Nitori Book Storage 4th Floor (1 reset)
Certainly a better fight, the Archers and Monks are on me quickly and I struggle to keep up even as the Lancers don't do much (albeit, more dangerous than the vanilla knights are!). Once Nitori gets into the picture things go downhill a bit.
Generally, I try to kill the fragile Two Swords Monk as quickly as possible, then hang in while statusing and messing with other enemies until the Lancers show up. Ultimately not too bad.
Rofel - Invited to Hell (2 resets, kinda)
I actually beat Rofel first try with my usual setup. I probably shouldn't have but I'm able to redirect a Meteor onto him along with my Life Drain/Raquel/etc. assault. The problem is I lose a bunch of cool equipment, and when I run into trouble against Kletian I come back and fight him with Maintenance. Not only does this weaken the rest of my setup a fair deal (no ridiculous Raquel damage or Short Charge) but I'm unable to replicate what I did the first time.
It's not that hard a fight, still, since Silence Song rules face against almost everybody. Still, Haste 2 and Slow 2 are mean spells to deal with. I use my own versions to counter, although that works less well than I'd like due to enemy mantles and Rofel's new super-dispel move. Still, silence everyone + try to manage the damage from the stupid jumping Priests + Life Drain Rofel to death works eventually.
Kletian - C'mon! (3 resets)
Only 3-reset fight this playthrough! KLETIAN. I love LFT.
I still hate Haste 2. I wish I had multiple Arnauds in this battle as I want to both Silence the enemy TMs and Kletian and Slow 2 to cancel the Haste. I do the former first. Ninjas die easily enough, or are criticalled, which is just as good. Mantle-using Samurais are more annoying, since they have ITE damage and Another OHKOs with his stupid spear. Arnaud doesn't like this. Hinode is also potentially deadly.
Kletian himself is a super-tank, but once the battle is in a place where the healers can control it (i.e. the TMs are under control at the very least, Slow 2 on the survivors also helps), Life Drain and Raquel beats do him in.
Balk - On top of the human race! (1 reset)
Because the fight doesn't need improvements to be scary. Changes: Chemist has an Angel Ring and shoots ice, monsters have 1-2 more speed and 1 more move. That's... it, basically.
I still lose once, only four PCs and my setup isn't perfect, I eventually get chewed up by Hydra assault.
Retry! Jude gets Rubber Shoes, the mages get White Robes and Angel Rings, Raquel doesn't care about sissy durability tricks. I try to get control of the fight first with an opening Slow 2 on the front clump of enemies, which works wonders. Arnaud then tries to Petrify the Chemist (to avoid the Angel Ring) and run, but Petrify misses despite being a high 70's % chance. Meanwhile, Raquel goes down and one-shots Mr. Dark Behemoth, the healers do their healing and buffing. Jude also goes for charm tactics, and Arnaud starts going for sleep, but both get disrupted by the enemy gunners shooting their allies back to their senses. Raquel spends much of the battle dead until I realise Yulie just needs to wait to jump ahead of her and Raise her straight into turns, and from there, I'm able to kill the Hydra, while the Tiamat falls to a confused (more Arnaud status!) Hyudra's monster skill Triple Flame. Bwahaha. The Chemist I kill twice, and I'm down to Balk, whom I track down, corner, and beat to death. Yay.
Hashmalum - Time for another bloody rampage!Hashy opens with Death Cold. Crap. Fortunately Yulie is all "fuck that shit" and Haste 2 is cast. Arnaud uses Slow 2 to get the man under control, which is good because Melt is painful. So I start attacking him and start taking damage and Raquel OHKOs herself. Arnaud has seen enough of that and casts Foxbird a couple times so I can finish things off. Much better than he was in FFT but my guys spoil him pretty well so it's not a big deal.
Altima - That figure never did belong to a monsterSo she's faster now. For some reason she opens with Ultima on Alma, and Alma now has Short Charge so she gets MBarrier off first. Awesome. Alma continues through the rest of this battle to keep helping out with MBarriers and the occasional timely Wish or Deathspell and is extremely helpful in general.
First priority is getting control of the Demons. I kill one immediately. Alma moves the Ultima on her over to Altima and a Demon, and the Demon unfortunately gets damaged for 225, giving him an Ulmaguest of doom. To make matters worse Altima uses MBARRIER on said demon. Arnaud brings the Slow 2 to stay in control, and eventually I do recover and carve through the rest of the demons. Altima herself, meanwhile, uses MBarrier on another demon (whom I dispel then kill), but mercifully never herself. She also dispels my attempts to Reraise and buff myself, but I keep on doing it when I have spare turns. Eventually, enough Raquel physicals, Quick Attacks, and Life Drains bring her down. Takes longer than it should because she has more HP than she used to by quite a bit, and because she and Raquel have worst zodiac.
Altima - TransgenderedSo now Raquel and Altima have best zodiac. Okay. Unfortunately before I can begin raping him(?) with 999 damage Save-the-Queen beatdowns, I learn that he's invincible. I buff a lot but Altima gets lots of turns and I try to slow him but I can't.
Altima uses those turns to get me on the defensive, the biggest nasty move being Grand Cross which now inflicts a lot more statuses than before. Fortunately Alma exists, and I do have two status healers, even if their status healing isn't complete. Raquel spends much of this battle dead, which is too bad given zodiac concerns, but Arnaud does what's needed while Jude and Yulie keep me alive, first Spell Absorbing Altima twice, then throwing in a couple Life Drains. Finally, Yulie sees that she can do 999 damage with Holy, and does so.
Certainly a much harder fight, Altima got quite a lot of turns and did some scary stuff with them. I'm sure she'll be one bad dude on challenges.
Notes: Final levels ranged from about 38 on the mages to about 44 on the fighters. Jude because he got so many turns, Raquel because she got so many kills.
Hard to pin down an MVP. Yulie's white magic was pretty awesome. Jude was also a good healer with the speed but lacked Yulie's awesome buffs or better revival, and his secondaries typically didn't make up for that. Yulie also picked up Haste 2 later which was pretty badass in a few fights, both as a Slow 2 counter and in its own right. Gut says it's probably her. Counter Flood and Elemental helped chip in. Jude's speed game worked very well in a few fights, at least.
Raquel had all the damage and murdered things very well, she was able to pick up 8 move easily. Squire is sexy now, yay for knight swords and Basic Skill is actually neat. Charge is rape. Samurai worked as a nice option for innate Concentrate, better than setting the ability frankly because hey, innate Two Hands AND innate Concentrate means you can slap on Attack Up and get the heavy damage. A bit of a slow/low mobility class for a fighter granted, but at least it has HP, unlike Ninja.
Arnaud went through periods where he underwhelmed partly because my luck with his status in mid C4 just seemed awful (missed way too many 80+ hits) and also because I'd hamstrung to have nothing but offensive actions (he'd be badass if I just let him learn Haste 2). Still, bad luck happens, so I can't complain too much. However he was certainly the MVP of the final dungeon because Slow 2, Life Drain, Spell Absorb, Silence Song, random Hydra-controlling status, and FOXBIRD all rule. YYM is still a great balance between random-controller and boss-smasher, and Life Drain now unquestionably gets the mantle of best boss-killing move since bosses halve Dark.
LFT rules and such.
