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freshfeelingGiven that in the last session I got right to the end and even took a pretty good shot at the final boss, it should be no surprise that this was the end! This was played on August 8, 2017.
I said at the beginning, I'd rather take a few unsuccessful cracks at the final bosses than go back to grinding... so that's where we started. I moved the Hermes Sandals onto Bartz, Krile and Lenna and put the Protect Ring on Faris. I justified this by saying, "Faris pretty much sucks" - it may not have been true if I properly powered-up the Chicken Knife, but I didn't. In the first attempt, tree Exdeath happened to get the drop on us with two adjacent Meteor spells. We didn't even get to Neo Exdeath.
Attempt #2 for today, or attempt #3 overall: I played a bit of an intentional waiting game on the offense while Krile buffed to see if I could get Exdeath to wait to cast Meteor. Unfortunately, the middle phase of Exdeath can still suck sometimes, with White Hole and Doom. Doom affected Bartzs twice, which is mostly annoying as it undoes my Shell and Protect. When Exdeath did get into Meteors, he quickly took out Bartsz and Krile. But we recovered from that and managed to get to Neo Exdeath, at least.
I noted that I read that Grand Cross comes from the middle back of Exdeath, and since Grand Cross wrecked me so badly in the previous day's play I was going to aim for it first. I used Golem via Magic Lamp and liberally threw out Elixers, and it was going okay. Grand Cross wasn't as bad as yesterday besides a berserked black mage Lenna and a confused white mage Krile... who promptly cast Holy against Faris. We didn't last long after that.
I was kind of debating whether the previous day was the time I'd gotten lucky or whether today was unlucky, and decided I'd grind or otherwise figure out some way to progress, so I backtracked out of the final dungeon. I was considering doing the Sea Trench, which I hate. I was really frustrated after my previous close call, and kept muttering about wanting the game to end. Despite that, I went to the Sea Trench. As with when I did the Phoenix Tower, it's nice to have some kind of purpose/goal when you're trying to strengthen the team, I guess.
Gargoyles were no problem. I didn't synchronize attacks especially well or anything, but the attacks are strong enough that it doesn't really matter.
While this team still takes massive trap damage from floors here, it's otherwise not a bad party for this area. The Excalibur and Sage's Staff both deal absurd damage to the undead, holy-weak enemies that jump you every couple of steps. It went by pretty quickly, despite having to heal very frequently.
Against the three trench stooges, there were ups and downs. I used Magic Lamp eventually, which just generally makes sense since you can recharge it a short distance away. I guess at the time I didn't remember how broken it is here, because when this happened:
...I said in the recording, "...really?". And then, "Why doesn't everyone do that?!".
We left the Deep Sea Trench and went back into the Rift. I noticed quickly, in the forest part, that the experience is a bit better here than it was in the Sea Trench anyway. To this point, we had probably only gained about 2 levels each. I stalled a bit in the castle, since it has pretty much the best proportions of experience in the game, particularly with Iron Giants. I mostly fought in the room with the save point, since the Yojimbo enemies were so quick to defeat, and we attained level 42 here.
Then it was back into the Void! I got to the end and gave everybody Hermes Sandals this time. Faris was actually using Chicken Knife and Mug this time, too, although I still don't believe it was fully powered-up. Against tree Exdeath, Faris was partly able to contribute with damage but just as often was slinging Hi Potions. The tree went about as well as it could.
Against Neo Exdeath, I used the Magic Lamp three times for good group damage and to Zantetsuken the rear part while Bartsz smashed the Grand Cross part as best he could. There was a badly-timed Dispel before an Almagest that could've been disastrous but Krile made up for it fairly well. Then we were insta-killed by Grand Cross more-or-less entirely.
Attempt #5! Tree went okay; we survived a Meteor. I used Faris to steal Ragnarok and equipped it mid-battle, then Bartzs continued his assault on the Grand Cross part. We did the Odin/Zantetsuken thing again, too. Unfortunately, I accidentally kept using Magic Lamp until Ruby Light happened. That was somewhat of an issue, and we got Grand Cross'd but it was less terrible than last time; the worst part was Doom on both Faris and Lenna. We kept Magic Lamping until we had Golem in play, too. These statuses mostly don't clear our buffs, which is great as we were able to survive a late-battle Almagest.
We got down to two parts remaining - the front two - with all party members in good shape other than the impending Doom of Faris and Lenna, and those two parts had been damaged by all of the Magic Lamp summons, so it was looking pretty attainable. Neo Exdeath goes bonkers when it's left with one part alive, so we started alternating damage between the two parts.
Faris and Lenna died to their Doom timers, but got back up. We were in good shape although the buffs were mostly gone, and at this point in the battle it didn't seem like that ought to be the focus. Golem fortuitously absorbed a nasty Vacuum Wave. I went full offense, with Krile using Holy and Lenna using Flare, and I guess I must've ticked it off because the Vacuum Waves came out rapid-fire after that. It was quite hard to balance offense and defense here. An Almagest came out and left Bartzs and Krile alive, with Krile critical. That resulted in this crazy moment:
That is Krile using an Elixir on herself at 1 HP, while inflicted with sap.
Shortly after that, we won! I took the final two parts out very close together and didn't suffer too much from that. The final blow was dealt by Krile casting Holy on the bottom-front segment.
That was my very first Four Job Fiesta, all wrapped up! I didn't end up completing a second run as I had been discussing, or even beating Omega or Shinryu before the end of the Summer. It was... hm, sort of fun? Removing job synergies from this game isn't ideal. However, the win was satisfying, and this relatively balanced team did okay without it being too much of an awful grindy mess.
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The next "Classic Jobs" run in the Final Fantasy series: Final Fantasy VI
The next "Classic Jobs" run that I played, chronologically: Final Fantasy III
I said at the beginning, I'd rather take a few unsuccessful cracks at the final bosses than go back to grinding... so that's where we started. I moved the Hermes Sandals onto Bartz, Krile and Lenna and put the Protect Ring on Faris. I justified this by saying, "Faris pretty much sucks" - it may not have been true if I properly powered-up the Chicken Knife, but I didn't. In the first attempt, tree Exdeath happened to get the drop on us with two adjacent Meteor spells. We didn't even get to Neo Exdeath.
Attempt #2 for today, or attempt #3 overall: I played a bit of an intentional waiting game on the offense while Krile buffed to see if I could get Exdeath to wait to cast Meteor. Unfortunately, the middle phase of Exdeath can still suck sometimes, with White Hole and Doom. Doom affected Bartzs twice, which is mostly annoying as it undoes my Shell and Protect. When Exdeath did get into Meteors, he quickly took out Bartsz and Krile. But we recovered from that and managed to get to Neo Exdeath, at least.
I noted that I read that Grand Cross comes from the middle back of Exdeath, and since Grand Cross wrecked me so badly in the previous day's play I was going to aim for it first. I used Golem via Magic Lamp and liberally threw out Elixers, and it was going okay. Grand Cross wasn't as bad as yesterday besides a berserked black mage Lenna and a confused white mage Krile... who promptly cast Holy against Faris. We didn't last long after that.
I was kind of debating whether the previous day was the time I'd gotten lucky or whether today was unlucky, and decided I'd grind or otherwise figure out some way to progress, so I backtracked out of the final dungeon. I was considering doing the Sea Trench, which I hate. I was really frustrated after my previous close call, and kept muttering about wanting the game to end. Despite that, I went to the Sea Trench. As with when I did the Phoenix Tower, it's nice to have some kind of purpose/goal when you're trying to strengthen the team, I guess.
Gargoyles were no problem. I didn't synchronize attacks especially well or anything, but the attacks are strong enough that it doesn't really matter.
While this team still takes massive trap damage from floors here, it's otherwise not a bad party for this area. The Excalibur and Sage's Staff both deal absurd damage to the undead, holy-weak enemies that jump you every couple of steps. It went by pretty quickly, despite having to heal very frequently.
Against the three trench stooges, there were ups and downs. I used Magic Lamp eventually, which just generally makes sense since you can recharge it a short distance away. I guess at the time I didn't remember how broken it is here, because when this happened:
...I said in the recording, "...really?". And then, "Why doesn't everyone do that?!".
We left the Deep Sea Trench and went back into the Rift. I noticed quickly, in the forest part, that the experience is a bit better here than it was in the Sea Trench anyway. To this point, we had probably only gained about 2 levels each. I stalled a bit in the castle, since it has pretty much the best proportions of experience in the game, particularly with Iron Giants. I mostly fought in the room with the save point, since the Yojimbo enemies were so quick to defeat, and we attained level 42 here.
Then it was back into the Void! I got to the end and gave everybody Hermes Sandals this time. Faris was actually using Chicken Knife and Mug this time, too, although I still don't believe it was fully powered-up. Against tree Exdeath, Faris was partly able to contribute with damage but just as often was slinging Hi Potions. The tree went about as well as it could.
Against Neo Exdeath, I used the Magic Lamp three times for good group damage and to Zantetsuken the rear part while Bartsz smashed the Grand Cross part as best he could. There was a badly-timed Dispel before an Almagest that could've been disastrous but Krile made up for it fairly well. Then we were insta-killed by Grand Cross more-or-less entirely.
Attempt #5! Tree went okay; we survived a Meteor. I used Faris to steal Ragnarok and equipped it mid-battle, then Bartzs continued his assault on the Grand Cross part. We did the Odin/Zantetsuken thing again, too. Unfortunately, I accidentally kept using Magic Lamp until Ruby Light happened. That was somewhat of an issue, and we got Grand Cross'd but it was less terrible than last time; the worst part was Doom on both Faris and Lenna. We kept Magic Lamping until we had Golem in play, too. These statuses mostly don't clear our buffs, which is great as we were able to survive a late-battle Almagest.
We got down to two parts remaining - the front two - with all party members in good shape other than the impending Doom of Faris and Lenna, and those two parts had been damaged by all of the Magic Lamp summons, so it was looking pretty attainable. Neo Exdeath goes bonkers when it's left with one part alive, so we started alternating damage between the two parts.
Faris and Lenna died to their Doom timers, but got back up. We were in good shape although the buffs were mostly gone, and at this point in the battle it didn't seem like that ought to be the focus. Golem fortuitously absorbed a nasty Vacuum Wave. I went full offense, with Krile using Holy and Lenna using Flare, and I guess I must've ticked it off because the Vacuum Waves came out rapid-fire after that. It was quite hard to balance offense and defense here. An Almagest came out and left Bartzs and Krile alive, with Krile critical. That resulted in this crazy moment:
That is Krile using an Elixir on herself at 1 HP, while inflicted with sap.
Shortly after that, we won! I took the final two parts out very close together and didn't suffer too much from that. The final blow was dealt by Krile casting Holy on the bottom-front segment.
That was my very first Four Job Fiesta, all wrapped up! I didn't end up completing a second run as I had been discussing, or even beating Omega or Shinryu before the end of the Summer. It was... hm, sort of fun? Removing job synergies from this game isn't ideal. However, the win was satisfying, and this relatively balanced team did okay without it being too much of an awful grindy mess.
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The next "Classic Jobs" run in the Final Fantasy series: Final Fantasy VI
The next "Classic Jobs" run that I played, chronologically: Final Fantasy III
