Forums are back, so time for an extra big helping of Elf-challenge walls of text. Enjoy~
Final Fantasy Dimensions - Improper dancing in the middle of the sewers
With the Imperial Camp cleared, there's a shop upgrade. The Mask and Matoya joined with most of the important defensive equipment and I don't really need new weapons, but L5 spells are cool if sadly not usable by Red Mage. I buy the black stuff. Then a backtrack to get Ifrit:
Cave of Perfervidity: Well what kept me out of this dungeon before was the Icaronycteris and its Binding Attack. Not a problem any more! With Red Shoes (paralysis/confuse) and Sigurd's Armour (curse) I'm immune to a lot of status attacks in this dungeon, as several enemies use those. There's a new lamia-type enemy but this one doesn't use confuse, just curse (and reasonably strong MT damage, good thing I don't care). The most dangerous enemy is probably either the Grenade, which can Self Destruct for about 600, or Flamequines who can do around 400 with Fira, but honestly neither poses much danger and I take the dungeon apart with Dark Knight. Woohoo.
Ifrit: Red Mage with Sylph, zzzz. He can use confuse but Red Shoes say lolnope, otherwise he has offence/durability which may have been slightly better than Baugauven's but he wasn't much anyway and I'm higher-levelled now so who cares.
Beneath Gardenia: A tougher dungeon for sure! Dark Knight has trouble cutting it here so I switch back to Red Mage. Alveolata makes its return from Dusk's chapter, with annoying regen, poison infliction, and a useful Break vulnerability. The real problem enemy though is the Leach Squid, which can hit up to three times each for 300 damage to the back row. Uh if that doesn't ignore row that's just brutal against the front, wow. (I don't find out.) They are reasonably durable and can appear with support and up to two at once. Gross. I mess around with confuse but eventually realise they can be petrified too and that makes them much less bad. Aqua Flans have decent scary water damage (400 or 700 depending on the move) but die very quickly to magic damage (even a Dark Knight Magic Bomb 1 does it). I don't have too much to say about the other enemies but their damage can add up. When I run out of magic I try to muscle through as Dark Knight and do pull it off but some fights can be a bit scary for sure, Squids immune Curse so I basically have to hope for luck with Bash them (confuse-inflicting physical, probably around 50%) or run if they're in a tough enough formation. Alveolata regen can be pierced decently with Strike.
Owner? (8 resets) - Oh no, "Owner?" has betrayed us! This would be less awkward and more effective if they'd given this guy a name. Oh well. He only has 10000 HP which is slightly less than our previous Token Imperial Officer. He's accompanied by two Weresoldiers X, one in the front row and one in the back, who are quite bulky and the front-row one hits reasonably hard. Owner himself has Bio which does about 800 and Sap, legit for sure, but sadly the real problem lies in his status. More on that later.
First of all the support. A Claw from the front-row guy and a Bio is a LOT of damage and puts me back on my heels quite a bit, so confusing the front-row one is useful. Poisoning both also is reasonable, since they have a lot of HP. I'm pretty sure this is the first time all game something has been worth poisoning. Break doesn't work, Tornado does but I'm running Red Mage for speed/HP so no dice there. My general priority is to stay healed, keep the front Weresoldier confused, keep Protect up, poison the Weresoldiers then hit the boss.
Owner can use three status attacks: the first is confuse which is blocked by Red Shoes or the Gold-Spun Robe. The second is silence, which is rarely used as a counter to magic. I am torn about whether to block this; losing the 5 speed from Red Shoes is an interesting tradeoff for using turns on Echo Grasses. I eventually go with Red Shoes because I want as much magic evade as possible. And why is that? Because the third status is MOTHERFUCKING BREAK damn you game. I get my first blocker for it, of course, next chapter. If it lands, I die. He can use it rarely at any time, though it gets more common once he's below half HP. Fortunately it's not too accurate, especially if I equip for as much magic evade as possible (I do). Based on my experience over all the fights it's something like 25-50% against the setup I run. (Probably much higher normally, assuming my juiced mental stats are reducing its rate.) Not much to say about this, there's luck dealing with it for sure.
Since this is another "race against the RNG clock" fight I once again dig up the best magic attack I can get: Dark. Dark is a fusion between Curse (Dark Knight) and Cura which is dead easy to get so I pick that up. It hits notably harder than an -ara but less hard than Deep Freeze. It's shit for MP-efficiency (32 MP instead of 10 for the -aras) but that's okay, Owner isn't too durable and I'm willing to burn resources here. I use a Dry Ether on the winning run.
Odin's Castle: Curse and confuse come out to play here, I block both. Silence from Carmilla Bats is also a concern and blocking all three statuses isn't possible, but obviously physical setups don't fear silence. I use a bit of a mix here as usual. The dungeon isn't precisely easy and I burn through my full stock of 80+ Hi-Potions but I don't have too much to say about it either; no enemy has overwhelming damage or status I can't deal with. There are some cool rewards here like a rod upgrade.
Odin himself will use Zantetsuken on a 5-turn countdown, and it inflicts either HP-1 or instant death. The former can be dealt with by charging Sylph as he uses it, easy-peasy. The latter kills me, and judging from my YouTube research probably kicks in around 1/3 of the time. He has 30000 HP which is uh a lot right now, and I don't really need Odin badly. Leaving this for later.
Underground Fort: Man the empire has bases everywhere. This dungeon has a lot of the same enemies as the Shipyard/Heliogabalus from Dusk's chapter, and some of the same strategies apply when I run Red Mage, e.g. confusing Base Guardians, Weresoldiers X, and Iron Fists; putting Archmages to sleep. Gevaudan has Roar which is annoying, fortunately their paralysis and all the confuse in this dungeon are both blocked by Red Shoes.
But actually the job I end up running for most of here is Summoner. See, between Gevaudans and Raised Ghouls there's some notable fire weakness here, and Ifrit OHKOs both (OHKOing Gevaudans is useful, they appear up to three at a time, with other enemies). Ifrit spam is also quite fast which is nice. Once I burn my MP I switch to Ranger (I have Backliner by now so I use axes from the back row, Eph-style) and it's albe to get the job done too though can have more trouble with some tougher formations. Aim Heart means I still have access to confuse which is nice, though Archmages are more of a problem and I need some luck to punch through their healing.
This brings us to Asmodai, the boss of the chapter!
There's... a lot to say about him. Suffice to say Alba's record of walking over the Four Generals has come to an end. >_<
Asmodai 2 (17 resets) - Okay, let's break this one down. There are two problems with Asmodai which make him probably the toughest fight for the solo so far:
1. You can't actually solo him. Once below half HP he will periodically use Return to Darkness to become invincible. Matoya has to use Third Eye to remove this. (I suppose Matoya could solo him, but as a Dancer with no way to output high damage or heal more than ~700, hahahaha good luck.)
2. He's hard, man. Earthquake does 800+ MT, Upheaval a terrifying 1200+ MT. Dark does 1800+ to a solo target, though it unfocuses. Return to Darkness, the move which activates his invincibility as a side-effect, is yet another MT attack, does similar damage to Earthquake, and adds one of four random statuses: Poison, Debrave, Deprotect, and Deshell. Forsaken is MT confuse and MP damage. He also has physicals and Curse (sets Curse + Sap) which he'll use in double-acts. The entire set is kinda terrifying and this is considerably more damage than the other bosses fought in the Memorist/Dancer chapters which topped out around 900, usually ST.
Anyway on my first run I play carefully as a solo and get up to the ilmit phase. Not much to say here, while tough, standard Red Mage strats of Sylph get the job done. I block both curse and confuse. However the below half HP phase is just nasty, with Dark 2HKOing even my inflated my HP score... and yeah I try to revive Matoya to have her use Third Eye but he's got way too much MT so I have to revive her RIGHT after he takes a turn (Matoya is quite fast; he outspeeds Alba as Red Mage despite her much higher level), and in the meantime I can't use Sylph and I die.
So I come up with these modified rules:
1. Matoya can participate in the battle; however she can not deal damage to Asmodai (accomplished by unequipping her weapon) nor heal Alba. She can heal herself, restore her own MP with Osmose Dance, and use Third Eye.
2. Since Matoya's presence causes Sylph to unfocus, I allow Matoya to use Cure Waltz after Sylph (or later, MT Curaja) is used, to make up for the lost healing. (Cure Waltz is MT healing, restores around 650 or so.)
The problems are legion. They don't really show up until the second half of the fight... the first half isn't EASY and I do have some resets there, but the second is where things get ugly.
-First of all, I learn that Deshell + Upheaval is a OHKO on Matoya. It wouldn't be normally, but she's still at her base level. This makes winning nearly impossible because, as I have already learned, successfully reviving Matoya during the second part of the fight is nearly impossible. The solution is to gain a couple levels with Matoya.
-But even then, things feel kinda hopeless. Something eventually goes wrong, and there are two reaosns for this. One is Deshell in general. Deshell is terrifying. It's only +25% damage but adding that on to Asmodai's already good damage is nasty. Matoya still dies really easily during the second phase, while Alba just takes loads of damage. The other problem is that my healing just isn't good enough. Sylph only restores ~1800 (unfocused, 900), even following it up with Cure Waltz is a difficult pace. And it has a big usability problem in that if Return to Darkness gets used while I'm charging Sylph, RIP me. The solution is a job I have yet to use this playthrough. A job which I'm kinda terrified is actually the best plan.
White Mage.
I lose some speed, and certainly damage due to lower Int. I gain a little HP and a lot of MP due to being able to set HP+20% and MP+20% (no need for secondaries). But I gain Curaja, which does 2600 ST (around half of that MT). I gain Blink, which shuts down two Asmodai physicals (I eventually decide this isn't worth the time to cast, the physicals are too weak). And most importantly I gain Shell, a 25% damage cut that also overwrites Deshell (and is overwritten by it, but we can't have everything).
Strategy is generally as follows: cast Shell whenever reasonably possible (since Asmodai is invincible at the battle's start, two ST castings is the way to go then; later MT, or ST to overwrite Deshell). Curaja, mostly on self only, whenever HP drops below around 1000 or I anticipate a doubleturn. I equip Red Shoes to buff Alba's slow white mage speed as much as possible, leaving me vulnerable to Curse, so I have to heal that when it lands (Matoya gets the curse-blocking accessory). Matoya can defend when at high HP or heal herself with Hi-Potions. Occasionally, especially later in the fight, I'll use MT Curaja -> Cure Waltz from Matoya if Asmodai is starting to outpace Matoya's damage. And of course, using Third Eye (with no weapon) to remove Asmodai's invincibility is a thing. As far as Return to Darkness' status... besides Deshell, I can deal with poison using Antidotes, but despite the fact that poison is no joke this is really only something I can do when time allows as healing is more pressing. I can deal with Deprotect using Protect but often don't because physicals are a small part of Asmodai's offence overall. Debrave I just accept.
Anyway this is definitely a winnable approach but it requires perfect execution for a very long time. White Mage does around 500 with her physical to Asmodai and misses some of the time; he has 23000 HP. (That's despite Asmodai being weak to bows.) F-Abilities provide slightly more damage but not much, and drain my MP much faster. Eventually I decide that rectifying my offence is a thing I should do.
Ranger Level 12 grants Quick Shot, which does 85% normal damage but has a 4x recharge time, so it's basically 3.4x damage per round. It costs 36 MP for four uses, and almost HAS to be used an auto to get its full potential, but careful use of that is certainly possible. It's a huge offence push. So I run White Mage with Aim (no HP+20 or MP+20). By now Alba has hit Level 67 and Matoya has hit Level 51 (despite being 40 when I first reached this boss). On the second try I'm able to execute perfectly and I win, although it's super-hairy and I definitely am worried about dying several times during the second stage. I use two Elixirs.
Dancer chapter complete! Woof, that was tough.
Alba Level 67
Ranger L12
Red Mage L8
Dark Knight L7
Warrior L5
Black Mage L5
Summoner L5
White Mage L1
