We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
- nosimpleway
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Velius/Belias summons his backup, but since the map didn't change, all the stat boosts Ramza gave himself to get through Wiegraf are still in effect. He's also still at critical HP, but...
Starting a fight fresh with no CT in the initiative counter means Ramza gets six or seven turns before anyone else gets to move.
Velius goes down like a punk.
"And some terrifying self-buffs."
I had Ramza in Time Mage just to make sure all the JP he accrued didn't go to waste in a job he'd already aced. Here he is learning the most expensive and useless skill in the game, just for chuckles.
I'm kicked back out to the world map, a mercy presumably added to the randomizer just in case. We're not done at Riovanes, even after the double-punch of Wiegraf's one-on-one duel followed immediately by a Lucavi fight. Just because I made it look easy doesn't mean Wiegraf and Belias can't tear apart an unprepared player!
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Having established that Alma is gone and having been returned to the map, Ramza could have gone off and done anything else without worrying about wrapping up here.
But Ramza instead scales up to the roof, presumably using his ninja skills, or perhaps a Climb Axe.
No, wait...
This is an anti-Climb Axe.
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Rafa is as fragile and her AI as dumb as ever, so if you don't wrap the Riovanes roof fight, Elmdore and his assassins will utterly destroy her. Just get it over with quickly.
Like Doris, Rafa and Malach are allowed to join for exactly the amount of time it takes to strip them of their gear. On to Chapter 4!
A bit of tidying up to do. Ramza picks up his final self-buff, one that adds the PA bonus, the Speed bonus, and the Brave bonus of his other Squire skills together, then throws in an MA bonus for good measure. Ramza can't do the Ribbon/Chantage combo that keeps the others on their feet, but he has his own ways of becoming an unstoppable beast.
I run around doing more bar propositions. By the time I'm done Ramuda, Alicia, and Lavian have all mastered Arithmetician.
Heh heh. "Yurgeivogue". It's actually "Lugaeborg", as in a scale model of the bizarre robot that Rubicante's assistant turns himself into after you beat up his other, even less competent robot.
Wanted: Young Men? Well, too bad. You get the girls.
I also kick off the first of the Mustadio-based sidequests.
All of the girls have a Ribbon, but Jessica still doesn't have her own perfume. I head back to Mandalia to see if I can get another Porky to show up. Ramza sits this battle out, as all that time he spent shouting himself hoarse in the Wiegraf fight put him something like eleven levels over the others.
Kinda wish I'd brought him, though. That is a Tiamat, probably the scariest monster in the game.
They're weak against ice and shops just started selling the Icebrand sword, though, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.
Yeesh. Good thing they're basically unkillable, though I do get pretty close to having all four KOed at the same time. Even if one of them would just get back up a few seconds later, that still counts as a Game Over.
I eventually prevail, earning a Ryozan Silk for my trouble. That's the best bolt of cloth in the game, in case I ever need a Dancer to hit something with the Fight command. All of the cloth weapons have a 50% evade rating, but at this point everyone has a 90%+ evade rating on account of Shirahidori. So eh.
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Chapter 4, Filler 1: Doguola Pass: A Doguola is a Cross Between a Dog and a Koala, Obviously
This battle exists purely to point out that you're moving from Duke Larg's territory in the west to Duke Goltana's territory in the east.
I forgot to take Math Skill off of the girls when I finished grinding levels up and poaching. So, uh... yeah.
Chapter 4, Battle 1: Bervenia Free City: Melia Duel
In an odd reversal, Meliadoul starts at the bottom of the map while my party starts at the top. In an odder twist, Meliadoul is invisible.
Usually you want to bring a good Thief with you to nick her sword and perfume. The sword she carries in vanilla is Defender, so that's nothing new. But her perfume is a Chantage, here switched to the Setiemson. Chantage gives Regen and Reraise, Setiemson gives Haste and starts the battle invisible.
I'd swipe that too, but Meliadoul is equipped with Maintenance thanks to the randomizer. There's no stealing or breaking her stuff.
Invisible makes a character invisible to the enemy AI, as I described earlier at Yuguo Woods. It's not something an enemy ever has in vanilla. A contributing factor is probably how enemies will hit their invisible buddies by accident.
I manage to cleave my way through the Thieves and Summoners on top of the wall and get a couple of units onto the ground before Meliadoul dares shed her invisibility by doing something. It's a regular sword hit, rather than one of her unique Mighty Sword skills. And it's effortlessly caught by Shirahidori.
Meliadoul is supposed to be the primary threat in this fight, with a few other soldiers running interference. Here she refused to act until most of her allies were already KOed, and even then refused to use her unique skills. She might as well have been a regular Knight, or even Squire, for all the good she did.
This battle exists purely to point out that you're moving from Duke Larg's territory in the west to Duke Goltana's territory in the east.
I forgot to take Math Skill off of the girls when I finished grinding levels up and poaching. So, uh... yeah.
Chapter 4, Battle 1: Bervenia Free City: Melia Duel
In an odd reversal, Meliadoul starts at the bottom of the map while my party starts at the top. In an odder twist, Meliadoul is invisible.
Usually you want to bring a good Thief with you to nick her sword and perfume. The sword she carries in vanilla is Defender, so that's nothing new. But her perfume is a Chantage, here switched to the Setiemson. Chantage gives Regen and Reraise, Setiemson gives Haste and starts the battle invisible.
I'd swipe that too, but Meliadoul is equipped with Maintenance thanks to the randomizer. There's no stealing or breaking her stuff.
Invisible makes a character invisible to the enemy AI, as I described earlier at Yuguo Woods. It's not something an enemy ever has in vanilla. A contributing factor is probably how enemies will hit their invisible buddies by accident.
I manage to cleave my way through the Thieves and Summoners on top of the wall and get a couple of units onto the ground before Meliadoul dares shed her invisibility by doing something. It's a regular sword hit, rather than one of her unique Mighty Sword skills. And it's effortlessly caught by Shirahidori.
Meliadoul is supposed to be the primary threat in this fight, with a few other soldiers running interference. Here she refused to act until most of her allies were already KOed, and even then refused to use her unique skills. She might as well have been a regular Knight, or even Squire, for all the good she did.
- nosimpleway
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Chapter 4, Filler 2: Finath River: Sho Is One Fine-Ath River
Ramza opens the fight by warning everyone not to fall into the creek. Alicia and Lavian are already chin-deep, though.
While I was bringing the girls up to match Ramza's level in random fights, I ran into a Red Chocobo that was itself fifteen levels higher than everything else. These are a snap by comparison, but Choco Meteor is still no joke.
*furious muffled speech and bubbling*
Anyway, it's monsters. The randomizer threw a couple Malboros into the mix but honestly the enemy party of a half-dozen chocobos from vanilla is scarier.
Chapter 4, Battle 2: Zeltennia Castle: I Bet You're Wishin' That We'd Go Away
"Yeah, but I had to go through the last four fights to come here and talk to you for some reason."
When I started a randomizer play I was hoping for... well, not explicitly a difficulty patch, because I've seen those and they're ridiculous. I was hoping for a bit more variety, since the vanilla game rarely throws any enemy more advanced than a Black Mage or Monk at you. I finally got that, like this Thief with Draw Out or the LancerDancer at left.
It only really caught on after all the cruft in my army had been killed off and I was left with only The Girls, who can damn well take care of anything the game throws at them anymore.
Like, everyone can Teleport! That really trivializes a battle that's supposed to be a time-consuming slog up the church walls, each enemy in your way its own chokepoint. All you've got to do is finish off Zalmo, and since he didn't even deploy any of his soldiers onto the roof with him, it's just him versus my teleporting murder squad.
Ramza opens the fight by warning everyone not to fall into the creek. Alicia and Lavian are already chin-deep, though.
While I was bringing the girls up to match Ramza's level in random fights, I ran into a Red Chocobo that was itself fifteen levels higher than everything else. These are a snap by comparison, but Choco Meteor is still no joke.
*furious muffled speech and bubbling*
Anyway, it's monsters. The randomizer threw a couple Malboros into the mix but honestly the enemy party of a half-dozen chocobos from vanilla is scarier.
Chapter 4, Battle 2: Zeltennia Castle: I Bet You're Wishin' That We'd Go Away
"Yeah, but I had to go through the last four fights to come here and talk to you for some reason."
When I started a randomizer play I was hoping for... well, not explicitly a difficulty patch, because I've seen those and they're ridiculous. I was hoping for a bit more variety, since the vanilla game rarely throws any enemy more advanced than a Black Mage or Monk at you. I finally got that, like this Thief with Draw Out or the LancerDancer at left.
It only really caught on after all the cruft in my army had been killed off and I was left with only The Girls, who can damn well take care of anything the game throws at them anymore.
Like, everyone can Teleport! That really trivializes a battle that's supposed to be a time-consuming slog up the church walls, each enemy in your way its own chokepoint. All you've got to do is finish off Zalmo, and since he didn't even deploy any of his soldiers onto the roof with him, it's just him versus my teleporting murder squad.
- nosimpleway
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Chapter 4, Battle 3: Bed Desert: That Poison is Some Bullshit
That's... an odd setup...
Ramza starts in his usual spot while everyone else begins on the far side of the map. That seems to happen more and more often as the game continues, presumably because Ramza has more to say at the start of each fight and if you move people around too much the textboxes don't line up with the speaker. That's also happened plenty of times.
Ramza is the only one in the party vulnerable to status ailments, since The Girls all wear pretty Ribbons in their hair. So Ramza takes the brunt of Balk's sniping and the Time Mage's Slowing.
As I discovered in my previous LP, you can bring the iron robot without a functioning metabolism into this fight and he still starts poisoned. Stands to reason the game ignores the Ribbons, too. No matter, I brought Punch Art.
The only ally in this fight who didn't start poisoned is the extra Guest Time Mage, but since the Guests introduced after Ramuda have been pretty inconsequential it's hardly worth mentioning anymore.
Sweet Christmas this randomizer loves its Time Mages.
Enemy Time Mage targets Ramza with a Ramuh, Lavian steps in with a Cure 2 set to resolve as soon as Ramuh vanishes off to wherever it is summons come from. This happens three or four times before The Girls can get over to Ramza and spread the hate out a little bit.
While Ramza is the primary target, he's never really in any actual danger except from those Ramuh summons. He's still got Shirahidori, so the Monks and Lancer can't touch him.
The Monks are only there to revive the Time Mages, it turns out.
No no, you were fine where you were, facedown in the sand.
Hitting someone down to critical HP only to proc a Holy off of the Holy Lance that finishes them off hasn't gotten old yet.
This is another "bring a Thief" battle, as Balk has the first magic-shooting gun available in the game. It's the ice-elemental one, so it's arguably the most useful to have anyway -- Ice is the most common weakness for monsters. He still had it here, but just like Meliadoul his other equipment had been swapped around.
Namely, he had a Rubber Costume, the best clothes-type equipment in the game. He also wore a hat that isn't available in stores yet. And to get those, I had to take his cloak so he wouldn't use it to dodge my Steal attempts.
Once Balk had been stripped down, all of his buddies had already turned into chests and crystals, so there was nothing left to do but kill him.
That's... an odd setup...
Ramza starts in his usual spot while everyone else begins on the far side of the map. That seems to happen more and more often as the game continues, presumably because Ramza has more to say at the start of each fight and if you move people around too much the textboxes don't line up with the speaker. That's also happened plenty of times.
Ramza is the only one in the party vulnerable to status ailments, since The Girls all wear pretty Ribbons in their hair. So Ramza takes the brunt of Balk's sniping and the Time Mage's Slowing.
As I discovered in my previous LP, you can bring the iron robot without a functioning metabolism into this fight and he still starts poisoned. Stands to reason the game ignores the Ribbons, too. No matter, I brought Punch Art.
The only ally in this fight who didn't start poisoned is the extra Guest Time Mage, but since the Guests introduced after Ramuda have been pretty inconsequential it's hardly worth mentioning anymore.
Sweet Christmas this randomizer loves its Time Mages.
Enemy Time Mage targets Ramza with a Ramuh, Lavian steps in with a Cure 2 set to resolve as soon as Ramuh vanishes off to wherever it is summons come from. This happens three or four times before The Girls can get over to Ramza and spread the hate out a little bit.
While Ramza is the primary target, he's never really in any actual danger except from those Ramuh summons. He's still got Shirahidori, so the Monks and Lancer can't touch him.
The Monks are only there to revive the Time Mages, it turns out.
No no, you were fine where you were, facedown in the sand.
Hitting someone down to critical HP only to proc a Holy off of the Holy Lance that finishes them off hasn't gotten old yet.
This is another "bring a Thief" battle, as Balk has the first magic-shooting gun available in the game. It's the ice-elemental one, so it's arguably the most useful to have anyway -- Ice is the most common weakness for monsters. He still had it here, but just like Meliadoul his other equipment had been swapped around.
Namely, he had a Rubber Costume, the best clothes-type equipment in the game. He also wore a hat that isn't available in stores yet. And to get those, I had to take his cloak so he wouldn't use it to dodge my Steal attempts.
Once Balk had been stripped down, all of his buddies had already turned into chests and crystals, so there was nothing left to do but kill him.
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Chapter 4, Filler 3: Outside Bethla Garrison: Go Around The Other Way
I can never remember which map is the north side of Bethla Garrison and which is the south side, mostly because it doesn't matter. They have some different treasure to dig up, but I haven't really been all that concerned with treasure so far, why start now?
Hey. HEY. STOP THAT.
Hitting someone down to critical HP and then gett-- wait, I feel like I've said this before.
The runners-up for the job the game loves most, behind Time Mages, is probably Summoners.
I'm tellin' ya, this never gets old.
Chapter 4, Battle 4: Bethla Garrison Sluice Gate: That's a Lot of Dam Water
Jessica gets to start all by herself.
But rather than have each group start on either side of the waterway, everyone starts spread out along the bridge and Jessica is in some nondescript spot halfway up the cliff.
A little more variety, as this Lancer brought katanas to Draw Out. That Thief on the right could chuck Kikuichimonji, too. If I'd known that I'd have equipped Catch, those aren't available in stores yet.
This fight doesn't end until Ramza ends a turn on both of the tiles at the top of the dam. This means you can run around as long as you want without being harassed by enemies, making it a pretty good spot to grind JP if you still need to do that.
It also means I got to see what happens when a Dance doesn't have a target on the map at all. The Dancer still twirls around, but without the sound effects or light show, and the game stops for several seconds figuring out what to do next.
Jessica, you might want to get out of the riverbed, I'm about to open the--
Oh no, Jessica got swept away, and is gone forever!
(nah j/k she's fine)
I'm rewarded for my victory by a walking GameShark code joining the party. He, uh, brings that last Chantage I was looking for.
A man who can singlehandedly defeat an entire platoon of soldiers can smell as nice as he wants, what's anybody going to say?
I can never remember which map is the north side of Bethla Garrison and which is the south side, mostly because it doesn't matter. They have some different treasure to dig up, but I haven't really been all that concerned with treasure so far, why start now?
Hey. HEY. STOP THAT.
Hitting someone down to critical HP and then gett-- wait, I feel like I've said this before.
The runners-up for the job the game loves most, behind Time Mages, is probably Summoners.
I'm tellin' ya, this never gets old.
Chapter 4, Battle 4: Bethla Garrison Sluice Gate: That's a Lot of Dam Water
Jessica gets to start all by herself.
But rather than have each group start on either side of the waterway, everyone starts spread out along the bridge and Jessica is in some nondescript spot halfway up the cliff.
A little more variety, as this Lancer brought katanas to Draw Out. That Thief on the right could chuck Kikuichimonji, too. If I'd known that I'd have equipped Catch, those aren't available in stores yet.
This fight doesn't end until Ramza ends a turn on both of the tiles at the top of the dam. This means you can run around as long as you want without being harassed by enemies, making it a pretty good spot to grind JP if you still need to do that.
It also means I got to see what happens when a Dance doesn't have a target on the map at all. The Dancer still twirls around, but without the sound effects or light show, and the game stops for several seconds figuring out what to do next.
Jessica, you might want to get out of the riverbed, I'm about to open the--
Oh no, Jessica got swept away, and is gone forever!
(nah j/k she's fine)
I'm rewarded for my victory by a walking GameShark code joining the party. He, uh, brings that last Chantage I was looking for.
A man who can singlehandedly defeat an entire platoon of soldiers can smell as nice as he wants, what's anybody going to say?
- nosimpleway
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Chapter 4, Filler 4: Germinas Peak: Over The Knoll
As a filler battle the most interesting thing about Germinas Peak is that the game kept the male Ninja portrait for this lady Oracle.
Doesn't save her from getting Holy Lance'd so hard she falls off a cliff.
She lives, though. Guess that cliff was just a bluff.
Summon magic is plentiful!
But I've picked up Kiyomori so I'm less worried than I had been previously.
Lavian is still practicing at Oracle-ness herself, so I take the time to collect as many soul crystals as possible. She learns not a single Yin-Yang Magic spell. Couple Elementals, a bit of space filled in on Black Magic, and Shiva since we know that's in play, but nothing I was actually looking for. Go figure.
As a filler battle the most interesting thing about Germinas Peak is that the game kept the male Ninja portrait for this lady Oracle.
Doesn't save her from getting Holy Lance'd so hard she falls off a cliff.
She lives, though. Guess that cliff was just a bluff.
Summon magic is plentiful!
But I've picked up Kiyomori so I'm less worried than I had been previously.
Lavian is still practicing at Oracle-ness herself, so I take the time to collect as many soul crystals as possible. She learns not a single Yin-Yang Magic spell. Couple Elementals, a bit of space filled in on Black Magic, and Shiva since we know that's in play, but nothing I was actually looking for. Go figure.
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Chapter 4, Filler 5: Poeskas Lake: Salty, Like Your Attitude
Some of the zombies have been replaced by pigs. I have all the Ribbons and Chantage I need, though, so it doesn't bother me that I didn't foresee enough to equip Poach.
They manage to hit my Dancer before she even starts dancing, rendering the invisibility moot.
Zombies are big on redundancy.
This battle was so dull I literally forgot I was taking screenshots for a thread partway through. You're not missing anything.
Some of the zombies have been replaced by pigs. I have all the Ribbons and Chantage I need, though, so it doesn't bother me that I didn't foresee enough to equip Poach.
They manage to hit my Dancer before she even starts dancing, rendering the invisibility moot.
Zombies are big on redundancy.
This battle was so dull I literally forgot I was taking screenshots for a thread partway through. You're not missing anything.
- nosimpleway
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Chapter 4, Battle 5, 6, and 7: Limberry Castle: Is a Limberry like a Tonberry?
How... how do trees sneak up on people?
whoops, that's not right, hang on
Black Costume to dodge Stop, then an N-Kai Armlet to dodge Charm. I had equipped the Jade Armlet by mistake.
Not only do the Assassins obligingly cast Ultima on Ramza, they also throw one at The Girls. Ribbons also cancel Stop, Charm, and instakills, so direct damage will have to do.
So that's everything I was looking for here. I could have equipped Poach during the reset to go for that Taiju in hopes of netting a Defender, but I already have Excalibur, why bother?
That's a wrap.
How... how do trees sneak up on people?
whoops, that's not right, hang on
Black Costume to dodge Stop, then an N-Kai Armlet to dodge Charm. I had equipped the Jade Armlet by mistake.
Not only do the Assassins obligingly cast Ultima on Ramza, they also throw one at The Girls. Ribbons also cancel Stop, Charm, and instakills, so direct damage will have to do.
So that's everything I was looking for here. I could have equipped Poach during the reset to go for that Taiju in hopes of netting a Defender, but I already have Excalibur, why bother?
That's a wrap.
- nosimpleway
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Marquis Elmdor has the Masamune and the full set of Genji Gear in vanilla. Let's see what he's got to nab now.
Says the guy I'm about to strip naked and beat within an inch of his life.
Masamune and two pieces of Genji gear. The shield is actually better than Genji, that's normally a Deep Dungeon find.
Normally Elmdor has Shirahidori as his counter skill, so stealing from him requires either taking a 2% chance over and over or depleting his Brave so he doesn't dodge every damn thing. Not this time! This time he has... Abandon... which doubles his Evade from all sources.
And he's got a better shield than the Genji Shield. And a cloak.
*sigh*
Thankfully, evasion from shields is ignored from directly behind. So I have a fair-to-middlin' chance of nabbing that cloak off his shoulders...
Ramza keeps himself out of trouble while the immune-to-instakills and get-up-from-KO girls handle Celia and Lede.
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Huh. Don't think I've ever seen an Ultima Demon cast Nanoflare before.
Now that I've got his cloak and shield, Elmdor's evasion is back down to reasonable levels. Abandon will only help him from head-on attacks now!
Things already got easier once the assassins were transformed into their Ultima Demon forms. Now they're slain entirely.
Now the enemy damage output can't keep up with my ability to heal, so there's less waiting for the Girls to get up off the flagstones.
More Speed means both more chances to steal and a higher percentage chance to steal.
Getting the rest of Elmdor's gear is a snap.
Stealing his gear cuts his max HP in half, too, so once I've got his stuff I can mop the floor with him no problem.
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Turns out all that practice as a Chemist was the last step Jessica needed to be a Mime. Not that I ever use Mimes. I'm sure they're just as broken as other exploits when used properly.
Down in the catacombs, Elmdor summons a bunch of, uh, goblins from their graves.
...then transforms into Zalera.
Lucavi really like to inflict status ailments! And 80% of my group is immune to status ailments. I don't think I've ever seen Flarega either.
Well, I guess 66% of my party is immune to ailments, since Meliadoul pops in as a Guest. Zalera and I both ignore her, though, and she's content to zap a Goblin with Shiva.
The Goblin who, it must be noted, lacks the Jump stat to climb down off of its own grave.
Zalera manages to land Death Sentence on Ramza!
It doesn't save him, though.
Normally Meliadoul at least has the decency to bring a free Save the Queen knightsword with her. Get out of my sight.
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
So at this point there are exactly two propositions left to finish. One is at Igros, the job didn't open up unti after Limberry, and that's the next fight location. Once I finish off Adrammalech I can wrap that up. The other is one that requires a Bard, so I never bothered with it on account of, uh, not having any male spellcasters in my army.
Ramza is level 51. He's not eligible to go on propositions, so he's probably got fewer JP to his name than the others. He's still managed to master his own super-Squire, Knight, Monk, Geomancer, Lancer, Samurai, and Ninja. That's a pretty typical spread for the guy who can spend most of the game buffing PA and Brave but not MA until the last chapter.
Ramuda (best girl) is level 44. She started as a dedicated caster, but has spent the last several levels in fighting jobs in an attempt to bring up her HP and Speed. (It doesn't hurt that she ate Hampsden way back when). She's mastered Squire, Knight, Monk, Thief, Mediator, Geomancer, Samurai, Ninja, Arithmetician, and Dancer. That said, the only jobs she doesn't have at the maximum job level are Chemist and Archer. She's got all the useful White, Black, Time, and Yin-Yang spells, and more Summons than anyone else.
Alicia is Ramuda but not as good or reliable, level 43. She started as a Time Mage, branched out into other magic, then spent most of the level grind sessions in fighting jobs. Unlike Ramuda, she went back to spellcasting enough to finish the massive JP sinks that are the wizarding jobs. She's mastered Squire, Knight, White Mage, Black Mage, Thief, Oracle, Geomancer, and Arithmetician.
Lavian is level 43. She started as a Time Mage but partway through her wizarding path I realized her Faith is actually pretty bad so I switched her to, yes, fighting jobs. She's mastered Squire, Knight, Monk, Thief, Geomancer, Samurai, Ninja, Arithmetician, and Dancer.
Jessica is level 46, and is the only character from the starting recruitment in Gariland's academy to have made it this far through the game. She's mastered Squire, Chemist, Knight, Monk, Thief, Geomancer, Lancer, Samurai, Ninja, and Dancer. She's the only character eligible to be a Mime, thanks to the time spent mastering Chemist that nobody else bothered with. She's worst at magecraft out of everybody except possibly Ramza, but thanks to JP sharing throughout the game and the occasional odd soul crystal, she can still cast most of the more useful spells in the game. She knows Holy but not Curaga, and Blizzaga but not Flare.
Mustadio, Agrias, and Orlandu are as I found them, except that Agrias jobchanged to Knight for a couple of those propositions I did after the other four girls all had Knight mastered themselves.
In a normal game this is well past the point where I'd go get Beowulf, Reis, and Worker 8, and depending on how well things were going I might have Reis transformed back into a human again. But at this point... why start over training guys? Yeah, I could have all the cool special characters, but I'm really doing fine with the ones I've got. I'll probably just blow straight through Igros, Murond, and the last series of fights with Ramza and The Girls and call it a decent enough run.
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Chapter 4, Battle 8: Igros Castle: The End of Belouve's
Well, at least it's a bird.
Who knew Igros employed so many ninja?
Turns out having all the enemies outspeed my own party means Zalbag, their most available target, is in a spot of bother. If it weren't for his shield managing to catch a couple of hits, Zalbag would have been KOed before anyone on my team got to move.
Ramza does his best to help...
And gets OHKOed by Dycedarg for his trouble.
I do some marginal work to keep Zalbag on his feet. Even with my group up on the platform he still makes a good decoy.
A couple two-handed katana chops, a couple of leaping spear skewers, and a zap of Holy magic finishes the fight. Hey, what happens when we go to phase 2 but Ramza's already KOed?
Let's find out!
Well, at least it's a bird.
Who knew Igros employed so many ninja?
Turns out having all the enemies outspeed my own party means Zalbag, their most available target, is in a spot of bother. If it weren't for his shield managing to catch a couple of hits, Zalbag would have been KOed before anyone on my team got to move.
Ramza does his best to help...
And gets OHKOed by Dycedarg for his trouble.
I do some marginal work to keep Zalbag on his feet. Even with my group up on the platform he still makes a good decoy.
A couple two-handed katana chops, a couple of leaping spear skewers, and a zap of Holy magic finishes the fight. Hey, what happens when we go to phase 2 but Ramza's already KOed?
Let's find out!
- nosimpleway
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- Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:31 pm
Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Turns out he just gets autorevived at 1 HP.
Business as usual.
It's not unusual for Adrammalech to meet a similar fate as Belias, where he's savagely beaten down by a buffed-up party before he gets to move. I couldn't tell you if Holy and high-level Summon magic is part of his usual moveset or something the randomizer pulled up.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: good thing we're basically immortal!
I don't know why Lavian is so ridiculously strong for this hit, since she hit for much less earlier in the fight.
It's enough, though.
- nosimpleway
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Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
Chapter 4, Filler 6 and Battles 9 & 10: The Vatican: Two Popes Per Square Mile
Ramza just walks up to the front gates of the central authority of the power-hungry church and goes "hey guys you know that heretic you're looking for? Totally me, right here."
This ends predictably.
I'm getting to the point near the end of most randomizers where you end up in pretty much the same spot you are in vanilla. In this case my unkillable, unstoppable god-beasts can steamroll through a filler fight like this without a hitch, so there's really not much worth documenting.
Ooh, a Time Mage with Summon magic! How novel! Haven't seen one of those before!
whatever, man.
It doesn't help that so many of the story battles and bosses in the game are "alpha strike and kill them before they use their utter bullshit moves to kill you".
This isn't really possible in this fight, since Vormav has an Excalibur and there's no outspeeding a guy with auto-Haste. He manages to break my one Rubber Costume I totally legitimately won in Bed Desert, but like losing whole characters earlier on, I'm just going to live with it.
Might as well try to nab another Excalibur while I'm here, though. Doesn't work, but good effort.
The fight intro says "Defeat Vormav!" but really any of the Inquisitors will do.
Ramza just walks up to the front gates of the central authority of the power-hungry church and goes "hey guys you know that heretic you're looking for? Totally me, right here."
This ends predictably.
I'm getting to the point near the end of most randomizers where you end up in pretty much the same spot you are in vanilla. In this case my unkillable, unstoppable god-beasts can steamroll through a filler fight like this without a hitch, so there's really not much worth documenting.
Ooh, a Time Mage with Summon magic! How novel! Haven't seen one of those before!
whatever, man.
It doesn't help that so many of the story battles and bosses in the game are "alpha strike and kill them before they use their utter bullshit moves to kill you".
This isn't really possible in this fight, since Vormav has an Excalibur and there's no outspeeding a guy with auto-Haste. He manages to break my one Rubber Costume I totally legitimately won in Bed Desert, but like losing whole characters earlier on, I'm just going to live with it.
Might as well try to nab another Excalibur while I'm here, though. Doesn't work, but good effort.
The fight intro says "Defeat Vormav!" but really any of the Inquisitors will do.
- nosimpleway
- Posts: 4625
- Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:31 pm
Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
In a move of questionable wisdom I replace Ramza's Black Costume with clothes that give something like 30 fewer HP. Look at that raw PA, though!
Vormav uses the Leo stone in his foot to summon some monsters.
And Zombie Zalbag, or Zombag. Normally he comes with Blood Suck, making this fight a pain unless you come in specifically equipped for it, but the randomizer replaced it with plain ol' regular Chivalry. It also gave him a Save the Queen, for auto-Protect.
This slows things down somewhat.
See, even with a frankly absurd natural PA, Ramza can't break 200 damage. He's got Two Swords so he's punching with both hands, but it doesn't even knock Zombag down to critical.
I get to see one of Zombag's moves he never uses in vanilla because he has other better things to do. In this case, he halves Alicia's MP.
Sure thing, chief.
Ramuda's still got enough MP for Flare, and Protect won't help against that.
There were some Dark Behemoths in this fight, but they didn't get to do anything and I ignored that they were there in favor of... well, in favor of an alpha strike to kill the boss.
- MarsDragon
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- Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 6:30 pm
Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
I had completely forgotten FFT even had Ents.
- nosimpleway
- Posts: 4625
- Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:31 pm
Re: We've Heard This Story Before - Let's Play Final Fantasy Tactics!
whoops, almost forgot
If it feels like my characters are pretty far advanced for having done so little level grinding in a game that usually requires rather a lot of that, it's because the randomizer quietly adds a patch to double JP earned for each action taken. So everyone actually is better trained than they would be in vanilla, it's not just the bonus JP from doing all these propositions without getting into 1,000,000,000 random encounters.
Chapter 4, Filler 7 & 8: Orbonne Monastery: It Ends Where It Began
We immediately head down to the lowest levels of the book repository, presumably where Jiffylube found the Virgo stone a while back.
That's a lot of Geomancers, though a few of them skip the magical channeling of the planet's energy into attacks by taking a much more straightforward approach.
Real obliging of you ladies to line up like that.
Ramza and Lavian are in jobs they've already mastered, so I'm really not worried about accruing more JP and spend the fight just stomping a mudhole in these mooks. Tying into the "end it where it began" theme of Orbonne, Ramuda is back to playing Oracle.
Alicia is practicing Summoner. I gotta say, I enjoy the vindication of slapping the enemy around with Shiva and Titan like they've been doing to me the whole game.
Jessica needs like 75 more JP to master Archer, so that's what she's doing. Assuming she can hit anything ever, that means she's mastered every job in the game with a skillset not based on MA.
*teleports behind u*
"Nothing personnel kid"
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