Finished the LFT aftergame. It's like normal FFT aftergame with the challenge (and speed) of the fights ratched up. You're under constant pressure and enemies love to sling status at you.
Notable skillsets:
Item- Is item and thus is Godlike. You have a pretty good supply of Elixirs at this point in the game and you will need them.
Battle Skill- I consider it superior to Mighty Sword in the DD overall. Magic Break is absolutely a must have, as most of the later fights have characters who can buff. Not only that, the FFT AI prioritizes buffing, so if you keep slapping someone dangerous with magic break, they will keep rebuffing instead of attacking or reviving. I used this to keep Alma and to a lesser extent Irius in check. Mind/Power are useful for slowing down the offense of certain fighters in a pinch- especially when they go to charge up some nasty spell like Zodiac or Meteor. You really need to have this on a two sword fighter or an archer/gunner for full effect, though.
Math Skill-Instant+hits field. I didn't use this to balance out having Olan in the team, and I missed it.
Draw Out- Masamune, mostly. Instant 100% MT haste and regen? Yay.
About what you expect. Magic really needs calculator/non charge to be good, and that class is slow enough to have limited use in the DD.
PC Notes:
Godlike: Orlandu, Beowulf, Ramza [Olan]
Worth using: Malak
Eh: Meliadoul, Agrias, Reis, Mustadio
Pass: Worker 8, Cloud, Rafa
Worker 8's too slow, Cloud and Rafa are reliant on charge moves. Meliadoul's got the godly stats, but the DD is more about blitzing than anything else. She also hates ruins having a charge time. Agrias tapers off in the DD due to offense and speed woes. Knight is her best class for offense, and that's never a good sign. Reis can break a few obnoxious fights (Zalmo, is useful on END) which is something. Mustadio gets some use out of Math skil--zombie-seal evil and the awesome stats, but that is it.
Malak's use is entirely in taking advantage of his now awesome class and frog bombing. Innate two swords and equip katana makes him a very fast PC, and two swords means that he is an ideal user for Battle Skill. Frog bombing is as good as ever- it disables those fucking Ultima demons Altima has, which is nice. Olan's got the best stats in the games for books, and a metric fuckton more durability than the usual mediator/TM build there. Galaxy stop is borked enough that I chose not to use it outside of END and Nelveska. His physical damage was really high the entire time, the only person who eclipsed him was Cid, and not by much until the Chaos Blade.
Orlandu is offense, Beo is status, Ramza is your sacred slayer. Beo really benefits from the Genji equips being buffed (He loves that extra speed), but mostly, his skillset is a must have.
Equipment recommendations: Bump up Genji helmet and Grand helm's HP, and make the latter block slow. You really, *really* want to block slow and anything that rewards using a helmet over a thief hat is cool. Give Chiraiden a MA+1 boost; it's a pain in the ass to get and it's boring as a weapon as is.
Nelveska: I chose to get the rare equipment. Chicken didn't seem to work right on the Hydras (fuck). Getting to that point was an adventure- I used Galaxy stop here to slow down the birds and summoners. Malak speed broke worker while the rest handled the support. Getting the treaures mostly involved getting lucky and surviving Dark Whisper. I had around 15 resets. I never did use the spear, but the Paladin Shield was useful in the DD.
Rudvich (DELTA):- Huge jump in challenge from the first two floors. Rudvich has excellent support, and they can reach you quickly. I chose to blitz this fight because of the worry about getitng screamed to death by the boss. This strategy went well enough, though I had a couple of resets from letting PC's crystalize.
Zalmo (VALKYRIES):. I had fits with this fight because I charged ahead and let myself get picked off piecemeal. This is a very good fight to hang back and let them come to you one at a time- especially when you can cause trouble by math skilling the hell out of them on the way.
Izlude (BRIDGE):- Total blitz fight. Malak is a must have here- Frog bombing is 100% ITE, and there are some evasion whores on the floor. You want Izzy to jump, as his physical is horrid death and he likes using equip breaks. It wasn't too hard a fight- my reset was from Izzy snapping something I couldn't replace.
Funeral (TIGER):-Needs to be reworked. Bards/Dancers are a joke at this point in the game and mimes can't mimic them now anyway.
Zodiacs (HORROR):-I got very lucky the first time I ran this fight. Hashy decided to keep spamming Torando, even after being MA nuked. The key to this battle is loading up on status protection and just taking them out one at a time. The Zodiacs apply a lot of pressure, but shouldn't overwhelm you if you're careful with healing and status blocking. This was a surprisingly defensive fight (Most of the other late DD fights are straight blitz), and I had a lot of fun with this.
Tiny Ko Army (END):- FUCK. THIS. SHIT.
Wundertwins (END)- The fight where you should be grabbing the Chaos Blade/RoL. It's cake.
Altimas (END): FS Bag- Surprisingly not bad. Altima will always use reanimate as long as someone has to be revived. The zodiac demons are definitely status bait- both Beo and Malak had a field day with status here. Had no real resets here. As I said above, you really should bring dispel here to lock down Alma.
END (Zodiac fight)- Hardest fight in the game by miles. The boss is has a shitload of status, is fast, and can hit you from anywhere. On top of that, you have a couple of fucking teleport 2 Bylboses to make sure life really sucks. You absolutely have to status out some of the support early, and find some way to slow down the bosses. The second Excalibur and Nagarock are nice to get, but aren't worth the pain of stealing unless you are really stubborn. (I did,b ut yeah). You have to disable the Knights early or else they will start snapping gear and augh. I ended up winning this by getting a lucky teleport/steal early to disable the excaliber knight. Midgar zolom hurts, poison frog hurts, zodiac is a breather. Nothing new there. The Tiamats can also reach you early, which can result in horrid death.
Volcano- Straight up luck fight. The Delita knockoff tends to spam Mbarrier (YAY) instead of his damage moves. The big problem is surviving the opening oblivion's edge and the assault from the Behemoth. Cid could OHKO everything but the Delita knockoff which helped a bunch, yay Chaos Blade.
Best designed: Zodiacs, Altimas
Needs fixing: Funeral
Hardest: END
Laggy must die: Tiny Ko Loop.
