurrection and the Holy Sword "Seraphy". Since the sword gives a chance for enemies to drop more crystals, I gave it to Lucian.
Next up, spiritual concentration found another Cave of Oblivion. The order surprised me, but I figured we may as well dive in. This ended up being a good idea! We defeated everything here without any substantial issue.
One of the early enemies here even dropped a Sacred Javelin spell! This is one of two offensive spells that Shiho can use as a white mage, and I was seriously excited to get it! So excited that I blanked on the opportunity to transmute it into the Mystic Cross spell instead. Oh well, this is already great. It's like a 33% improvement in my offense.
Honestly, it felt like more than a 33% gain in offense. The holy elemental is wonderful against a lot of enemies, and I quickly learned that Sacred Javelin lends well to combos, too.
The next dungeon we found was the Cave of Thackus. It's a nice place, and the enemies are easy. Early on we got an awful lot of crystals.
It took me a little bit of time to figure out every aspect of the sluice gate thing, but it wasn't bad.
Once again, there was a big ol' tutorial block as we encountered the boss roughly halfway through the game. Anything this would've taught us about the RDM stat would've been more useful at the start of this dungeon.
All that, and then we very nearly defeated the Kraken boss here in a single turn.
This was a good session. The team feels much stronger now that Shiho has an attack. It's funny observing the differences between the characters because, statistically, the two "warriors" and the two mages should be nearly the same... but somehow, Gandar is quite a bit better in terms of intelligence than Shiho. I suspect it's because he actually has quite a high starting INT stat, which is barely noticeable in normal gameplay. He's making quite an effective black mage.
I don't think there's much left in chapter 4, but there will be Flenceberg and the Tower of Lezard Valeth, which are important. For now, here are our stats at level 19:
<< First | < Previous | Index | Next >
