FF8 - RICHARD challenge completed. Wipe count continued:
Wipe 23: Griever draws Death from my Magic list and proceeds to cast it on me. Oops.
Wipe 24: UltiGriever2 double act physicals kill me dead before I can do anything after peerless wears off
Wipe 25: Shockwave Pulsar before I am able to GF Shield with Cerberus
Wipe 26: I finally make it frue Ultimecia, who blows away my Str-J as her second or third move. I GF Shield with Cerberus once against Apocalypse, but am unable to do so the second time it happens. Even Shelled, the attack deals more damage than I have HP
Wipe 27: Make it again to frue Ulti, this time with no offense coming in. Ulti doubles with Hell's Judgement into a base physical for the kill
Wipe 28: Make it to frue Ulti again with Cerberus, but this time, Ulti casts Holy after a couple of Hell's Judgement (where I decide to heal) and kills me with it.
Wipe 29: I get to frue Ulti and use my Hero ASAP. It wears off much faster than I imagine and I die again from a base physical.
The successful run featured a bit of strategizing between myself, CK and Vice President RICHARD. Per RICHARD's advice, I set the speed of the battle back to slowest instead of fastest. Next, I go back to using Brothers as a GF. I also load down Squall with a bunch of trash magic like Firaga, Scans and what not so that Ulti has more magic to random select and blow away instead of hitting more vital junctions. Due to the way the challenge is set up, each of the three main GFs all have some sort of weakness that can't be covered off. However, Brothers' was the easiest to mitigate this battle because Ultimecia rarely uses status and Griever only really does lethal status if you have it in your magic list. So, off I go and shuffle those out of the way onto someone who is already dead before coming into battle (this way they never appear as your allies are picked off). Brothers has an additional benefit in that he is the only GF that gives you enough breathing space to take a Shockwave Pulsar/Apocalypse even when HP-J is gone. With Defend and Shell up, you can effectively quarter magic damage, which is important to note. Lastly, I slap Holy onto Elem-Def because its the only spell that shows up across the entire chain. And with that off we go to...
SQUALL vs. ULTIMECIA
HEAVEN OR HELL
FINAL ROUND
LET'S ROCK
Ulti's first form dies to a 5 hit or more Renzo pretty easily. The important part here is setting up Haste, Shell and Aura and then killing off my allies so they don't get in the way of the challenge.
Griever's tough, and probably the hardest part here because the junction blowing starts and getting an unlucky draw can end an attempt right there. Same strategy applies as before, reapplying the positive status as necessary. Doom can be Elixir'd off, same with Meltdown. Pain can be Remedies. Again, without outright lethal status, Brothers' weakness is a bit easier to handle.
UltiGreiver1 rarely has junction blowing, but the magic power goes up and both Quake and Tornado deal around 2000 damage. She also has a double acting physical that can crit, so this can pile up damage quickly. No change in terms of the damage strategy, but staying relatively healed is always a priority (as the majority of my offense right now is from Aura).
UltiGreiver2...same as above, but has very little HP. She goes down pretty quick.
Frue Ultimecia appears and this time, I take the superior advice of user RICHARD instead of user Laggy and fully heal myself at all times (easily accomplished with X Potions or Elixirs). With Haste, I am able to occasionally get a double and use Renzokuken. I get lucky in that my second (or third) Renzo leads to a Lionheart, which kills. Then it's time for the dreaded SPEECH phase. I use the Hero here to effective gain ground. Ulti eventually draw Apocalypse and I do have to contend with it once. But with Shell and Spr-J (my HP-J was gone by this point), Ultimecia fails to kill me, and I heal myself, double and pretty much cruise to victory.
And that is the end of said challenge. Nevergiveup.jpeg.
GF Rankings:
Probably stuff you shouldn't be too surprised about but basically: Cerberus, Brothers and Carbuncle >>> everyone else. Only these three really have a self sustaining set of abilities, especially in the late game. Everyone else has some gaping problems as a standalone GF but some do get their moments. Rankings...
1. Brothers - Probably the best overall GF. HP, Strength and Spirit along with Defend makes them pretty competent. Defend scumming for example, becomes possible. You can also Defend against big damage (as mentioned above) that would otherwise be not survivable with the others. Having strength and HP means it's got good durability most of the time AND offense too. It's downside is that it's slow and status bait.
2. Carbuncle - Carbuncle is also pretty self sustaining. HP, Vitality and Magic. Doesn't look like much, but Carbuncle also has passive abilities that boost his effectiveness and one of them, is Auto-Reflect. He's also the first GF (other than Siren, but Siren) to get St-Def and will be the only one for a while that has offense (in Magic) too. His weakness towards the end is that his offense gradually gets worse and worse. And with someone constantly blowing at your magic stock, this becomes a bigger hassle then you might think.
3. Cerberus - Blitz cannon. I've had more wipes with Cerberus than with any other GF because he gives you this false sense of security. And then all of a sudden...RANDOM ATTACK THAT IS SOMEWHAT COMPETENT wipe. Both Cerberus and Carbuncle are AP sinks too, but good thing Cactuars are huntable almost right around the corner afterwards. His biggest problem towards the end is lack of durability whatsoever. But Speed and Auto Haste along with strength is just so good. At least he wipes the piss easy bosses without having it take too long.
4. Quezacolt - Honestly, Quezacolt is obsoleted by Carbuncle. But Card Mod is always good and gets you lots of good stuff early and late. He should also be decent in theory (has HP and Vit, also has Mag+ abilities for better offense) though.
5. Ifrit - Ifrit's the first guy with Strength, which is good in the opening stretches of the game. He's also needed for Lionheart because you can't get Pulse Ammo otherwise. And Lionheart became like a core of my strategy towards the end of Disc 3, so yeah sure.
6. Leviathan - He has Supt Mag RF, which is an important branch of magic containing Protect, Shell and most importantly? AURA. Auras were important late to prevent more wipes from wandering into fights at low HP.
7. Siren - Life Mag RF if nothing else. AND she can kill T-Rexaurs initially! So hey, that's something.
8. Diablos - Time Mag RF and St Mag RF are neat. Enc None too, although it takes way too long to get, but it's p.awesome once you do have it.
9. Tonberry - Tonberry had ONE purpose and one purpose only. He prevented me from needing to grind up to level 60 to encounter Adamantoise over level 30. Thanks to the Level up ability. If you think I am joking I am not. Literally dead serious here.
10t. Everyone else sans Doomtrain (so Shiva/Pandemona/Alexander/Bahamut/Eden/Cactuar) - These guys were all pretty much useless starting out. You either had more important things to invest in, or they got obsoleted pretty quickly, or they're just BAD standalone. Had no contributions whatsoever through the entire challenge).
NO RANK. Doomtrain - I was lazy and didn't bother getting 6 Malboro Tentacles. Doomtrain I imagine, probably falls inline with the rest of the people at 10t, but who knows. He might have had some auxiliary use that could propel him above Tonberry!
