Well, I shifted into the red chocobo murder squad over the course of chapter 2, which took a lot of the difficulty out for a good while. Then I remembered how the challenge was supposed to go on the way to Riovanes. In general, enemies with charge cause massive overkill, since really high charge skills show up and get used early (Algus was killing Ramza twice over with charge + 10). Also, I kept running into black mages with bolt 4 in the first save Mustadio fight. They would tag him turn 1, and the fight would be unwinnable.
For a good while, most of my offense came from shock spamming grenades and explosives suiciding in the middle of the enemy group.
Ramza's a Capricorn, so UBS Wiegraf tended to kill him with counter (I think I was monking at the time) then stop my chocobo pile with stasis sword, but eventually I got that to work better without having to go grind.
Yardow made me grind. I went in with most of my team sub 20 and the ninjas tore me to pieces. Pretty much everyone on my squad (red chocobo, trent, minitaurus, flotiball) was weak to one ball or another and would die instantly. I came back with everyone around 25-28 and flotiball replaced with an ahriman and things went better. Trent confused half the enemy squad on turn 1 and the ahriman got a lucky petrify in that gave the chocobo a ninja proof sniping point.
I grabbed the revnant from the next battle to fool around, but it didn't live through the gate to Riovanes. Malak made it his personal mission to hunt it down and it was in no way ready to live through a mace of zeus beat down. As usual, trent and red chocobo did most of the work, though ramza had some fun with carve model.
Velius made me cheat a hair and bring in an extra red chocobo. I tried keeping a flotiball alive to difference him, but it was Velius' one goal in life to hit it with shock before it could even move. After a job change, the fight pretty much went Ramza jumping for ~340, red chocobos meteoring for 160 and 105 (maybe 115, don't remember for sure), minitaurus wasting a turn gathering power, trent confusing half the archaic demons, another jump, and then an elaborate dance trying to get 1 more hit in.
Oh, and Queklain was basically a luck fight. Half the time he'd cast his sleep or petrify move on the first turn, shutting down most of my team.
I haven't gotten around to any great amount of brave/faith manipulation, though my trent has some 75 faith and most everyone else has 30 something. Ramza talks to himself when he's idle, so he's at 90/25.
Goblins and cats were basically worthless on my team due to the status effects not being accurate enough for me to rely on, combined with their lack of offensive options.
I used a red dragon for a good bit, but it was basically red chocobo sans range. I might go breed up another one, at least it could get places and hurt something.
Juravis and company feel like watered down red chocobos, feather bomb could really use a multiplier bump.
Bomb go boom, revive and go boom again was basically the sum of my chapter 1 offense. If I had to kill more than 1 guy, self destruct did the job.
I haven't given skeletons a good look, but the mulitplier bump looks nice.
In theory, ghouls are nice with revive and the ranged attack, but I haven't found one with decent brave, though sleep touch did save my ass a couple times.
Morbols exist, I guess. Haven't seen one outside my recent run in with RICHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD. Not sure I have muc use for a statuser.
Flotiballs are nice with difference, but I'm too aggressive to care about death sentence and look of devil only matters when silence or petrify come up.
I have a minitaurus. He almost never gets to do anything but gather power because he's slow and monster skill earth slash is awkward. Then again, all the bull demon line have awkward monster skills.
Trent is my new lord and savior. I park him next to idler the minitaurus and he blows shit up. If it doesn't blow up, it's probably confused. Haven't gotten a Taiju yet, but I have a feeling that not being able to aim quake a mile away is gonna make me not like them.
In general, I dislike melee or lance range monster skills. Even when they're incredible bullshit like stop bracelet, you're stuck trying to set up the fight for a generally slow and borderline worthless guy to wander up and do something. The dedicated melee monsters just don't seem capable enough to actually make it to melee most of the time. Not compared to some of the crazy artillery around in the form of 5+ range undodgeable attacks on some monsters. That and the ai likes to pull them out when they shouldn't, so them wandering up and throwing a stop bracelet/blaster/circle or the like with no allies around just seems a bit broken.
E: Got my first behemoth. Gigaflare was pretty underwhelming. Needs a little more vertical tolerance, which I had kinda thought during Velius. I guess I'll just breed up a Dark Behemoth and pretend he's a Bomb.
Zalmo 2 really, really didn't like my plague. Difference killed all his mp, then 2 choco meteors finished the job.
Zalera is basically running face first into a brick wall. First turn every time, half my team gets hit by stop before they can even move from the tiny deployment area. Not real sure how I'm gonna pull this off.
