Final Fantasy IV Classic Jobs Part IV
Aug. 26th, 2023 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freshfeelingBoth this session and the next were played on August 25. This one happens to start with the Tower of Zot, and proceeds through just after Rubicante.
At this point in the game, gaining levels is quite significant. It particularly affects my mages' MP pools. Since we're starting at the Tower of Zot, it was noteworthy because I didn't want to be reckless with Palom's MP using Fira and Bio to clear enemy encounters faster. Consequently, many of them felt slower than they probably should've been, or would normally be. (This has been the case for the entire playthrough thus far, really.)
The Flamedog that guards the Flame sword was a worry, mainly because Cecil was wearing Flame Armor and thus has a fire weakness. That said, one Blizzara finished it off awfully quickly.
The battle with the Magus Sisters felt very different from vanilla, maybe obviously. Normally, you'd have three great physical attackers who could go after Cindy despite her having Reflect cast on her. Here, it pretty much ended up being Cecil's responsibility. I attempted to have Palom Boast and then use strong spells on Cindy between when her Reflect spell had faded and was re-cast, but that didn't work at all. It was slow, but it worked out.
The battle with Valvalis/Barbaricia was also very differently balanced for us. In normal play, you would have four strong attackers, a white mage, and no offensive mage... and one of the attackers is able to stop Barbaricia from spinning. While she's spinning, she's got a different moveset and very high evasion. Actually, what I didn't know - because it's not normally observable - is that Barbaricia is also magic immune while spinning! That didn't stop me from trying, and I had Palom Boasting and Boasting and throwing out tons of Bio and Thundara spells, all of which had no effect. Even Porom's Slow spell and Silk Web items had no effect.
This battle was rough; she spun the entire time, and our only real damage ended up being Cecil, whose sword strikes were not particularly effective here. I thought equipping Thief with his Boomrang may be effective, since it's an anti-aerial attack, but that barely did anything. Our only saving grace was that Barbaricia's moveset is almost entirely single-target attacks. If Cecil didn't pull it out when he did though, we were perfectly likely to have run out of healing resources.
We proceeded to the underworld and quickly advanced to the Calcabrina fight (still written as Calbrina in this hack). I won, though the merged doll really hammered the team, only for my hack to effectively freeze during the Golbez fight, where interestingly instead of a black screen we were just permanently paralyzed in the battle.
I really wanted to hotfix the whole thing so we could beat him somewhat legitimately, but I couldn't figure it out fast enough, so I ended up just once against removing the Golbez fight from the event instructions entirely.
In retrospect hours later, I realize it was probably just caused by the way Shadow Dragon is programmed to use Demolish on specific characters who aren't present in the battle. Oh well.
Anyway... this also meant we had to do the Calbrina fight again. I thought the best strategy was to hold fire and have Palom Boast his wisdom up to max and then cast a strong spell to kill them all at once.
Unfortunately, this wasn't quite as potent as we needed, causing the Brinas to die and the Cals to remain. We tried to finish them off quickly but couldn't quite manage it, and they still formed Calbrina. Of course this fight was pretty easy given Palom's maxed wisdom.
Against Barbaricia and Calbrina, I was definitely noticing it was hard for Porom to keep up with the healing. I was hoping that she might learn Curaga, and I kind of wondered if Rosa would normally have it at some comparable level (she doesn't). I was worried about going into the Tower of Babil without it, so I gained a level intentionally but it didn't grant Curaga. Oh well. Every level counts quite a bit at this point.
The Tower of Babil wasn't too bad, really. Palom's MP pool is now large enough that it frequently makes sense to throw out an -ara spell or Bio in random battles in order to accelerate the random battles. Chimeras were a bit tough, at least when they hit Cecil (who was still weak against fire attacks) with Blaze. At least they can be defeated quickly. We were able to solve this elemental issue when we grabbed the Ice Shield and Ice Armor here.
Dr. Lugae was pretty easy; once again, my strategy was mainly based around using Boast to cast high level spells, but having Cecil berserked was also an asset. His final form's Laser attack is a nasty one; early in the battle, he used Laser to deal 1600+ damage. Late in the battle it seemed like he was going to destroy Porom with Laser, but then I recalled that Laser is one of many attacks in this game that does damage proportionate to the caster's HP. When I saw his Laser deal just 45 damage I knew he was a gentle breeze away from defeat.
We walked out, got Cid's workers to provide us with a hovercraft hook, did a little bit of shopping in the Cave of Eblan, and proceeded into the other half of Babil. Shortly inside, we got Thief's next upgrade from the trapped chest where we would normally get the Ogre Axe: an Assassin dagger! This was a fairly good attack upgrade with a large agility bonus and a chance of instant death.
The enemies here were an interesting bunch. When I ran into Coeurls, I recalled how I fought them earlier in the trapped chests in Eblan Castle and used the Change Rod against them. I used the Change Rod quite a lot here, and had the observation that I've never had so much success or fun with changing enemies into pigs ever in all my years playing this game. Between porkalated enemies and instant death, battles were very manageable in difficulty and also fun.
Speaking of fun, the battle with Edge's parents was just... weird. I knew we didn't need to do anything but I figured if Porom use Pray every turn there was no danger at all. Thus, to ease Porom's command entries, I used Berserk on Cecil, Thief and Palom and constantly Prayed with Porom. Because of the ferocity and frequency of their attacks, the battle was seemed like a dogpile on defenseless giant creatures with Edge's disembodied voice screaming in agony; it just seemed like an exercise in absurdity (I had been watching Mr. Show this same day and it honestly felt like I was playing a Mr. Show sketch). Even with partial use of fastforward, it ran over 3 minutes.
The fun didn't stop there! The fight with Rubicante went quite differently than I expected. I had a plan to Boast with Palom and then nail him with a very powerful Blizzara spell, but Berserked Cecil with the Icebrand practically solo'd him before I could even get the spell done. I had a lot of trouble with this fight when I was young, and the strategy is entirely viable in vanilla! What have I been doing with my life?
The very next fight after Rubicante went like this:
After we got Falcon, we went to Tomra. We did a little bit of shopping there including finally getting access to as many Hi-Potions as we want.
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At this point in the game, gaining levels is quite significant. It particularly affects my mages' MP pools. Since we're starting at the Tower of Zot, it was noteworthy because I didn't want to be reckless with Palom's MP using Fira and Bio to clear enemy encounters faster. Consequently, many of them felt slower than they probably should've been, or would normally be. (This has been the case for the entire playthrough thus far, really.)
The Flamedog that guards the Flame sword was a worry, mainly because Cecil was wearing Flame Armor and thus has a fire weakness. That said, one Blizzara finished it off awfully quickly.
The battle with the Magus Sisters felt very different from vanilla, maybe obviously. Normally, you'd have three great physical attackers who could go after Cindy despite her having Reflect cast on her. Here, it pretty much ended up being Cecil's responsibility. I attempted to have Palom Boast and then use strong spells on Cindy between when her Reflect spell had faded and was re-cast, but that didn't work at all. It was slow, but it worked out.
The battle with Valvalis/Barbaricia was also very differently balanced for us. In normal play, you would have four strong attackers, a white mage, and no offensive mage... and one of the attackers is able to stop Barbaricia from spinning. While she's spinning, she's got a different moveset and very high evasion. Actually, what I didn't know - because it's not normally observable - is that Barbaricia is also magic immune while spinning! That didn't stop me from trying, and I had Palom Boasting and Boasting and throwing out tons of Bio and Thundara spells, all of which had no effect. Even Porom's Slow spell and Silk Web items had no effect.
This battle was rough; she spun the entire time, and our only real damage ended up being Cecil, whose sword strikes were not particularly effective here. I thought equipping Thief with his Boomrang may be effective, since it's an anti-aerial attack, but that barely did anything. Our only saving grace was that Barbaricia's moveset is almost entirely single-target attacks. If Cecil didn't pull it out when he did though, we were perfectly likely to have run out of healing resources.
We proceeded to the underworld and quickly advanced to the Calcabrina fight (still written as Calbrina in this hack). I won, though the merged doll really hammered the team, only for my hack to effectively freeze during the Golbez fight, where interestingly instead of a black screen we were just permanently paralyzed in the battle.
I really wanted to hotfix the whole thing so we could beat him somewhat legitimately, but I couldn't figure it out fast enough, so I ended up just once against removing the Golbez fight from the event instructions entirely.
In retrospect hours later, I realize it was probably just caused by the way Shadow Dragon is programmed to use Demolish on specific characters who aren't present in the battle. Oh well.
Anyway... this also meant we had to do the Calbrina fight again. I thought the best strategy was to hold fire and have Palom Boast his wisdom up to max and then cast a strong spell to kill them all at once.
Unfortunately, this wasn't quite as potent as we needed, causing the Brinas to die and the Cals to remain. We tried to finish them off quickly but couldn't quite manage it, and they still formed Calbrina. Of course this fight was pretty easy given Palom's maxed wisdom.
Against Barbaricia and Calbrina, I was definitely noticing it was hard for Porom to keep up with the healing. I was hoping that she might learn Curaga, and I kind of wondered if Rosa would normally have it at some comparable level (she doesn't). I was worried about going into the Tower of Babil without it, so I gained a level intentionally but it didn't grant Curaga. Oh well. Every level counts quite a bit at this point.
The Tower of Babil wasn't too bad, really. Palom's MP pool is now large enough that it frequently makes sense to throw out an -ara spell or Bio in random battles in order to accelerate the random battles. Chimeras were a bit tough, at least when they hit Cecil (who was still weak against fire attacks) with Blaze. At least they can be defeated quickly. We were able to solve this elemental issue when we grabbed the Ice Shield and Ice Armor here.
Dr. Lugae was pretty easy; once again, my strategy was mainly based around using Boast to cast high level spells, but having Cecil berserked was also an asset. His final form's Laser attack is a nasty one; early in the battle, he used Laser to deal 1600+ damage. Late in the battle it seemed like he was going to destroy Porom with Laser, but then I recalled that Laser is one of many attacks in this game that does damage proportionate to the caster's HP. When I saw his Laser deal just 45 damage I knew he was a gentle breeze away from defeat.
We walked out, got Cid's workers to provide us with a hovercraft hook, did a little bit of shopping in the Cave of Eblan, and proceeded into the other half of Babil. Shortly inside, we got Thief's next upgrade from the trapped chest where we would normally get the Ogre Axe: an Assassin dagger! This was a fairly good attack upgrade with a large agility bonus and a chance of instant death.
The enemies here were an interesting bunch. When I ran into Coeurls, I recalled how I fought them earlier in the trapped chests in Eblan Castle and used the Change Rod against them. I used the Change Rod quite a lot here, and had the observation that I've never had so much success or fun with changing enemies into pigs ever in all my years playing this game. Between porkalated enemies and instant death, battles were very manageable in difficulty and also fun.
Speaking of fun, the battle with Edge's parents was just... weird. I knew we didn't need to do anything but I figured if Porom use Pray every turn there was no danger at all. Thus, to ease Porom's command entries, I used Berserk on Cecil, Thief and Palom and constantly Prayed with Porom. Because of the ferocity and frequency of their attacks, the battle was seemed like a dogpile on defenseless giant creatures with Edge's disembodied voice screaming in agony; it just seemed like an exercise in absurdity (I had been watching Mr. Show this same day and it honestly felt like I was playing a Mr. Show sketch). Even with partial use of fastforward, it ran over 3 minutes.
The fun didn't stop there! The fight with Rubicante went quite differently than I expected. I had a plan to Boast with Palom and then nail him with a very powerful Blizzara spell, but Berserked Cecil with the Icebrand practically solo'd him before I could even get the spell done. I had a lot of trouble with this fight when I was young, and the strategy is entirely viable in vanilla! What have I been doing with my life?
The very next fight after Rubicante went like this:
After we got Falcon, we went to Tomra. We did a little bit of shopping there including finally getting access to as many Hi-Potions as we want.
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