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freshfeelingThis play session was played on October 28, 2018, a few days after the previous one.
I talked about this being a short stream, but then it wasn't. The first thing we're doing is the rooftop at Riovanes Castle. There are a lot of ways this can go wrong, but I didn't really know what to expect. First things first: Elmdor and his friends were unable to one-shot Rafa.
Rafa even had a lucky dodge from one of Lede's strikes and stayed up. We targeted her with a Holy and, since any of the enemies going critical forces a retreat, it ended this battle favourably on the first try. Amazing. We are on to Chapter 4. This also upgraded the shops again but I didn't have a ton of money for upgrades. We grabbed a few things but nothing super noteworthy (couldn't afford Bracers) and restocked our healing items a bit.
When starting a proposition, I ran into a random battle with just Faris at Fovoham Plains. I didn't think it was going to go well but I thought I'd give it a try. Getting affected by Don't Act from an Ahriman almost immediately did not help. Game over, reload.
In the interest of gaining money, I did several propositions in the area. The JP no longer does us much good since our characters have almost entirely mastered their jobs... and some propositions cost more money than they provide as a reward. I decided to only do the jobs where there were adjacent blue stops and no chance of random battles, exhausting Igros Castle and heading to Goland/Lesalia. On the way, I got in another fight at Fovoham Plains but at least the whole team was present this time.
The random enemy force was actually somewhat interesting for a change, with archers and mages.
It was an interesting battle, with Steal Heart being thrown around on both sides and a good handful of time magic spells in play. There was also a lot of Counter Magic happening.
Still on the way to Lesalia, we got a random battle in Zeklaus Desert. We've had several of these. It was entirely goblins so I just put on auto-battle and fast-forwarded. It's not often we finish a battle in this game in roughly one minute.
Getting to Goland and Lesalia and doing the jobs gave us enough money to grab a Bracer, which allowed this setup:
He has a substantial PA boost, and elemental strengthening. His mobility is poor, but his attacks should be pretty fantastic with this.
Next, we went to Doguola Pass for a battle with two black mages, two lancers, one knight and one archer. Early on, there was a deeply unfortunate part where Lenna had a great area-of-effect spell setup on several enemies when a black mage targetted her with a fire spell for pathetic damage (while she was standing next to him). Then, Lenna happened to proc Counter Magic and completely incinerate both the enemy and herself with the same spell. D'oh.
I talked about this being a short stream, but then it wasn't. The first thing we're doing is the rooftop at Riovanes Castle. There are a lot of ways this can go wrong, but I didn't really know what to expect. First things first: Elmdor and his friends were unable to one-shot Rafa.
Rafa even had a lucky dodge from one of Lede's strikes and stayed up. We targeted her with a Holy and, since any of the enemies going critical forces a retreat, it ended this battle favourably on the first try. Amazing. We are on to Chapter 4. This also upgraded the shops again but I didn't have a ton of money for upgrades. We grabbed a few things but nothing super noteworthy (couldn't afford Bracers) and restocked our healing items a bit.
When starting a proposition, I ran into a random battle with just Faris at Fovoham Plains. I didn't think it was going to go well but I thought I'd give it a try. Getting affected by Don't Act from an Ahriman almost immediately did not help. Game over, reload.
In the interest of gaining money, I did several propositions in the area. The JP no longer does us much good since our characters have almost entirely mastered their jobs... and some propositions cost more money than they provide as a reward. I decided to only do the jobs where there were adjacent blue stops and no chance of random battles, exhausting Igros Castle and heading to Goland/Lesalia. On the way, I got in another fight at Fovoham Plains but at least the whole team was present this time.
The random enemy force was actually somewhat interesting for a change, with archers and mages.
It was an interesting battle, with Steal Heart being thrown around on both sides and a good handful of time magic spells in play. There was also a lot of Counter Magic happening.
Still on the way to Lesalia, we got a random battle in Zeklaus Desert. We've had several of these. It was entirely goblins so I just put on auto-battle and fast-forwarded. It's not often we finish a battle in this game in roughly one minute.
Getting to Goland and Lesalia and doing the jobs gave us enough money to grab a Bracer, which allowed this setup:
He has a substantial PA boost, and elemental strengthening. His mobility is poor, but his attacks should be pretty fantastic with this.
Next, we went to Doguola Pass for a battle with two black mages, two lancers, one knight and one archer. Early on, there was a deeply unfortunate part where Lenna had a great area-of-effect spell setup on several enemies when a black mage targetted her with a fire spell for pathetic damage (while she was standing next to him). Then, Lenna happened to proc Counter Magic and completely incinerate both the enemy and herself with the same spell. D'oh.
As well, even though our offense was good, we were having trouble keeping up... literally, since Bartz got Counter Tackled off a cliff.
It started strong but we had defensive issues, I guess. I couldn't revive Krile in time and we had to reset.
After resetting, I didn't get quite as lucky with movement and had to do a random battle at Grog Hill. It was just monsters and it went very quickly.
Doguola Pass take 2! It went much better.
It started strong but we had defensive issues, I guess. I couldn't revive Krile in time and we had to reset.
After resetting, I didn't get quite as lucky with movement and had to do a random battle at Grog Hill. It was just monsters and it went very quickly.
Doguola Pass take 2! It went much better.
Lenna completely clobbered three of the six opponents in the early going, due mostly to poor positioning on their part. Afterward, a Counter Magic happened to activate that destroyed an enemy black mage as well. In just a couple of turns we were down to a single enemy archer.
Although we were in no danger at this point, after we smashed the archer's bow, there was a neat moment where the archer had an attack trained on Faris that was going to kill them, but Bartz walked up and used Power Break on the archer just before the attack to lesson the impact.
Although we took the time to loot chests (due to our financial constraints), it's probably needless to say that we pulled through just fine this time. He was turned into a frog before the battle ended, too. "Stealing a helmet off a frog - you would think that would be pretty easy! Like, just pick up the helmet!"
Lenna learned Fire 4, and now all of my characters have mastered their own jobs. I thought I was heading into Finath River, but in fact I was walking into the Meliadoul battle. I really wanted to get the Defender, but I wasn't particularly well-prepared and Meliadoul can really turn the tides with her break abilities. I didn't even recall that Meliadoul is equipped with a Chantage! Once I saw that, I figured I would have to find a way to pickpocket her clean before proceeding.
This battle also had some great discussion of the run so far with folks in the chat. Meliadoul was smashing equipment, but other than that it seemed we were off to a good start, taking out a ninja early and weathering summon spells to get the enemy summoners' MP down. After a while though, I ended up three units down and we were unable to get back on track. We threw a hail mary with Faris trying to steal the Defender, but it didn't work out, and we hung in there for a while but were defeated.
Given how much loot I wanted to take away from this battle, I thought it would take a good few tries. The new strategy was to stay back and mostly hide behind the little house near the start and let some enemies approach; it's not flawless, given the archers, but we can heal. Quickly, Bartz was able to smash Meliadoul's shield. We held on for a long time but couldn't keep pace with revival timers and got a full game over again anyway.
Attempt #3! We had good luck with the ninja in the early going and Bartz once again smashed Meliadoul's shield. Still, we couldn't quite keep up this time either and Faris and Krile were the last units standing, taken down by a summoned Titan.
Attempt #4! Our treatment of the ninja was the same, and positioning seemed good. For some reason, Meliadoul was not using her Mighty Sword skills, instead attacking Faris with a sword the old-fashioned way. We also had a lot of turns where we just didn't move to maintain 20 CT and get turns faster. It was very exciting when Faris managed to steal Meliadoul's Defender.
We had the ninja down, the summoners down, and just the two archers and Meliadoul with no sword remaining. I didn't want to finish until I also stole Meliadoul's Chantage, which is a rather overpowered accessory. After Bartz broke her shield again, Faris had a 48% chance at stealing Meliadoul's perfume. It took 5 attempts. Incredible.
Chantage can be equipped by any female unit (thus, including Faris) and offers permanent Reraise and Regen. Permanent Reraise means as long as a character isn't the last one standing, they automatically revive. This can be very useful on a healer, or on Faris whose positioning is often distant from the team and whose turns occur so much more often. It's a pretty big difference-maker.
"If she went and took that crystal I would be upset. I would say that that was not very considerate. Like, I could forgive you for dropping the moon on my head several times, but don't be a jerk."
The Defender is also pretty amazing. It's attack power is my highest right now, and offers 50% weapon evasion which is about the best possible use of Bartz' Weapon Guard reaction. We used our winnings to purchase a second Bracer, too.
On to Finath River. The plot battle here is just a bunch of chocobos, and I was facing four red ones and a yellow. It went okay at points, and the Chantage definitely helped, but we just had a rotten round where on four consecutive enemy turns they took out each of my party members: four up, four down.
We tried Finath River again and it couldn't really have gone much differently. We had one red chocobo and four yellow chocobos, and we won in roughly three minutes.
We saved after this battle before heading to Zeltennia.
Although we were in no danger at this point, after we smashed the archer's bow, there was a neat moment where the archer had an attack trained on Faris that was going to kill them, but Bartz walked up and used Power Break on the archer just before the attack to lesson the impact.
Although we took the time to loot chests (due to our financial constraints), it's probably needless to say that we pulled through just fine this time. He was turned into a frog before the battle ended, too. "Stealing a helmet off a frog - you would think that would be pretty easy! Like, just pick up the helmet!"
Lenna learned Fire 4, and now all of my characters have mastered their own jobs. I thought I was heading into Finath River, but in fact I was walking into the Meliadoul battle. I really wanted to get the Defender, but I wasn't particularly well-prepared and Meliadoul can really turn the tides with her break abilities. I didn't even recall that Meliadoul is equipped with a Chantage! Once I saw that, I figured I would have to find a way to pickpocket her clean before proceeding.
This battle also had some great discussion of the run so far with folks in the chat. Meliadoul was smashing equipment, but other than that it seemed we were off to a good start, taking out a ninja early and weathering summon spells to get the enemy summoners' MP down. After a while though, I ended up three units down and we were unable to get back on track. We threw a hail mary with Faris trying to steal the Defender, but it didn't work out, and we hung in there for a while but were defeated.
Given how much loot I wanted to take away from this battle, I thought it would take a good few tries. The new strategy was to stay back and mostly hide behind the little house near the start and let some enemies approach; it's not flawless, given the archers, but we can heal. Quickly, Bartz was able to smash Meliadoul's shield. We held on for a long time but couldn't keep pace with revival timers and got a full game over again anyway.
Attempt #3! We had good luck with the ninja in the early going and Bartz once again smashed Meliadoul's shield. Still, we couldn't quite keep up this time either and Faris and Krile were the last units standing, taken down by a summoned Titan.
Attempt #4! Our treatment of the ninja was the same, and positioning seemed good. For some reason, Meliadoul was not using her Mighty Sword skills, instead attacking Faris with a sword the old-fashioned way. We also had a lot of turns where we just didn't move to maintain 20 CT and get turns faster. It was very exciting when Faris managed to steal Meliadoul's Defender.
We had the ninja down, the summoners down, and just the two archers and Meliadoul with no sword remaining. I didn't want to finish until I also stole Meliadoul's Chantage, which is a rather overpowered accessory. After Bartz broke her shield again, Faris had a 48% chance at stealing Meliadoul's perfume. It took 5 attempts. Incredible.
Chantage can be equipped by any female unit (thus, including Faris) and offers permanent Reraise and Regen. Permanent Reraise means as long as a character isn't the last one standing, they automatically revive. This can be very useful on a healer, or on Faris whose positioning is often distant from the team and whose turns occur so much more often. It's a pretty big difference-maker.
"If she went and took that crystal I would be upset. I would say that that was not very considerate. Like, I could forgive you for dropping the moon on my head several times, but don't be a jerk."
The Defender is also pretty amazing. It's attack power is my highest right now, and offers 50% weapon evasion which is about the best possible use of Bartz' Weapon Guard reaction. We used our winnings to purchase a second Bracer, too.
On to Finath River. The plot battle here is just a bunch of chocobos, and I was facing four red ones and a yellow. It went okay at points, and the Chantage definitely helped, but we just had a rotten round where on four consecutive enemy turns they took out each of my party members: four up, four down.
We tried Finath River again and it couldn't really have gone much differently. We had one red chocobo and four yellow chocobos, and we won in roughly three minutes.
We saved after this battle before heading to Zeltennia.
