Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

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Got into a discussion about Charge in FFT, and decided to start an Archer SCC to give me more intuition about it.

Dorter: 1 reset
Sand Rat Cellar: 1 reset

The 3 WP crossbow is pretty bad, and I was not particularly good at judging before moving to a square whether my shot would actually be blocked before moving.  I also made equipment errors--went back to buy the better clothing for Dorter (was low on cash before and trying to avoid a potential random in araguay woods).

In sand rat cellar, first attempt Delita and Algus had too much move.  Unequipped battle boots from Delita and Algus so they didn't suicide round 1 and block me from shooting through the door.

Zaland Fort City: 0 resets

Only noting this one cause it was still 0 resets.  Despite a lot of stuff going wrong.  Round 1 carve model causing petrify.  Forgetting that you need 4 jump to get on the wall, which would have been a really nice place to be for an archer but I went in with 3 jump archers.

Barius Hill: 1 reset

A combination of not enough JP yet for arrow guard, and a Knight with battle boots whose 4 move caught me by surprise.

Golgorand: 2 resets

Gafgarion surviving was a surprising problem.  A Time Mage would haste him and let him move out of Charge+5.  A Knight would jump in front of a charged arrow.  I also once again let myself get surprised by knights with battle boots on one of the failed attempts.  Seems like the knights very often have had them in chapter 2.

Gate of Lionel: 1 reset

So the strategy is 7 speed Ramza move-wait move wait open gate with ramza, and then kill Gafgarion with Archers to save ramza.  Failed to kill Gafgarion the first attempt.  Stuff like not being able to hit him under the arch (I do need all four archers to hit him in order to one-round him, and I need charges as well.  And first attempt my archers got spread out in CT too).

6 speed actually worked a bit better than 7 speed--can charge starting from round 1, and Gaffy doubleturns the archers right after the gate opens, letting them all charge on him right after the gate opens.  Pretty much all my gear got broken due to rubber shoes.

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Done with Chapter 2

You know, I remember hearing about people getting Charge+7 on the Archer SCC.  Never felt like I remotely had spare JP for it.  Bought whatever charge I could afford for dorter (mixture of one-of Charge+3, Charge+4, and Charge+5 on each character) and then by the time I was towards the end of the chapter, I got tired of missing and decided concentrate was just a better pickup than a second charge ability.

There have been SCCs where I skipped random encounters, but not this one, as I think I might need level 18 for Riovanes anyway, so it's not like I was unusually low on JP.  Guess the people grinding Charge+7 grinded a little extra for it.

End of Chapter 2, everyone has two charges (usually Charge+3 and Charge+5) Concentrate, Arrow Guard, and Jump+1.

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So the goal of this being to analyze how good charge actually is in vanilla--and unsurprisingly it's been reasonably respectable so far, but that comes with this being chapter 1/2.  Like...Charge+5 is decently often landable, and it's often double damage or close to double damage.

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Chapter 3

Goland Coal City: 1 reset.  I had to rescue this person on a roof, and my archers couldn't shoot that high.  I hope this isn't foreshadowing for a future fight.

(A few fights felt sketchy, and not the fights I was expecting--UBS2 despite having the high ground, and Grog Hill despite having 108 Gems + Windslash bows.  Long fights where there was risk of of going down early, basically).

Anyway no resets in the rest of the chapter until...

Inside Riovanes: 10 resets so far.  2/5 party members including Ramza hit level 18, and I figured that would be enough, but it's feeling like actually no, it's not enough.  I can't find a consistent way to bait him into charging a spell, and it's not even particularly good for me if I do bait that--bow range in this fight is like...3 or 4 usually, and I'm wearing 108 gems for damage so my move is 3, so him charging usually puts him out of range of most of the party.  The best runs are when I can get him to melee physical every round, keeping him in the center of my party, and then at least on the first round I use Charge+5 on him.  But outracing doesn't seem to be happening.  Ramza deals 100 damage round 0, baits him down, dies.  I deal about 500 damage round 1 (600 total).  Then typically two people die, one from the next Velius physical (which OHKOs) and one from just general demon stuff.  So two people alive, who maybe if they were both good combat and could Charge+5 without the demons killing them mid charge would deal about 300, but more realistically are dealing about 200.  600+200 = 800.

Looks like I do need to grind a bit after all, but...I'm not even 100% sure level 18 alone is enough.  Might also want to grind money for gear, though IDK what gear.  I don't have twist headbands but those don't hit a damage point.  Bracer and crossbow options seem unlikely to help.  Maybe equipping for HP so I don't die to two giga flares/dark holies?  I think I have a save file from before I bought spirnt shoes, so that might free up some money too (I thought sprint shoes would be useful here but they don't feel like it).

Feels a bit weird, cause I know I beat this with mediators gamesharked to level 1 like...back in 2002 or something, but I guess guns are long range weapons and bows are pretty short range.

EDIT:

Inside Riovanes: 7 more resets.  Came back with slightly better stats with everyone at level 18, but also a notable strategic change and a bit of luck.  (I had one bad compatibilty archer, ran that archer forward to bodyblock demons, and they actually took three dark holies to kill).

Roof of Riovanes: 3 resets.  So like...yeah, archers can't shoot stuff above them, it's a bit of a problem.  I could only figure out how to shoot with two archers on round 1, even if I move wait, move acted with one of the archers.  I think the strategy I worked out after a bit of trial and error would have eventually worked, but ultimately it didn't matter cause I got lucky with a crit.  Might have been a fight to have one archer with a crossbow but I didn't own any.

EDIT 2:

First four fights of Chapter 4 done.  Fairly uneventful.

But I do have an interesting observation about Charge (which after all was kind of the point of going back to vanilla--trying to dig into how usable vanilla charge was).  The one thing I found interesting is just how often I was landing Charge+7.  Mostly this is the first point in time when all my characters had Charge+7. By the time I had 400 spare JP it was Chapter 3 and enemies were no longer 6 speed so I delayed Charge+7.  But now that I finally have it I was landing it more often than I thought on 7 speed enemies...a knight with throw stone here, a knight with defend there, a yellow chocobo that waited on the same turn my character waited in another fight.  It came up often enough to feel worth noting.  And...often did actually make the difference between not lethal and lethal (136 damage vs 160 at the moment, so an 18% damage boost--helps that it pushes things over a strengthen threshold for 108 gems).

Do I lose any of the first four Chapter 4 fights without it?  No, they were stomps.  Do I win any previous fights with it?  Mmm...I mean I didn't have JP for it in early chapter 1, and would rather get Arrow Guard for Barius Hill.  And it would not have made a difference for the end of chapter boss fights.  Maybe Charge+7 could have prevented the Goland Coal City reset?  Charge+7 might've been nice for killing Chemists.