End: I'll be breaking this down by the fights encountered.
Enigmatic Eldibis: Wow, this fight really caught me by surprise. I did not expect Eldibis to be THIS hard. The fight ended up taking about 1 hour, 40+ phoenix downs, and a shattered Chantage (but I stole both the others so it's all good). Oh and I was forced to smash an Excalibur, which was ;_; so hard. Eldibis' regen, combined with his crony of super-hard hitting baddies was tough to get through. Partially because I went in with absolutely zero status protection. So getting through his Poison/Frog/Undead/Slow/Darkness/Silence/etc... took far, far too long. I did manage to get both Chiri and Chaos. As well as the Nagrarock and Chantages, but was forced to let the rest go. This is definitely a massive improvement over his previous 'Ehhh kind of hard' status. Quite funny, but with my abyssmal faith and zero status protection, I was overjoyed whenever he decided to cast Zodiac (didn't learn it, not a magic game). I eventually had Meli break his speed down, and was finally able to take him down (together with a poison from Carmine's Koga Knife, seriously, he has some badass Regen). My main mistake was probably not poisoning him much much earlier. All in all, a very good fight. And pretty well balanced. 2 resets were caused by people crystallizing before I could rez them/went undead and weren't cured by Caesar's heal (yeah...I went in with 0 Holy Waters >.<)
Wundertwins: Way, way easier than Eldibis. Even with my low Faith (those dang things hit like trucks), I was fortunate enough to only have Melidoul and Caesar die, and they both were sporting Chantages from the previous fight. Orlandu tore through the opposing females horrendously fast, along with supporting shots from my 87 Faith Gunner, Gaius. Stole the two Chantages, couldn't care less for the other perfumes since I already have 10 Salty Rages, 3 Setiemsons, and a Cherche (which no one uses anyway). Pretty easy fight.
Elder Brother: Friggin wow. I'm very impressed with this fight (and the Altima fight but I haven't quite given that a perfect shot yet). Between Dycedarg and his Robe of Lords, Chaos Blade, Grand Helmet, Maintenance, and ABSURD movement and Adramelk the Destroyer of Worlds....this was hard, this was really, really hard. This was I needed 2 Chantages and 2 Ribbons to actually win hard. I tried this several times with attempting to use Adramelk's Night Sword against him, but that never did work. Neither did slowly wittling him down while keeping Dycedarg as an after-thought, since I could not afford to put Maintenance on everybody (and I'm using mostly extremely rare gear so having it broken.... :S). So eventually, which strategy actually worked surprised me, it relied on Caesar having Punch Arts and Sigma Magic to heal my entire team of all the nasty statuses caused by the starting Undeath (Slow was making Adramelk quadruple turn everyone except Caesar and Orlandu who have Excaliburs). I decided to muscle through 999 healing per turn, while keeping my super-killers (Caesar, Orlandu) and nigh-immortal rezzer (Chantage'd Meliadoul who pulls through with Speed Ruin once again) immune to Charm and Petrify. This was achieved through Ribbons, and a Grand Helmet on Orlandu. I slowly broke down Adramelk's speed with Carmine and Meliadoul, while Gaius took the brunt of Adramelk's attacks for awhile (for some reason, once hasted, he was priority #1 for Adramelk, and with 99 Hi-Ethers and MP Switch....you can imagine). During this time Caesar and Orlandu smashed through Dycedarg timing it just right so he would go down without going into Critical. Once this was done I just had to break Adramelk down to a speed where Scream'd up Caesar could double-turn him, then it was just the very slow process of beating him down 1k HP at a time. He really suffers here since he can't kill more then one person at a time, and Caesar has a Chantage so he will ALWAYS have the chance to hit him for around 2400 damage (I was very lucky with not missing any 60% swings, except one, which was compensated for by Orlandu HE'ing him). This fight I would wager to say is down-right, impossible, without Ribbons and Chantages. You need those insta-rezs. Also...I'm down to, 5 elixirs..from...30+ when I first reached End. All in all this fight was probably easier then Eldibis, in that it required far less time/luck, but significantly more attempts to figure out the AIs behavior. Now to figure out a strategy for 'LOLOLOL REANIMATE'....I mean..Altima.
Tiny Ko Army: This fight, is stupid, on so many levels. It's not difficult in any sense of the word, but requires such an immensely specific set-up, that can take quite a bit of time to set-up, that it just isn't any fun. I mean 11 or something, non-charge, meteor-slinging Time Mages with infinite revive...it only leaves one option, in the form of Math Skill, nothing else is even remotely possible in this fight. It also requires for your people to have the exact amount of Faith to not kill the next person in the chain. To explain what I just said. All the Time Mages have exactly 12 Speed, meaning as long as your Math-skiller has 13 speed, you will win, as long as your zodiacs are decent, and you don't miss many (if not ANY in my case) spells, as well as not getting more then 2-4 damage splits. Basically what I did was bump up Meliadoul's, Gaius', and Clouds Faith to 70+ (Cloud simply because he was high-level and had Calc unlocked, I didn't want to waste more time then necessary). Then turned Meliadoul, Gaius, and Lilith (my ex-Medipriest who has been benched ever since I turned Meli into a staple member of my team) into Mimes. Caesar (Ramza) went in as his regular self, but sporting the Paladin Shield to make sure one person survives the onslaught of Fire/Ice/Thunder, granted Orlandu may have been a better choice, if you get a bad comp with one of the nearby Ko's (Caesar set-up isn't prepared for this since his Physical attack will kill Cloud and a Mime while Orlandu's swordskills aren't Mimed). Set-up was such that casting Preach on a back-row Mime had everyone except Meli (she was last to Mime and was left at 1 HP after Gaius' mimes on previous attempts) then had Cloud cast Bolt/Fire/Ice, and sat back and watched. Eventually (10-20 resets) after, I finally killed each Ko by Meliadoul's mime. It is definitely possible to do this fight with either 5 Math-Skill+Equip Shield 13 speeders, or possibly Summon magic+Teleport+Non-Charge on fast classes. Just in general, forcing high Faith set-ups, while nigh forcing low faith set-ups before...is asinine in my opinion. A very luck based fight, but not too difficult.
End of the End: The Annihilating, All-powerful Altima..times two. Uh-oh. While writing this paragraph I have yet to beat them, and the 1 damage+zodiac+reanimation+grand cross..makes her a very overwhelming enemy (the one that starts way up top and goes first that is, the other one is less of a problem considering my immense amounts of physical damage). My thoughts and experiences so far, show that my only way of winning is take down as many of the demons as possible first off, while having Gaius focus on sniping the 1-damage Altima (he seems to do decent damage, leading me to believe she only takes significant damage from spells, and with my low-as-hell Faith team, he is the only one with the arsenal to take her down, being a gunner with 80 Faith and a Blast Gun). I haven't yet figured out Ajora's role, but between Mbarrier, Ultima, and a
status, I can only assume s/he is mainly an annoyance role. Judging from the Reanimate HP s/he receives, I'd assume s/he doesn't have much more then 500 HP (I hope). Now to just find out if the demons can in fact, turn into crystals, if they are in fact Immortal, then my current strategy is boned. Oh yeah, Caesar is going in with Punch Arts to Stigma Magic away the Grand Cross asap. And yeah, I'm reseting until I get a Grand Cross or Mbarrier (Demon). Return2 is probably my greatest threat, but no way am I decreasing my Brave just to deal with this. Chantage+Ribbon combo on Caesar/Meli is a given, and I'm thinking Genji for armor (Ragnarock+Venetian Shield on Meli, and Chaos Blade+Excalibur on Caesar). I think a Dracula+Thief Hat+Power Sleeve on Orlandu and Twist+Power Sleeve+Vanish Mantle on Carmine along with Martial Arts to maximize damage once I'm sure neither Altima is vulnerable to posion. May try using Meli with Dance to inflict mass chaos in enemy ranks (seriously, those demons are as big of a threat as Ajora and the Altima Twins).
YES! FINALLY! Okay, wow, when I finally figured out what to do...I got it on my first shot, after about 50-60 resets trying stuff that didn't work. Granted, I had to use the cheapest tricks in the book (Math Skill, Draw Out buffs to force Despair2, Martial Arts Ninja). What finally worked, was using Math Skill to zombify all the demons, there really is no other option, it is impossible to deal with several thousand damage+status effects+enemies buffed coming at you every turn. Then I had Meliadoul Regen+Haste everyone with Masamune, Protect+Shell was next. While Orlandu (who has teleport, also, incredibly cheap) and a 7-move Caesar rushed forward to take out as many demons as quickly as possible while depleting the Altimas MP slowly. I did have a few nasty Grand Crosses (one of them hit Orlandu with almost every single status effect) thankfully Caesar was nearby to administer a quick Heal. I was rather lucky that only one of the demons revived, right at the very end, by when I had Ajora hemmed into a corner and both Altimas dead. It was quite funny to get a Reanimate as an Altimas first turn, that resolved right after a mass plague of zombification afflicted on his/her ENTIRE support, essentially taking off 50% of each of their HP, leaving them at OHKO status for Meli (who had equipped a Chirijiaden, she was after all in Samurai class for this fight), Orlandu, Caesar, or Carmine. Gaius mostly just hung out back slinging Dispel Magics and various buffs at my team after Dispelling friggin everything (CT4/5 is just so damn powerful). And that's pretty much how it went, granted it took ages to smash through that MP.
The fight is seemingly made to be nigh impossible, the Altimas have simple too much back-up in the form of the four Ultima Demons, and Ajora is one of the greatest pain in the asses I have ever faced. Without massive zombification this would have been impossible. It also requires an astounding amount of movement from your team to deal with the Altimas teleporting to hell and back constantly, and of course, a LOT of rez capable people (I went in with 4, but 5 is probably best if you can squeeze in mass status removal as well, well actually I had 5, but with Caesar's nuked faith he isn't much of a Wisher). As well as nuff said, crap loads of damage, along with a good deal of innate buffs. With their support, this is the hardest fight I have faced yet. Without it? Probably around Eldibis level hard, though the preparation takes ages, unless you have been using a good deal of Math Skill up to this point, seriously, grinding out two calcs for just two fight, I must be insane.
Closing thoughts on Deep Dungeon: Well, it's been...interesting. I did the 4 END fights after only encountering Algus and Izlude, so my perception of the others may be quite skewed. But all in all, it's definitely very very improved, and not quite as pants-shittingly stupid hard as in FFT v1.3, it keeps a decent level of difficulty up until you hit the End fights. The Wundertwins were far, far below the level of difficulty I was expecting (in fact, I think the Zodiac fight would be better suited here, and Wundertwins in Horror). But Elder Brother, Twin Altima, and Eldibis were a very nice follow-up to the hell of Nelveska. Tiny Ko, was just, stupid. The Tank Goblins on Nogias were also a bit too much, they weren't difficult but so time consuming you were bored by the time you had one down, much less the others. The other rare fights were quite enjoyable, and required a good bit of setting up but weren't all that bad. Reanimate as an ability is in my opinion, way overdone. It's only real counter in all the places encountered, is to use CT4-5 Zombie. Which completely removes it from the playing field, nullifying that aspect of the fight. Raise3 would probably be a better alternative (it doesn't FORCE you to use MS Zombie, and having the chance of say those Ultima Demons reraising from Undead is quite scary). I didn't bother with Rudvich, Barinten, and Zalmo since I was quite sick of DD in general and those fights don't seem to offer anything new after the others. Overall, a fine job. I'll be tackling the Bervenia Volcano super-fight next, and maybe Richard's Revenge, but yet another Reanimate fight is so bland.
-Bervenia Volcano Super-Fight-
First off, this fight is in fact. Horribly designed. In some vainglorious attempt to be hard, it has become almost comical. The MS Zombie trick to avoid Reanimate doesn't work here for 2 reasons, everything moves too god damn fast for me to wait till Gaius moves to cast it (he's my slowest character at 12 speed) and because the damn Mimes are Zombie immune. You are left with simply hoping Cyril never casts it. Or at least doesn't cast it till the Behemoths crystal/boxilize. Which is already not very fun. Irius the Juno Knight isn't a big problem either, he seems to have some kink in his system where he really, really likes using Negation even if it's your innate buffs (Excalibur's haste f.e). Otherwise, you just break through his mana and corner him later on. Not to mention, breakable equipment...is always a bad idea on a boss (so is making the hardest fight in the game built to house extra Chiri/Blood Lance/Paladin Shields).
My strategy on my winning run (yeah, this took quite a few resets) was to take out the Dark Behemoth and one of the nearby Behemoths asap. Then the King and other Behemoth and then work on the mimes, followed by Cyril and Irius. I did get one Reanimate right at the start after I killed the Dark Behemoth, but it wasn't a catastrophe. I did MS Zombie the Behemoths with Gaius just to make sure, then proceeded to slowly rip the mimes a new one having Meli and Caesar act as sacrificial victims when needed. Cyril was quite helpful all-in-all, taking down the King Behemoth and 2 of the mimes for me (as well as not using Oblivion's Edge or Reanimate, seriously, who thought a 999 damage unavoidable attack on all enemies was a good idea?). Once all the mimes were dead, I killed Cyril to keep him at OHKO range. Stole Irius' stuff, killed him as soon as Cyril revived. Stole the Lance, and killed him.
Fight took 10+ attempts, but could have gone into the hundreds without luck. Which is kind of why I so heavily dislike it. It's all on luck. If Cyril uses Oblivion's Edge, reset. If he Reanimates the whole field, reset. And with his rather small ability pool, this happens often. Zodiac isn't much of an issue in this fight for me (low Faith) unless it is mass mimed (happened once, seriously, 5 Zodiacs on 3 people was brutal). Overall, it's overdone, too many strong abilities/items/units in one fight makes it seem like you were trying far too hard. And that is exactly what Bervenia comes off as. Changing some of the units (preferably the Behemoths, they just seem out of place) to Status Inflicting units (Byblos units from the Eldibis fight come to mind). Or the mimes to units that I don't know, are interesting (4 Divine Knights maybe?) and removing Reanimate+Oblivions Edge from the fight would go a long way to making it a more fitting conclusion to the after-game. Granted, by this time you have every ability and item you could possibly want, which is kind of why Maintenance on Irius would make more sense (Chirijiaden+Paladin Shield combo is devastating). But oh well.
Overall Thoughts on the Aftergame
It goes without saying that compared to original FFT, this is a huge improvement. The progression of difficulty could use some tweaking in the Colliery, the second fight in the series is probably the hardest as long as you protect from Galaxy Stop in the last. Otherwise, it goes quite well. Nelveska is harder then Colliery, END fights are harder then Nelveska, and Bervenia is pretty much impossible without luck. The special fights in the DD (at least the ones I did do) are rather fluctuating in difficulty and could perhaps use some tweaking. Larg/Goltana and Zodiacs are the only ones I could really call hard, and even they are pretty easy to beat once you realize what gimmick makes them hard (Galaxy Stop and Status Effects/Magic Damage respectively). In this sense, they are easier then Nelveska, which was probably the most intensive in preparation (aside from Altimas) and probably my second favorite fight (Eldibis being first). It made me deal with several dangerous factors while having a quasi-time limit, and then be thrown against monstrous Hydras if I wanted the items. It also had the proper balance of possible resets for me (coming from SSCCs granted). And for that had some of the best items in the game. Of course, I barely used the Blood Lance, but the Paladin Shield was worn by Orlandu for almost the entirety of DD/Bervenia.
The largest hinge in difficulty progression is definitely the Wundertwins fight. I cannot see anything difficult about it (They use elements, elements can be minimized in power to nothing even in a low Faith team as mine, which should be punished by this fight). While offering the most powerful accessory in FFT and the easiest fight to Move-Find the 3 uber-powerful items in END. Oh yeah, and they are all vulnerable to Negotiate. Speaking of which, Talk Skill is probably one of the most powerful skill sets now. Purely because of Negotiate. The other skills (when facing humans) only turn it into an absolutely marvelous skill set. Why is Negotiate so strong? It isn't effected by the Monster Talk rule. And a huge amount of enemies aren't immune to stop, in fact, very few are. Between Negotiate and Speed Break, you can have control over a fight very easily. Which brings me to the other overpowered ability, Speed Break. Speed Break is too damn strong, way way too damn strong. If it was balanced around 1-handed breaks, I can understand, but add two-swords....and it becomes overpowered. 2x two swords speed breakers can transform the entire field into a field of statues easily.
The only truly glaring problem in the after-game is the overabundance of powerful items. Mainly in the Colliery. The relative ease of obtaining these items (again, relative) somewhat trivializes a lot of the Special Fights in DD which at most offer you additional copies of the items. Which again, can be found by Move-Finding in the DD. Thief Hat's are also still by far and large, the most useful headgear. The only 4 head pieces I used in the entire after-game were Ribbons, Grand Helmets (for extra HP mostly), Thief Hats, and a Twist Headband on Carmine for the ludicrous punch damage. The vast majority of the times, I went with Thief Hats. A similar story with accesories though less drastic. Chantages dominate on Females/Caesar, there is rarely a reason to use ANYTHING else. Since with at least decent growth (and the availability of ribbons) you never need to use a status protection/+PA piece. They also are not that hard to obtain with Tiamat Breeding (I had one when I walked into DD). Making them available during the Eldibis fight (which is very, very hard to steal during) I think would somewhat lessen the severity of their power, considering you can technically make a 4 female+Caesar team, and you can get 5 Chantages easily from Wundertwins...a permanently reviving team is just too much. The other useful accessories are Dracula Mantles (very, very nice and rare enough to not be too much of a problem), Vanish Mantle, and Bracers. Bracers are still the king of physical accessories even at 2 PA. Well aside from Salty Rage but in my predominantly male team they saw little use after Chantages appeared. Feather Mantles saw zero use later on since they no longer offered impregnable defence combined with Abandon (in fact I had either Sunken State or Blade Grasp on for physical fights). So generally, removing some of the equipment from Colliery would go a long way to solving this problem, rebalancing poaches a tiny bit would go even further. Though the new location for the Robe of Lords, is very nice
Finally, I think I'll touch a bit on skill sets, reactions, supports, and movement. More of a list of which are really, really good. Excluding stuff like all the special character sets (including Guts) since those are obviously good, in most situations (except Meliadoul but an AoE triple Speed Break is balls good).
Awesome Skill Sets:
Battle Skill
Talk Skill
Draw Out
Math Skill (If only for being the only workable strategy in 2 (3?) fights)
Throw (Slashers/Giant Axes)
Item (*Best*)
Summon (Didn't really use it at this point but I can see it's worth)
Punch Arts
Ying-Yang Magic (Confuse, Petrify are great)
Dance (Nameless is devastating if you have time before then enemy blitzes you)
Awesome Reactions:
Blade Grasp (*Best* in physical fights)
Counter Magic
HP Restore
Sunken State
Speed Save
Auto-Potion (*Best* in magic fights, even better with low Faith)
Abandon (It's still pretty good)
Awesome Supports:
Two Swords
Short Charge
Throw Item
Concentrate
Martial Arts
Magic AttackUP
DefenseUP
Awesome Movements:
Move+3
Move+2 (It's much easier to have on everyone then say Move+3)
Teleport
Move-Find Item (Just because of Chaos Blade/Robe of Lords)
And so ends my review of the after-game, and pretty much the whole mod. I'll make another list of what I liked and didn't like in general if anyone desires it, but I think I've covered pretty much everything. The list of useful After-game skills/reactions/supports is more-or-less the same as in any other part of the game. Movements, well, move+1 and +2 are your only real options, with +1 edging out for Spellcasters/Tanky-builds while Move+2 is king for Physical damage dealers. Oh yeah, I didn't mention Steal even though it was one of my most used skill sets, because honestly for it's purpose...nothing compares, but if Quick Attack and Steal Heart/Exp suddenly disappeared. I probably wouldn't notice. In closing, thanks for reading. Peace.
