Final Fantasy Dimensions - Sol? Sol? SOOOOLLLLLLLL!
Memorist chapter, Dusk again. Like most chapters this begins with a town and a shop which doesn't really have much new stuff.
Ashmonte: The enemies here aren't too notable. Aegir can use Constrict but rarely and with poor accuracy. A couple enemies here can use sleep. Easy dungeon, we hit a save point and...
<Aigis> We'll split up.
<Elecman> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
So uh Sol and Sarah go together and get annihilated. Worse, they have a force fight against two Lancers, who are enemies from the last chapter but are quite capable of destroying Level ~9 PCs. Nope nope nope.
I fight about 8-9 battles until Sol/Sarah hit Level 21, with Dusk shepherding them along. I then make them Red Mages with L1 Summon (where have we seen this before) and they can now reliably survive long enough to get turns against the lancers (originally, the lancers would instant double them and/or OHKO). Confuse is once again the play to win, and Sylph patches up both at once. Sylph OP.
Anyway there's also a Dusk/Aigis section which is a mega-joke because the enemies are weaker than usual (as they were for Sol/Sarah, but yeah). Then we're done.
Hierro Cave: Challenge stall points aside, this dungeon is significantly nastier than the last, starting to look like the later parts of the Dark Knight chapter where enemies hit hard and are just a brutal tax on resources to get through. L2 spells no longer doing a great job.
The most notable enemy here is the Alveolata, which regens around 350 health a turn. Overcoming this with MT is difficult, easier though not trivial with ST. The best solution? Break! Finally buying this spell really feels like it pays off. Actually it's useful against several enemies here... Rock Eaters are elementally neutral, reasonably sturdy, and hit very hard with Smash To Bits (plus they're adorable squirrels), Break takes 'em out too.
Speartongues can inflict Frog; this is annoying, but at least it's inaccurate. Mighty Golems are powerful, bulky, and can confuse... but Mini deals with them. Earthipedes are bulky and can use a damaging (500) Earthquake, and no fatal/transformation status works; Sleep is an option, but just outslugging them and eating the Hi-Potion costs is also an option.
I equip the Headband and Protect Bangle and use appropriate status moves + dragon breaths as Red Mage, then switch to Dragoon when low on MP which is much harder because I lose options and confuse immunity, and do have to run from some fights.
I reach Fabrica. I buy the L5 black magic, althogh this is the first spell level Red Mage can't use, which means we'll see how much value I actually get out of it. But more importantly...
FUCKING. FINALLY.
(Also sleep and silence immunity options, as well as an anti-confuse robe... lots of good stuff. The Gold-Spun Hat can only be used by mage classes, unfortunately.)
Glacial Cave: Anyway, time to get Shiva. With my Gold-Spun Hat firmly in place, Ice Lizards (paralysis spammers can now be safely mocked. The rest of the dungeon... is not trivial mostly because I need to save my MP without leaving a mage job, so I do a lot of bow physicals (should have bought a Flame Bow) and that results in eating through my Hi-Potions at a decent clip. But besides paralysis, no enemy here has overwhelming damage or any especially dangerous tricks; there's curse but that's about it and the enemies who use it (Cursed Silver) are fragile. I use Fire Breath against larger groups and Mini against Ice Golems and otherwise try to conserve MP.
Shiva (1 reset) - Not too bad. Shiva uses silence which is unfortunate since she outspeeds me so it's a nasty tempo move, beyond that she's an awful lot like Styx or Baugauven, 500ish magic damage and decent speed and 12000 HP + an elemental weakness. She'll use Blizzara to heal herself periodically and doing so buffs her damage by like 25% or so, so that adds some oomph, but she's still reasonably maangeable. I win the first time I actually block silence. Fira and Sylph all day long.
Will I actually use Shiva? Who knows! That's not really the point. Ramuh proved useful though, so we'll see. Current level is in the mid 50's.
