Oh, I heard about LFT from a friend on Discord while we were talking about SRPGs in general. She gave it her recommendation.
Made it through a few maps since my last post.
Orbonne 1 (Lancers): Tricky, because the Time Mages will haste up themselves and the Lancers, who hit very hard and were the main reason I had one wipe here trying to get by with my lower-leveled Samurai and Chemist!Mustadio. On the second go I wised up and brought my Archer; judicious use of Charge (love this skill, for real) and a combination of Petrify and Bolt 3 on a few Lancers won the day.
Orbonne 2 (Izlude): My first two tries quickly ended in failure when my Lancer and Ramza fell victim to Izlude and eating Windslash Bow hits while floating, respectively. This is a problem when Ramza is the only one who can revive! After playing around with a few strategies I settled on having everyone hang back, get Hasted, and move along the edge while picking off the enemies as they drew near, starting with a good Charge at the nearby Summoner. Death came in handy here when my Wizard was able to tag VySaika the Knight at 100% odds and run off. In the end I killed all the enemies on the map before dealing with Izlude, who was meanwhile distracted by Phoenix Down'ing people for him to stab to death.
Orbonne 3 (Wiegraf): Well, on the first attempt Lightning Stab and a Geomancer killed two people right off the bat and disabled a third. Then I made a better starting formation, replaced peoples' Wizard Robes with more durable stuff, and won handily. This is a very, very simple battle - don't let Wiegraf get a second action, or else.
After a few propositions, it was time for the journey to Riovanes. First up is Grog Hill. This one was pretty easy. Only a couple of the enemies come at you from the start, and as amusing as the dual-wielding Katana Thief is, he's easily handled by two Threatens. His Brave is so low he always Quick Attacked anyway...at least I was able to steal his Kiyomori.
Yardow Fort City: Several resets were had here. The first one was from Rafa dying before I had a single turn; subsequent attempts foundered on the rocks of the Summoners casting Leviathan (oh god) or Odin (oh god again). Luckily it turned out my Lancer (now an Equip Spear Knight) could OHKO the nearby Summoner with a Jump, despite her being at Level 28(!), and if your team is positioned right she won't cast anything on her first turn. On the winning run, the other enemies bunched up near the entrance in such a way that Monk Ramza, also with Attack Up, could Spin Fist four of them; I also took advantage of the Kiyomori steal to layer Shell on everyone to absorb the other Summoner's Leviathan. After that it was all downhill.
Yuguo Woods was a breather, despite almost everyone getting Slowed at the start followed by both Wizards charging Death spells (one missed). Fortunately Mustadio as a Chemist went before the Slow 2 went off and was able to Seal Evil the closest ghost. I can see how this battle could go south, between the Slows and Stops and Shadow Stitches and Deaths, but I didn't see much offense from the enemies here...the ghosts did really pitiful damage when they weren't Stopping people. I was able to kill one of the Wizards before he could finish charging an Ice3 and after that it was a mop-up.
At this point my team consists of:
Ramza: Went most of the way through Monk and Geomancer, with only Revive and Martial Arts left to pick up (and Counter/Hamedo but I'm not going there just yet). Maybe he'll be a punching Ninja? Or just go back to Squire when C4 happens. I haven't planned his class setup at all.
Knight with Jump/Equip Spear/PA Save/Move-HP Up. Love this dude, he leaps at people for way too much damage and hardly ever dies.
Oracle with White Magic, Equip Shield and Weapon Guard: still needs to go back into Priest to pick up the heavier spells. I managed to poach an Ivory Rod at the start of Chapter 3, briefly making her my best attacker until I gave her more defensive gear.
Time Mage with Black Magic secondary: Blows things up good. Also has Counter Magic for revenge kills and buff shenanigans. He learned Death as a Black Mage and even without Short Charge it's proven very useful sometimes...so now I've unlocked Short Charge and we'll see how awesome that is. He's picked up several Summon Magic abilities from Crystals, but I haven't touched the class all game...maybe next run?
Mediator/Archer/Thief/I don't know what to do with you: He steals! He shoots! He has a Papyrus Plate from poaching that does great! I'm keeping him in Mediator for now until he learns all the Talk Skill commands, and then...I'm not sure. I did just poach a Gastrafitis (!), Yoichi Bow (!!) and Ultimus Bow (!!!) off of some birds had when he accidentally tamed one, and Steal has been pretty useful so far.
Samurai with Magic Attack UP, HP Restore and Move+1. Not sure where to take this gal. Draw Out is becoming a lot stronger now that I have MAU and the Faith Katana, but I don't know what else to add. For the moment her secondary is White Magic, or rather Cure, Cure 2 and Raise because that's all she knows.
Mustadio: A recent addition to the active roster after I wanted to stop using the same six people all the time. He's just now learned everything but Auto-Potion from Chemist, so now he's back to Engineer to learn Leg Aim and because I can get him up to 10 speed with proper equipment which is just delightful. I was going to learn Equip Gun, pop over to Knight for Battle Skill, and make him a gunslinging, armor-breaking Ninja...until it hit me that none of the guns are Two Swords-compatible. I guess that might be a little too powerful, haha.
