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« on: September 19, 2024, 05:24:35 PM »
Laggy Fantasy Tactics: A Run
That basically sums it up. I'm doing a LFT run because why not, and also i never was able to complete one all the way through (most of them kind of peter out in early to mid C4)
The party so far:
Ramza: is Ramza. Has generally been running Ninja and its prereqs, with a bit of Knight. Will be stopping in Knight to learn Speed Break at some point for later purposes.
Daison: Oracle/White Mage, sometimes dips into Mediator for monster recruitment. Pretty much the go-to for support effects, and has been carried by Move-MP Up himself. Also frequently hits people with sticks. Also grabbed a shitton of geomancer skills from a crystal lately, I may want to invest in Counter Flood.
Charene: Samurai/Monk with Equip Spear. I'm probably not committing enough in either direction but it's fun to have both PA and MA to run off of. Not being restricted to Katanas means that she hits harder than her stats say.
Susan: Wizard/Time Mage/War Criminal. MAU boosted elemental spells are bullshit. Also Frog is a good control option if you need someone just plain removed from battle.
With that out of the way, battle highlights:
Gariland: it's Gariland. You're up against squires and one chemist. A chemist who, in this case, rarely even used potions until he was cornered and being beaten down. lol.
Mandalia Plains: Had one reset because I tried to save Algus' ass and it led to him walking back into the horde of enemies, just to get mulched, on his second turn. Even died to a crit, IIRC. jfc. Second go went cleanly at least, though Ramza ended up doing much of nothing the whole time. Really should have gone for Accumulate rather than Equip Axe, even knowing what I was planning for down the line. Oh and Susan got her triple-kill canceled by the red panther being a cute kitty.
Sweegy Woods: Another rather uneventful fight. Charene'd upgraded to Monk at this point. It showed. She pretty much broke everything's face after a single Accumulate. Algus basically tanked the left two monsters while I had to keep the black mage from nuking everything again. Ramza managed to do something as archer though. He'd rolled low enough on starting JP he'd have to go for another fight as it though.
Dorter 1: you know, I don't think I ever used archer as much as this playthrough. Ignore Height is hilarious here. Also Monk still an unholy force of face-breaking. Daison's gone Oracle which means i now start abusing its Move/MP-Up for more healing. Even if it's pathetically bad right now.
I think it was about this point that I'd set my mind on Ramza going Ninja, while Charene would go Samurai.
Sand Rat Cellar: Three resets. It was really my fault, too, since rather than refactoring my team i instead, uh...kept approaching different approach tactics. There were some easy ones too. This was a fight I largely lost on the prep screen though. Biggest one was assuming with Delita that, since Rat Cellar was in the desert, it would have Sand tiles rather than the mix of Hell Ivy/Pitfall/Carve Model it did have. Also trying to get fancy with the monks instead of just fucking killing them was a mistake, and assuming Guts on Delita would be enough supplemental revival to my Oracle was a mistake. Managed to work it out by leaving Algus (as Knight at that point) to die to the other three knights and archer while I relocated the team from his side to Ramza's and took out the monks. Thief!Ramza with Power Break did generally neuter the knights though. Half the time this fight is a fucker for me. The other half it's...
Thieves' Fort: Thankfully, this one wasn't, and almost as if compensation for the difficulty I had with Cellar of Sand Mouse, this one was almost too easy. Thief!Ramza now had Quick Attack, leading to payoff with my acquisition of Equip Axe all the way back in Mandalia. One of the priests ran out to try and Bolt2 the team, only to get instaganked for 120 with an Axe Quick Attack. Two of the three thieves had also gotten the clever idea to line up right where Susan could just cast her own lightning magic, with Algus actually being useful and shooting the one that wasn't going to die instantly from good zodiac. The map was basically over at that point and the other priest I think had the humiliation of even missing a coinflip Raise.
Lenalia Plateau: ...Poor Miluda could not catch a break here honestly. I swapped Charene to Archer for this, and she took advantage of the ridge on the left. Killed the mages in short order, crippled the knights, it wasn't much of a fight from there.
Archer Is Useful count: 2
Windmill Shed: This fight...holy crap I had no right winning this one on the first try. I'd gone in with a half-cocked strategy that, were I actually thinking, I would have at least gone to fix some JP issues for execution. No, I had to test out my shiny new Ninja Ramza. Against Wiegraf.
I attempted to cripple him with Power Break, only to lose both coinflips and get countered, and Ramza went down to critical. I tried to do a clever bit and time a revive before the attack which I'd *figured* would kill him (a Life Drain from the oracle)...only to then be met with Ramza dodging the spell off of narrow margins and my thoughtfully-timed Raise hitting a living Ramza. I am a tactical genius.
(Ramza got killed right after that, even)
To add more panic to the pile, Delita set up Wish on Ramza. Wish then also proceeded to miss. Thankfully, I'd learned my lesson from Sand Rodents and Charene had Revive. I managed to land Raise on Ramza this time now that he was actually dead, pop Revive on Delita...and then I decided to have Ramza, his turn accelerated by Quick, go for another Power Break on Wiegraf. He landed one of the two hits before dying to another counter, but at least Wiegraf was sitting at something like 4 PA rather than 7.
Mercifully, Susan had obliterated most of the opfor, with both monks and the chocobo down. Unmercifully, Crush Punch procced on Daison. Out of sheer spite, the monks dropped chests when I really needed crystals, and for a good while the fight turned into a horrible loop where Wiegraf was killing Daison immediately after he'd been revived, so there was a whole thing of just...me going back and forth reviving him and hoping to hell I didn't miss the 75% hit rate on that. It broke once Daison managed to get a turn, I got them away, the oracle crystallized which Susan immediately picked up, and I was able to close the fight out from there.
Most of my damage on Wiegraf had, hilariously, been from unleveled jumps from Charene. Also I had MFI'd the Wizard Robe, which means that Susan is set to become even more of an unholy terror.
I could have solved a lot of the early problems from the start, honestly. Had I, last map, decided to instead level Ramza enough to get Concentrate rather than dive right for unlocking Ninja, I could have gone in on Thief and just obliterated Wiegraf's PA from the get-go.
Still, Wiegraf 1 just seems to give me the best fights and this is no exception.
Interlude: I got a dragon. Two resets to remember that the dragon spawns on coming in from the south of Lenalia.
End interlude.
Fort Zeakden: Understanding my mistakes from Fovoham, I'd swapped Ramza in to Archer for this. One of the Black Mages had tried to instagib Ramza with a spell. Ramza had an Ice Bow that was MFI'd from a previous map, and could charge faster than the black mage. Another triple-digit counter-kill for Ramza.
He'd then made his way up to the rooftops. Susan nuked the other mage from her spot, while Ramza took potshots at Algus. This fight was honestly rather uneventful, all things considered, and none of the other knights were killed, just Algus and the two mages.
You know what? I'll take a clean Zeakden run even if I didn't get the chance to MFI anything.
Chapter 1 ended there. Four resets, one due to horrible RNG and the other three due to poor planning. Chapter 2 update will come when I clear that.
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