LFT: An FFT mod (The final release is a lie. Download here!)

[Laggy]

I have to second NEB's sentiments on this, actually. For starters, I stuff it pretty often on Ninjas now that MA is no longer the obvious option, and in the various playthroughs that have been streaming I've seen it learned and used in every single one, sometimes on multiple PCs. I wouldn't really have any issue having it going back up to the 400-600 range, especially since Geo doesn't have all that much to learn anyhow.

[Random Consonant]

Windmill Shed, or: Ramza vs. Wiegraf, Round 1, FIGHT!

AI continues to make some bad decisions, though me abusing savestates for random encounters in order to get shinies probably didn't help any (namely MAU for the Wizard), and the fight is brought to a quick and painless end despite Wiegraf's best efforts.

What can I say?  I like shiny.

Fort Zeakden

This actually caused a few resets, partially due to carelessness on my part, partially due to wankery from Algus/Super.  However, after a bit of fiddling with jobs and what not, I managed to eventually pull through with the proven method of having the Wizard kill (almost) everything.  Delita did absolutely nothing over the course of the entire battle, and not because he was dead, either.

Dorter 2: Electric Boogaloo

Compared to Fort Zeakden, this proved to be completely painless.  The TMs proved to be utterly ineffectual and the thieves weren't allowed to live long enough to cause mayhem as a result.  Then again, as I said before, me going crazy on randoms didn't help.

After a brief shopping detour, where, of course, more random encounters are abused...

Araguay Woods

I decide to use my newly minted Bard here for statboosting shenanigans.  Thief with Equip Bow mounts Boco and goes lolicebowsnipesnipe on the goblins, while Agrias and Gafgarini pitch in.  Buttpants sadly spend most of the short battle either confused or dead.

Zirekile Falls, or: Delita are you a party to the plot?

Highlight of the battle was a knight breaking Agrias's helmet.  Also, Ovelia had CHARGE for the battle, but she did not use it.

Whatever city where you need to rescue Musty in

Musty decides that he wants to live and sensibly takes the high ground.  A Wizard tries to be cute and goes to cast Fire3 but she ends her turn in range of my Geomancer who goes lolno and beats her face in.  FFT AI.  The archers take the high ground and prove to be obnoxious, but they mostly focus on Ramza (who is now a Lancer in order to get Defense Up) and are taken out in relatively short order.  The knights, however, have the dreaded Item set as a secondary and one of them has the gall to use X-Potions on himself!  Unfortunately, he also had bad compat with my resident Whoracle.  Luckily, he eventually gets nailed with Stop and the beatings commence.  In the meanwhile, one of the wizards drop a mighty TOAD ROD.

[Tonfa]

Might as well do a little fight-by-fight logging.

Andy regrets meeting Gafgarion for 700 gil

Same ol' brutal Song and Dance. Squidrockin petrifies one Archer off Counterflood, which is much appreciated. Thieves prove to be deadlier foes than I had anticipated here, as I note one getting into a singing Squidrockin's range, see the OHKO damage projection, no big, I can revive...then it gets poached.

Well.

I had a Disco Demon in the reserves, though, so no harm done and Flotiball flies up to the high up Archer and finishes her off to end the fight.

What the hell do goblins have against chocobos anyway

Nameless Dance Hilarity Potential Appreciation Station. I grab a Gobbledygook here for a test drive. Any further fights I decide to MediBard+Dancer+3 monsters style.

Plot Party at Zirekile Falls

Boco+Gobbledygook here. I forget to take into account knight's ranged weapons so I need to dance the revival rumba for a bit here. I am also bitterly disappointed in Gobbledygook, who has terrible melee damage and no utility to speak of. Boco does a fine job of being the wandering healer. He has no damage until Nameless Dance procs Undead, though.

Mustadio Fort City

Ahriman+Squidrockin. Lots of statusy goodness here, and this Squidrockin repeats his predecessors performance of petrifying an Archer off a counterflood. Sadly Guest units seem to have some sort of contract to target confused or charmed enemies whenever able. Ahriman dies to a well placed arrow here, cannot revive due to Reflect sticking after death, and for some asinine reason being undispellable when unit is dead. I shrug and move on.

Bariaus Hill

Flotiball+Squidrockin. Summoners get pretty much fatally disabled by Nameless turn one, and that's mostly game. Lancers are immensely scary against monsters, though, so I have to do a little revival rumba. Flotiball flies around Death Sentencing everything in sight and the fight is over.

Zigolis Swamp

Boco+Flotiball+Squidrockin. Fight takes forever, not really threatening but the Morbol takes something like 15 tries to Invite. Also nabbed a Ghost. Funnily enough I was about to lose by Flotiball in the exact same way I lost the Ahriman, but the guest Ghost stepped in with Revive. After the fight I part ways with the Flotiball anyway, since it's lagging behind in levels badly. A pity, I like the monster.

[superaielman]

Tonfa: Monster eggs take randomly take the level of one person in your party, so odds are you'd have gotten a high leveled one without too much effort.  You can nab one before C2's over anyway at Barius Valley, so it's all good.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Windmill Shed - Ouran High Wiegraf Host Club (Chocobos Are Welcome)

This was really pathetic of me. Three resets, two of them due to me being stupid (the first one, I already logged) and the last one being because WIEGRAF HIT CRUSH PUNCH ID ON MY WIZARD AND MY THIEF~~. The second one was really hilarious, though, I have no idea what the hell I was thinking with skill-less Time Mage Ramza, relying only on Black Magic, and the Geomancer with nothing at all. That led me to a rightfully placed wipe and led me to say "screw it I'm grabbing Attack UP", since the Geomancer was like 70 JP away from getting it anyway (by the way, I'm glad Laggy is putting it back at 600 JP, because Attack UP at 300 JP is amazingly stupid, as you'll see shortly). Two randoms (intended to be just one, but FFT RNG dropped three randoms on me. I reset on the last one before the fight began to head straight to Wiegraf) later, I prepare the party that will kill Wiegraf dead: Time Mage/Wizard Ramza, now sporting Haste/Slow/Stop and the same Black Magic, Wizard/Summoner with Fire Rod and Ifrit (she's almost getting MAU, juuuuuuuuust a little more), Thief Timothy and Lancer Junk. I toss Haste on the Wizard and the Thief as soon as I can, and then things start turning ugly. The Lancer OHKOs basically everything but Wiegraf on the field, the Thief ditto. From there, the sweep was pretty clear, and a Fire casting from the Wizard ends the fight without much fuss.

Fort Zeakden - Algus Sadalfas' Day Off

This is why Attack UP is ugly this early. I feared I'd get resets on this fight due to placing my units poorly at first glance, but positioning ultimately won me the battle very swiftly. Setup was Ramza/Priest-Mediator for revival I knew I would need/Wizard/Lancer Timothy with Attack UP. Ramza managed to get constantly killed, but this proved to be one of the best possible outcomes: none of the enemies would have the sense to target the Priest, who just kept reviving Ramza, who kept getting turns for long enough to drop magical death on the field while the Wizard and Lancer caught up to the front, sweeping everyone who got in their way (seriously, the Lancer was fucking 2HKOing the Knights. I mean what the hell). The backup army came right on time too: as Ramza died one last time and the Priest ran out of MP for Raise, Timothy and Eva now came face to face with Algus, and only a couple worthless Knights were even alive, and way too far away to do anything. Since Algus was already seriously hurt from Ramza's kamikaze assault, the Priest stepped forward, gave words of faith and love to Eva and she proceeded to bitchslap Algus with a Fire, ending the battle for good. Fun stuff.

This concludes C1. Now, for zany adventures with buttpants in the PRESENT.

[metroid composite]

This is ignoring things like Samurai physicals, guns, and swordskills in which is pretty much the only effective support skill boost,

Samurai physicals: Equip Sword or Equip Spear frequently deal more damage, actually.  At, say, start of Chapter 3, I'm assuming 8 PA, 70 brave, making Attack Up 120 damage, Equip Spear 144 damage, and Equip Sword 128 damage with a chance of adding Don't Act.  (Of course, they could also use something to boost their skillset, like MAU, or ghetto MAU (Equip Axe)).

Guns: yes, unless it's an elemental gun (MAU), stone gun (Equip Change), or you're doing gun+Battle Skill (Concentrate).  Though sure: if you're damage-twinking a Romanda Gun, Attack Up+Charge is the way to go.  To be honest, I haven't seen anyone go for "hardcore gun damage unit" in Chapter 2-3; if they're sinking JP into a gun user at that point, it's usually going for, say, Auto-Potion or Talkskill mastery.

Swordskillers: Yes, swordskillers definitely want Attack Up.  Well...ignoring two swords for Chaos Blade's power and Excalibur's haste which actually deals more damage (but is super-endgame only).  I'll be honest, though: I don't want a support to exist just for Swordskillers; I'd rather balance things for generics, and if that makes special characters a bit more tempting, that's fine--most people aren't using them as-is.

It was always a well-used support ability.

At 600 JP I don't think I saw it used ever in the playthroughs Laggy and I did.  In vanilla FFT, I used it on Swordskillers and the Geo SCC and...that might be all, actually.

I stuff it pretty often on Ninjas now that MA is no longer the obvious option

That's fair, although I do expect Ninjas to use Concentrate at least half the time.  Concentrate makes Throw better, Attack Up does not.  Against someone with 25%+ evade (Chapter 2 shields, elf mantles, some front evades) Concentrate deals higher average damage purely due to not being evaded.  Furthermore, with the Ninja vulture-like playstyle, consistency has significant advantages.  If you know your target is going to die, that makes it much safer to run into point blank range.  ...Though sure, Ninjas are happy to switch support skills depending on the fight.  They might also pull out Martial Arts and Equip Sword from time to time, as IIRC those two were also competitive damage-wise (at certain points of the game).



I dunno--as a general rule I feel moving everything cheaper is better UNLESS you get overshadowing going on.  For instance, Teleport at 600 JP?  That really took away from variety in movement abilities.  MAU at 400 JP?  When the only serious magic competition was 800 JP and became worse in the aftergame due to not working with Draw Out or Mathskill, that reduces variety (and as an LFT-specific problem: why would you ever learn Bolt3 before MAU?)  When every character started with enough JP to learn Phoenix Down, and that ability on its own was arguably higher-power than a number of earlygame skillsets, that reduced variety.

Which is to say: I'm not against raising Attack Up's JP cost per-se, but I'd like to see arguments that at its current level its reducing variety.  That you would have an interesting choice between two weaker support abilities if it were more expensive, but with Attack Up so cheap you just get that instead.  Or alternatively that you might go for something else in Geomancer if AU were more expensive, but instead AU becomes the obvious buy.  (The flip side being that, at a glance it looks like Samurai get 3 rather than 2 easily accessible supports to choose from relating to their physical, and similarly for Ninjas).

[Dark Holy Elf]

At, say, start of Chapter 3, I'm assuming 8 PA, 70 brave, making Attack Up 120 damage, Equip Spear 144 damage, and Equip Sword 128 damage with a chance of adding Don't Act.

With 75 Brave, that becomes 160 damage instead (you really need a base PA of 6 to make Attack Up notable, you of all people should know that). Katanas also improve more from this point onwards than swords or spears do (although swords are admittedly close, and have access to Ice Brand strengthening) even before factoring the possibility of further Brave boosting. Also, Attack Up lets you equip the Masamune, which is pretty badass should you snag it; the lance/sword options just aren't as appealing except perhaps that Jav2, which is OPG and a pain to get.

To be honest, I haven't seen anyone go for "hardcore gun damage unit" in Chapter 2-3

I have. Actually I saw all of the setups I mentioned on our most recent playthrough, which is why the change baffled me.

We're both sniping at each other with personal experience here, but I think mine wins: if a bunch of experienced FFT players (which I like to think the Vancouver group is) pick up Attack Up at 600 JP and nobody complains about "wow this is overpriced now", then safe to say it is, if overpriced, not by much. 300 JP is definitely too low on the other hand.

Attack Up has competion in various circumstances, yes. Just... so what? The ability itself is still good and competes just fine. Ninjas want the option of Attack Up. So do Samurais. So do gunners. So do Archers. So do Knights and Geomancers (Two Hands is in a harder-to-access job and costs a shield). So do flippin' Bards.

To me, reducing the JP cost of something is a way of saying "this ability was too expensive in vanilla FFT" and I can't see how you think Attack Up was.

Which is to say: I'm not against raising Attack Up's JP cost per-se, but I'd like to see arguments that at its current level its reducing variety.  That you would have an interesting choice between two weaker support abilities if it were more expensive, but with Attack Up so cheap you just get that instead.

I don't think variety concerns are the only reason to price things at all. If you follow that argument to its conclusion you end up with a lot of abilities which could reasonably cost 0. There is value in placing abilities such that they are worth a time investment; an acknowledgement that these abilities are good. If Teleport were the only movement ability in the game, I'd still recommend keeping it at 4-digit JP. Attack Up is a potent support ability with a variety of applications (Martial Arts is more limited, for instance) on a reasonably easy-to-access class; it should have a higher JP cost to ensure that picking it up isn't entirely trivial.

(The flip side being that, at a glance it looks like Samurai get 3 rather than 2 easily accessible supports to choose from relating to their physical, and similarly for Ninjas)

I'm confused by what you mean by this comment. If you mean that people aren't going to pick up Attack Up for Samurai/Ninja at 600 JP, I can already assure you you're wrong.

[Excal]

I would also like to note that, at least from my perspective, the argument that people would innately want to slap swords on their samurais feels off.  I know that when it was first brought up in this topic my gut reaction was, "You can even do that?  But why?" even as I was reading the relevant concerns.  Even now, reading it still brings up this feeling of, well, of slapping a generic sword on a samurai as being fundamentally wrong.  So, eh.

And yes, I know this means I fail at optimization forever.  I think I'll be able to sleep despite this.

[metroid composite]

I don't think variety concerns are the only reason to price things at all. If you follow that argument to its conclusion you end up with a lot of abilities which could reasonably cost 0. There is value in placing abilities such that they are worth a time investment; an acknowledgement that these abilities are good. If Teleport were the only movement ability in the game, I'd still recommend keeping it at 4-digit JP. Attack Up is a potent support ability with a variety of applications (Martial Arts is more limited, for instance) on a reasonably easy-to-access class; it should have a higher JP cost to ensure that picking it up isn't entirely trivial.

I don't agree that you'd end up with a lot of abilities that could cost 0--you want people to think about what to spend their JP on, the same way that after you learn new abilities you want people to think about which ability to set in which situation.  Equip Change is one of the few exceptions where it's basically not worth using when its first available; I generally won't even learn it at the start of the game.  By comparison, something like move-in-water, if it were 0 JP in a starting class, would be an auto-pickup (for all that it'd be replaced quickly).  Same with, say, Caution or Regnerator.  And certainly no ability within a skillset should cost 0 JP.

I would also like to note that, at least from my perspective, the argument that people would innately want to slap swords on their samurais feels off.  I know that when it was first brought up in this topic my gut reaction was, "You can even do that?  But why?" even as I was reading the relevant concerns.  Even now, reading it still brings up this feeling of, well, of slapping a generic sword on a samurai as being fundamentally wrong.  So, eh.

And yes, I know this means I fail at optimization forever.  I think I'll be able to sleep despite this.

Actually, that's a fair point.  We've used that logic for, say, Move+3's cost.  Yes, you could probably argue M+3 is harder to get than Teleport because Bard/Dancer are much harder to unlock (which is a problem because Teleport is better).  Personally I've only really used M+3 on a dedicated Bard/Dancer that's spending a lot of time in the class anyway.  But...a number of people playing the game were going out of their way to get M+3 on non-Bard/Dancers, so we let things stand at 1200 JP.

EDIT--may as well address this too, though it's more of a tangent at the moment:

With 75 Brave, that becomes 160 damage instead (you really need a base PA of 6 to make Attack Up notable, you of all people should know that). Katanas also improve more from this point onwards than swords or spears do (although swords are admittedly close, and have access to Ice Brand strengthening)

Hm, didn't actually think about which numbers I was using, just grabbed numbers that sounded right for start of Chapter 3.  Throughout Chapter 3, Spears will be pretty consistently 1 WP less than Katanas, which at 70 brave should put them similar: 0.7 * 4/3 = 0.933333333, almost equal once the 1 extra WP is factored back in, but naturally Spears also have range 2.

Brave raising is a bit of a different fish to me.  I'm guessing Martial Arts becomes fairly dominant on a Ninja with 97 brave, for instance.  On the other hand, raising to 97 brave is also a lot more effort than 600 JP.

EDIT 2: Katanas probably don't need the 2 WP jump from 12 to 14 now that swords no longer have the 2 WP jump from 10 to 12.  Ice Brand-Black Robe being an HP drop for higher damage is neat, but it's less appealing now that the WP gap is larger.  Still deals higher damage at 70 brave, but....

[Grefter]

Jumping in as a scrub (which you are going to find is most FFT players compared to you guys), in most cases something other than Attack Up is stronger, where either Two Swords or Concentrate don't apply then I think you will find that most people won't even either think to use them or use them anyway.

At specific points in the game that Equip Sword is going to be better for some classes is just frankly not going to come up to most players.  I would find balancing a skill purely on the highest of the high level play to be a bit short sighted to be honest.

On the other hand, if a skill is the solid best for certain skillsets, well that is going to happen.  It may be 200 JP but it is also a skill from the complete opposite side of the job tree than the gun users in question here and as mc has noted for plenty of the actual physical classes it isn't the optimal answer anyway.  So it is either a sub-optimal pick or something you are picking up on either something you went out of your way to head for straight away or it is a mid to late game pick up from spill over JP which at that point you have the ability to cherry pick abilities pretty precisely.

Dunno if 200 JP is the solution, but I don't see it as being a great need to really boost it.  At 600 JP for me it certainly puts it as a late game pick up because it is A) in a class I find dull as all fuck and consider a late game carrier class and B) just isn't really applicable to the characters that are going to be that deep in the Physical job tree anyway.

So from a scrub's intuitive point of view, 200 is pretty cheap (same cost as JP Up in Vanilla?), but 600 is just a bit much for a relatively lackluster skill.

[Just Another Day]

I don't have much to contribute, really (though I'll note that 73-80 for later-game brave estimates is probably fair), except to note that the total lack of anything to spend Geomancer JP on is pretty germane to the conversation, in my mind.

[metroid composite]

Dunno if 200 JP is the solution

Just to clarify, it's 300 JP right now, not 200 (mostly to match Defence Up and Magic Defence Up--although I'll be blunt that I'd expect it to see more use than either of them).  The feeling between me and Laggy at the time being that 600 was fairly high for something that's...good, but one of several potentially viable options for physical classes (and more expensive than many of the alternatives).  If most of the playerbase is still learning it at 600, though, that's fine.

Side note: I haven't seen much use of Defence Up/Magic Defence Up.  Random Consonant mentioned getting DU, but that's the only PC-side mention I can find in the past 5 pages.  I don't really want to campaign for them to be much cheaper because on-paper they're good support abilities.  Then again, are the low usage numbers out of "they're boring" (a la Lancer) or alternatively are people finding better supports?

[Yakumo]

It always felt to me that FFT just rewarded offense much, much more than defense, so maybe that has something to do with it?  I can't really speak for LFT though.

[Magetastic]

I've often considered using one of them, but it always ends up being a class change to Knight instead. The class just feels like where you're going to go if you ever need defense, since it's a much better option than taking DU and MDU, I find.

[Excal]

Not to mention going Knight doesn't involve as much time in Lancer.  Oracle also doesn't see much use, oddly enough.  Though, I if any of us has MDU, it's me, and so unmemmorable as to have been completely forgotten.

[Tonfa]

Personally found Lancer with DU more fitting to my style than Knight, offensive magic comes up relatively rarely in comparison.

[Archmage]

I used MDU for a short period of time because there wasn't a better ability learned on the character, but at no point did I set it for an extended time as a major part of my strategy. It's a solid ability, but it isn't game-changing and is only going to matter at all in a few fights.

Also, if you think 300 JP for Attack Up is too cheap, and some people think 600 is too much, split the difference at 400?

[Grefter]

Right yes, 300 JP fits a bit better.  It isn't a huge jump but it puts it at a bit more than practically free range (Move+1 range cost there?  Yeah Move+1 is good).  Mirroring the related skills is of course always nice.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

More logs of unexciting adventures.

Trade City Dorter 2 - Gafgarini Is A Better Mage Than Rafa Edition

Laggy and Excal scared me with stories of Dorter 2 being actually a scary little fight due to how significantly improved from the original Archers and Thieves are, and having used both a decent deal, I'm inclined to agree. Yet, this fight went with a minimum of fuss. Setup was Time Mage/Wizard Ramza, Time Mage Junk (he's beelining for Bard at this point), Lancer Timothy and Priest/Mediator Whoeverhernameis. At this point, Ramza already has Haste 2, which is applied ASAP, right after Gafgarion POIZNS HALF THE FIELD (I love this spell). Junk just Hastes shit for JP, although hilariously he was responsible for killing off the front mages with STAFF THWACKS because they had the brilliant idea of charging forward as they began chanting their spelly death. Agrias haxes the thieves with Stop, trivializing their threat forever, and after Ramza and Priest clean up (Priest is buffing the hell out of Faith here), the fight goes smoothly, and the archers even give enough leeway for crystal whoring. Simple.

Araguay Woods - Where We Fight Rubicant's Retarded Demon Children

Very trivial. Setup is Geomancer Alicia (beelining for Dancer), Time Mage/Wizard Ramza, Summoner/Mediator Eva and Oracle/Priest Anton. Eva can basically OHKO the entirety of the field with Shiva, so outslugging them isn't an issue, but I protract the match as much as I can in order to give Alicia the JP she needs out of Geo. Not much happens, goblins explode and Alicia gets Geo L3 (she had a battle to build JP some before this one.

Araguay Woods Random - lol morbols

This one was hilarious because I thought I'd die for sure with the setup I went into. Mediator Junk (having only Quick Strike and Negotiate as notable skills), Summoner Eva, Oracle Anton, Archer Alicia and Priest Watchamacallit. Setup: three Morbols and three green Cubones. The Cubones uniformly 2HKO my party and are faster, and ranged, so I immediately worry, since the first thing they did was murderizing Eva. And Alicia fails against them. However, they gravitate towards Junk and the dead Summoner like flies, and Junk manages to Stop one of them. As the Priest and the Oracle get turns, I begin a strategical reworking: Priest revives Eva, Oracle targets Cure 2 on Eva, who is surrounded by Cubones. This turns out highly convenient, unsurprisingly, particularly seeing how Eva now manages to get turns and OHKO some Morbols, which leaves Alicia with enough room to snipe the remaining Morbols, who were actually pretty horrible and only bothered to drop 5HKO tentacles on me. When the other Cubone leaves his Stopped daze and threatens to kill Eva, Priest charges a Raise 2 on him for a 65% chance of a lolohko. lol ohko succeeds and fight is back into my hands again. A second Cure 2 from Anton is all it takes to end the fight with absolutely no casualties.

Currently, Junk is already a bard. Nameless Song looks broked.

[Random Consonant]

Bariaus Hill

Not a whole lot to say about this one.  Wizard and Samurai set forth and killed shit.  I get careless towards the end and let one of the enemy summoners kill two people, but the battle is pretty much done by that point so it doesn't matter.  Not that this stops Agrias from reviving them.

Zigolis Swamp

No farting pigbear, unfortunately.

Goug Slums

More FFT AI at work.  Frail spellcasters really should not charge forward and charge spells within striking distance of people who can deal nearly twice their HP in damage and can get a turn before said spell goes off.  That said, enemies once again do not live long enough to become troublesome.

Bariaus Valley

TALK SKIIIIIIIIIIIL!!!

*ahem* Anyways, revivers get killed on the first attempt thanks to Death Sentence.  Second attempt sees Agrias's weapon get snapped and things just go downhill from there.  Third time proves to be the charm, though.

Also good god Laggy did Cure4's radius really need to be that huge

Golgarand Execution Site

One reset due to being unable to make headway due to Gafgarini being a Stop whore with Hell Ivy.  Second attempt, Wizard/Ninja/Agrias smash stuff while Ramza/Oracle keep everyone alive.  High point of the battle was Wizard OHKOing Gafgarini with a strengthened MAU Bolt3.  Fitting revenge for constantly getting Stopped last time.

[Tonfa]

Goug Machine City

Ghoul+Morbol+Squidrockin. Did somebody order every status in the book? The battle was won turn one, the rest was picking off the scraps. Highlight was Bad Bracelet hitting seven status on one poor archer.

Bariaus Valley

Ghoul+Morbol+Squidrockin. Switched Charge+1 to Priest due to her mastering Dancer. Agrias tried her best to get killed. However Team Status kept her from succeeding, I don't think any of the PCs even took damage in this fight. Also Flame Whip's MELT proc is hilarious.

Golgorand Execution Site

Ghoul+Morbol+Squidrockin. Okay, so I get most of the field under status lockdown, even though Squidrockin spends most of the time dead. And...oh, status starts wearing off and I'm dead. Second try, I noticed the enemies here carry lightning weapons. WELL THEN, time to boot someone the hell out of the team.

Ghoul+Morbol+Red Panther. Next three-four or so tries are plagued by terrible luck. Lowlights include a try where literally every single non-100% chance goes wrong during the first turn, and a try where a Bad Bracelet targeted at two Knights only prompts "Darkness" and "Guarded".

The next try is just infuriating. Half-hour battle (where I did lose my Ghost), only Gaffy is alive and relevant, critkills my reviver. Reset.

Winning try, I have Ghoul and Morbol under the gate. Gaffy runs at Charge+1 and Night Swords, Ramza Death Sentences the two knights, Charge+1 keeps up healing, Ramza Mimic Daravons one of the knights and eventually Gaffy, while the other one dies. Meanwhile Red Panther heads for the guillotine (Ignore Height!) and charms the pants off the archers. With a little positioning trickery I manage to get off a three-person Bad Bracelet while Ghould Shadow Stitches Time Mages. At this point every enemy was under a debilitating status, so it was just a matter of picking them off one by one. By the time Gaffy woke up I was laying the beatsticks to the last Time Mage, and then Gaffy got a very special performance of Polka Polka for his efforts in the last battle and then got oh so satisfyingly beaten down. No casualties, flawless victory.

Lionel Gate is currently kicking my ass, though.

[Taishyr]

Tonfa: 4 Ghosts teleport to nail aid Ramza and status through the wall!!!!!1

[Tonfa]

...chilling behind the gate with four ghosts is hilarious enough as a concept that I have to give that one some serious thought.

[Taishyr]

THEY CAN TELEPORT ON TOP OF THE WALL AND UH

MOCK THE UNIVERSE WITH THEIR GHOSTINESS.

[Tonfa]

Once, a wise man appeared before mineself in these troubled times and said "Thou shalt mock the universe with thy ghostiness". Took this advice to heart I did, and 'lo! Yea, before the legendary Gafgarini a troupe of ghosts didst appear. They made their master one of their own kin, and yea, Gafgarini didst say this "I didn't sign up for this shit", and curled up in a ball in the corner. A rousing melody was played, and a ghost train didst run amok through the enemy army as the walls were broken down. And so the legends still speak of the ones who mocked the universe with their ghostiness.

Also Count Dracula

Took a few resets, Quek kept grabbing crystals. Anyway, Dauragon C. Beoulve as a Monk, Charge+1 as TM, and Morbol+Bomb+Ghoul. Charge+1 gets killed before really doing anything, Quek runs down, gets punched, tentacled and Shocked via bomb and Ghoul Shadow Stitches the knights. I manage to keep people from being clustered and eventually finish Quek off with a third Shock from the Reraised Bomb just before Charge+1 crystallizes.