Final Fantasy Dimensions - Vata pain
Highwind Tower: Another tough dungeon because they all are. I do this dungeon in multiple runs to restock on potions and save after the cutscenes which occur frequently. Some new randoms, new problems.
Liliths counter with Embrace, which inflicts petrify. I can't immune it. They also use confuse a lot, which causes me to randomly attack... sometimes them, which gives me a nice snake hug. Balrogs use confuse sometimes too. This makes being a Black Mage (for more MP) risky, so I mostly run Red Mage for confuse immunity. Liliths can be OHKOed by ST Fira since snakes hate fire? I dunno. MT Fira just means I eat counter-petrify.
Lesser Demons can inflict silence or sleep. Sleep's annoying, how much depends on who they're with, but usually something will physical me out of it soon enough. Silence means I have to use an Echo Herb and if used when I'm low on health means I can't use Sylph and can get in a lot of trouble. "But Elf, you should just use fighters!" Yeah Monk is kind of an option here with the claws from Ramuh's cave but they take a hell of a beating and I can expect to use like 15+ potions per battle. Anyway Lesser Demons also counter with Curse sometimes which halves my damage. Annoying but at worst means I need to lob one extra spell to win.
Wyverns and Bone Dragons are harder-hitting and a bit bulkier, though Bone Dragons hate fire (so do bats, who return from Ramuh's cave. Fire is good in this dungeon). Bone Dragons use curse on their own turn sometimes. I have some deaths here (especially figuring out Liliths) but it's not toooo bad. The boss is the real problem.
Vata - Unfortunately there's a cutscene before the fight which revives everyone to 1 HP and Barbara to full, so I have to begin each Vata attempt by killing them off. This isn't as bad as it could be because Vata is a softy at full HP, using double physicals which do 120ish to the back (Red Mage has around 1500 HP now, way more than you'd have normally at this point). Slow him, beat him down with -ara spells, Sylph when low on HP. Easy!
Once he loses a third of his HP or so Vata starts getting a bit more serious, using Howling Gale. He'll doubleact, the second move is always a physical. Howling Gale does like 300 and inflicts Sap. Sap drains like 12% of my health over 4 turns or so, not too bad but we're forcing more Sylph now. Vata's got enough HP that MP restoration is a must, I use my Dry Ether during this middle phase of the fight and get ready for the limit phase.
At around 30-33% HP, Vata will start using Buffet (MT damage that also stuns) and Tornado, which is HP-1. Tornado is super-cheesy for a solo. First of all, he still doubleacts with the second action being a physical. He doesn't always do so, but probably at least half the time. Tornado followed by a physical that hits (I am a shield-using red mage) = I die. But wait, it's worse! Sap can be fatal, and can't be cured (short of Dispel which I don't have). If Howling Gale has being used recently, I die, unless I'm right about to get a turn and use a potion (or I was already charging Sylph).
The key of course is to refresh Slow right before entering the limit phase (if not slowed, Vata is faster than me and thus Buffet's stun is extremely dangerous, plus he has more chances to Tornado). I then spam Magic Bomb 2, which costs 16 MP and hits slightly harder than an -ara. (600 damage instead of 550, roughly.) And I pray a lot. Sylph gets used whenever I feel threatened; overzealousness on offence costs me plenty of resets just as cheap Tornado deaths do. After around 10ish resets I win. Chapter complete!
I gain control of Alba. Second versa, same as the first: I switch to Summoner to gain Sylph as a secondary since that's gonna be great again. I leave the shrine, heal up, bemoan my lack of potions, and get on a boat. There's a fixed encounter and... wait, it's actually really quite hard!
Blood Suckers (~5 resets) - They're weak to lightning, and counter it with Constrict which is paralyse. Paralyse means I die. Otherwise, they can use Slow and are significantly faster than me to start with. This gets them lots and lots of turns. They can triple physical which does around 20 per hit to my 200ish HP (400 as a fighter, but that means front row; Dusk made off with my bow). And they're reasonably bulky, needing 4 Sylphs/L1 spells to fall. I get ruined by Constrict, then try to beat them with physicals but always end up damage-spammed to death, and even magic setups often get beaten down. I ultimately retreat to Summoner and just spam Sylph and pray I don't get overwhelmed. Not very elegant or strategic but I'll take it.
Mount Verde: I get a shop at this point, hooray! I buy 30ish potions; should have bought 90 because this dungeon is surprisingly big with just one save in the middle. The randoms here aren't too notable so my usual strategy of spamming MT spells and using Sylph when needed gets the job done until I run out of MP, at which point I switch to physicals with mixed success, then switch to thief when I finally run out of resource (despite not having flee yet, thief is the best job for running away... not because they do it any faster, but because I can steal while I do it). About the only randoms worth mentioning in particular are the Yellow Jelly, which is immune to physicals, and the Megalodoth, which is weirdly tanky for the time, shows up in pairs and hits reasonably hard, so running from them is actually optimum.
After this dungeon I find my new white chocobo location. Yay! I also get Chocobo ASAP this time (I missed the pre-Warship chocobo forests with Dusk), so it actually has a use: at 12 MP it is overpriced, but still hits harder than L1 spells at least.
Mazewood: This dungeon starts with another deceptively tough fixed fight.
Scouts (~3 resets) - Like Blood Suckers, these guys count as bosses and have status immunities. They can use Cura which offsets one of my attacks, or -ara spells which deal like 5-6HKO damage, or weaker physicals. The problem is they're CRAZY fast, like over 2x my speed, and there are two of them. So uh yeah that damage can add up fast. Red Mage for better bulk/speed, then Chocobo -> Sylph most turns, burning almost my entire Red Mage MP on just one fight. I go back out and heal up of course.
This dungeon is pretty tough, and it's mostly due to three specific enemies. One is the Treant, which can use Berserk. A berserked mage is a dead mage. The second is the Mantrap, which can use sleep. Not bad alone, but they buy time for Treants to use berserk, and they appear together. The third, even worse, is the Vampire Thorn. These guys can appear in packs as large as four, and while they're weak to fire, spamming MT fire is NOT gonna cut it here. Once they've taken any damage there's a decent chance they use Drain, which does 100! This not only is significant healing, it's badass damage, 4HKOing me. Multiple ones using Drain = GG. I can put them to sleep and try to overpower them one at a time but it's super-costly and risky.
Past a certain point in the dungeon, though, you get a Slasher (31-power axe). And holy hell, for the first time I'm pretty sure a physical setup is actually OPTIMUM for a section of the solo. See, axes hit weakness on plants, which all the problem enemies in this dungeon are. Those Vampire Thorns which need Sleep + Fire x2 to die, or Sleep + Sylph x3? They die to a single hit from the Slasher; I don't even need to use Strike (the basic physical tech). The others don't fare much better defensively (they die to one hit + one counter, or one crit/Strike), and berserk is no longer a winning play for them. My counters hurt too! The physical setup is relatively less potent against the dungeon's other enemies but whatever they're not the threat. I burn potions fast as with any physical setup but it's worth it. Somewhere in this dungeon I get a creepy old man on my team, he's easier to kill off than Barbara though. Good.
I reach Alfheim, which means -ara spells! Definitely catching up with Dusk reasonably fast; I'm already Level 25.
