Final Fantasy Dimensions - The power of Nil is absolute!
So I'm at the final section of the final dungeon. Near the start of it, I get a Hermes Sandals, which are, as you might expect, really badass: Auto-Haste! Sure it's only 150% speed and not 200% but that's still amazing. Ribbon has some definite competition for randoms, I go back and forth. There are some pretty tough randoms here as you might expect.
-Gomory can use Break, so taking them out fast is important if I'm not running Ribbon. If I am they're no threat.
-Great Malboros can use Bad Breath (scary if I don't have a Ribbon), but they're vulnerable to stone. They can also use Tentacle which damages and inflicts Slow, which Ribbon doesn't block (but Hermes Sandals does).
-Pisco Demons can Mind Blast for paralysis, so again no Ribbon makes them scary. They have no status holes but they get 2HKOed.
-Abyss Worms have like 20000 HP and hit pretty hard. They are, however, not totally status immune. Assassinate works! Har.
-Prisoners of Nil can use Death which makes them grade-A assholes. I don't learn if Ribbon can block it or not. They're vulnerable to silence, though nothing else useful: silence is good enough.
-Giants of Nil are bulky and reasonably damaging but even two at once is far less dangerous than most bosses now so whatever, take out other enemies first and cruise.
-Red and Blue Dragons aren't new, technically, but fighting both at once is, and this makes for a nasty fight. Both can do a bit over 2000 damage with their stronger moves... but worse, both can counter for around that much too, so potentially I can face 6000 damage! I do have 7700 HP so I can manage that but it means I have to be very careful when fighting them. Red Jacket can cut the fire damage/counters at least, allowing me to take out the Red first since their counter is always fire, though they can still Bite for 2000 on their own turns.
There are more, those are just some of the ones sticking out in my mind. There are also mini-bosses! These have to be fought.
Electric Image: Is Shango unscaled pretty much. Pommel remains a threat so I do have a Ribbon.
Frozen Image (1 reset): Is Cocytus. I learn the Ribbon doesn't block stop (and die in the process), so I pull out the ol' Tetra Bangle again to keep her ice offence under control. Hermes Sandals might block her Benumb's Stop but I don't feel like chancing a reset to test.
Light Avatar: Is Imperio. Judgement is still a pain but not too much to worry about past that with a Shell Bangle, and fortunately he isn't consectuve with another boss this time.
Dark Avatar: Is Gehenna. Is easy. I run Hermes Sandals here.
Finally, there are two monsters in a box against one of the absolute nastiest random encounters in the game, the Nil Protector, a palette-swap of the Protector which caused me so much grief. They can also be fought as randoms near the end! Run away if that happens.
Nil Protector (1 reset): Nil Protector can triple-act, using physicals for around 1200 (back row), Laser for 30% CHP, or Magic Bomb 3 for about 3000. I've never seen Triple Magic Bomb 3 but uhhh you can see the problem; two Magic Bomb 3's and a physical is already almost fatal (my HP, as noted earlier, is about 7700). So I often have to heal twice between his turns. Fortunately he's pretty slow so I can do that. Shell Bangle reduces the chance of an outright KO and increases the chance I only need to heal once, so I use that one last time.
And that brings me to the final boss!
Elgo (3 resets) - Everything is awful.
He has 130000 HP, a bit more than the previous bosses. For the first half of the fight he isn't too scary, which is to say he roughly 2HKOs me (his best move, Flare + Slice'n'Dice, does 4500; his worst is Holy which does 3400, just enough to heal-lock). He can counter with Slow! Slow would be horrifying. Fortunately Hermes Sandals blocks it, so my accessory choice is locked in. With that, I get slightly more than 2 turns to his 1, which makes him faster than most bosses ignoring my Auto-Haste though not extraordinarily. First half of the fight is a simple hurt-and-heal as a result. Since his 2HKO is low, one Curative Slash should pretty much always patch me up nicely. I learn to Osmostic Slash him to get my MP back shortly before phase 2; the last time I'll use this handy skill.
The second half of the fight are when things get ugly. See, he can now doublecast Holy and Meteor. Combined, these do around 7500; once I'm dropped to double-digits from full HP. Flare is now comboed with elemental Magic Blades (Elgo ripping off my strats) for around 5000 to the back row. His other moves are worse due to being MT: Ultima does 3000, and Pandora's Box only a little over 2000, though the lightning spell it creates can stun and the ice spell inflict Stop... and yes, I do see this land once, so that ends the possibility that Hermes Sandals block it. I guess nothing does! Fortunately, just like Cocytus, the stop doesn't last very long; he gets one turn while I'm stopped only. In theory a Pandora's Box (Stop) followed by Holy/Meteor is completely unavoidable death
However, it gets worse. Not only do I have to heal twice after some of his stronger moves (Holy + Meteor for sure), but he can counter with Gravity (50% CHP). So... yeah I can't actually attack him safely when he's about to get a turn. All I can do is either:
(a) try to wait for when I'm going to tripleturn. Very dicy because if I'm slow on command entry I can pay for this.
(b) if he uses a strong move, heal twice. If he uses a weak move, attack once then heal. If he Gravity-counters the first attack, one heal may no longer be enough, so if I don't think I'm getting a third turn I'll need to use an Elixir. I have 10.
There are no good options; I mostly go with (b). One nice thing about not banking on tripleturns is that when I manage one and I'm at full health, I can defend so that I'll be in better shape next turn.
Thank goodness he has no status besides slow/stop so I don't need a Ribbon. This is probably one of the most difficult fights in terms of sheer execution. I use two Elixirs.
Elgo is then eaten by the power he sought to control, never seen this before! There's a long cutscene. And then mercifully, a save point.
Chaos Elgo - Actually he's easier than human Elgo by quite a bit! Not easy by any means but the first form prepared me for the biggest shit he can throw at me. Chaos Elgo mostly has the same stats as the first form, near as I can tell, except that his defence is a bit higher.
At full HP, Chaos Elgo has:
-Grand Wall is a row-ignoring (IIRC) physical for 3200 or so, or can instead hit twice for a bit under half that.
-Flare, Holy, Meteor. They do what they did in the previous fight, which is a high 3HKO except for Meteor which is just over 4000.
-Pandora's Box. Also does what it did in the previous fight. The rare chance of stop is scary but assuming the duration is unchanged it's manageable.
-Eclipse. Around 2000 damage and supposedly can add Curse. i equip a curse-blocking hat because I'm a cheater and read up on this fight before I did it.
-Dark Flow. Relatively weak damage (1500 or so), but heals him a little. The first time he uses it it wipes out the party instead but the power of friendship revives me; fortunately he uses it again for its real version right after so all my puny 3-digit HP loser friends die instantly.
-Black Hole. MT Dispel. Irrelevant to me! He always doubleacts this with something else so it's not a wasted turn.
-White Hole. 5000 healing and puts self in Protect/Shell. Once used he's in Protect/Shell forever. With Protect up I do about 2000 damage per offensive action, about half
Chaos Elgo has three forms which he shifts between: a neutral form, a dark form, and a light form. The forms vary in physical defence, elemental defence to holy/dark (two elements I can't access so whatever), and some skillset details. Dark Flow and Black Holy are only in the dark form, White Hole is only in the light form. Several moves are used across two or even all three forms, I don't really keep track because it's not too relevant. Anyway, the good news is that shifting forms takes a turn! So that's quite a few wasted no-actions.
The other good news, if you read all the above, is that he can only do 4000 damage at once! Yeah sure that sounded impressive back when I was describing Nil Vata but after Elgo phase 2's 5000-7500 from his best moves this is nothing; most of his moves don't even heal-lock me!
Really the only bad news is that Gravity counters make their return. A Gravity counter followed by a Meteor is still fatal. So I do have to use the same basic strategy as against regular Elgo: attack first, THEN heal. Fortunately, double-healing isn't necessary; one Curative Slash gets me out of Meteor death range. Rather than try to go for super-high execution moves, I just accept a strict 2-1, healing then attacking, over and over.
When I run out of MP, I use Elixirs. This happens pretty often. Chaos Elgo has 200000 HP which means I need around 100 attacks to win, plus 2.5 for every use of White Hole and some more for every use of Dark Flow. That's a lot! I use three Elixirs.
As his HP drops, Chaos Elgo does improve, as is the FFD boss norm, though not that much as far as a solo is concerned. After he loses about a third of his HP, the screen will flash. On his next turn, he'll use 10000 G's, which is MT HP-1. No big. I Curative Slash twice after it because nooo way am I finding out what a Gravity counter does at 1 HP. He can re-use this move hereafter.
After he loses the second third of his HP, the screen flashes again, and his next turn is Big Bang. Big Bang does just under 4000 MT and sets Sap. This is NOT a fun move for a full party and highly encourages you to use Shell/Mighty Guard. But for me and my stupid HP total, it's just another Meteor. Except it's worse, because there's, I eventually notice, a definite lag after he uses it, so i can safely attack 2-3 times before healing. I should also mention that, due to some act of colossal mercy by the game desigers, 10000 G's cures Sap (and maybe dispels some other things for all I know), so there's no danger of a cheap death.
Otherwise as his HP drops he starts acting on the turns he form-shifts, and can double White Hole with an attack as well. But he can't double any actual attacks so his overall offence doesn't really get more dangerous.
It takes a good while and I use three Elixirs, but victory is mine on the first try!
Alba Level 99
Ninja L20
Red Mage L16
Ranger L13
Dark Knight L7
Summoner L7
Warrior L5
Black Mage L5
White Mage L1
I thought about going to Red Mage 20 (for Doublecast Magic Blade) or Ranger 20 (for a powerful offensive F-ability which would outdamage everything I have except Quick Shot, and without Quick Shot's increased counter risk) and if the final boss had walled me harder I might have, but it wasn't necessary.
Move valuable jobs!
1. Red Mage. So yeah this is obvious. Best carrier for most of the game due to great equips (light armour AND mage armour which includes many key statusblockers, shields, rods/bows/swords), solid magical stats without horrid HP or speed like other mages, and a great skillset (status, Protect, -aras are great offence for a long time). Eventually their primary skillset falls off but then there's Magic Blade, which provides an amazing swiss army knife skillset for a physical solo.
2. Summoner. So hey I'd like to put Ninja here, I really would. Ninja is obviously better when it's around. But Sylph is pretty much the only reason solos are viable for like... half the game. It's the best healing until Curative Slash/Restorative Pill (Curaga heals a bit more but is attached to a way worse job). I used it all the way until the pathmerge. The job has some uses otherwise when MT damage is called for but its bad HP/speed are limiting.
3. Ninja. Okay yeah, I've ranted about it before, Ninja is the uber-carrier and cries out for a switch to a physical build to deal with the endgame. Amazing speed, good stats otherwise, innate Dualwield, good innate skillset.
4. Black Mage. Largely inferior to Red Mage (yes, they do more damage; it's not worth the speed/HP hit) until you get Black L5, then it turns out that Stop/Osmose/Tornado are amazing. I really felt the lack of good black magic when raising Alba as a red mage late in the pre-merge.
5. Ranger. So if you can spare the skill slot, and can run a physical build, it turns out that Quick Shot is really good! Best DPS in the game. Otherwise they're fast and have good back row options.
6. Dark Knight. Only really contributes one important thing, but Backliner is pretty darn important for allowing me to use full-powered Curative Slashes in the back row (as well as better offence). Their skillset is junk in a solo.
7. Dragoon. Good stats and the breaths are pretty nice MT on a mage. Jump loses its downside in a solo and becomes the best physical move on the light side.
8. Warrior. Of the early physical jobs, it's the best due to Counter and the ability to use bows and thus be in the back row. Almost never BETTER than magic, but sometimes you run out of MP and this is the best thing to do that doesn't burn through valuable earlygame Elixirs. Outclassed by Dragoon and Ranger pretty fast though.
9. White Mage. Mostly useless due to wretched stats/offence, but it proved essential in the hardest fight in the game because Shell is that great.
Not useful in a solo, but I respect them normally: Monk, Bard, Paladin, Seer, Magus
Not useful in a solo, and questionable normally: Thief, Memorist, Dancer
Most challenging bosses!
Just genuinely nasty:
1. Asmodai 2: No question here. Deshell combined with really high magical offence for the time AND needing to keep another unit alive? He'd probably be the hardest boss for the solo without the invisibility mechanic; with, he was just nuts, especially since my primary strategy relied on pseudo-draining. Made me use the weirdest setup to win.
2. Protector. Dusk's final boss was tougher than the real final boss. Him countering Sylph and Holy hitting super-hard for the time was a brutal combo to overcome.
3. Elgo. That said the real final boss, or at least his first, more human form, was pretty evil too. An extremely difficult fight on execution, and I wasn't going to grind my way out of trouble on this one; insane damage AND gravity counters.
The trio of praying to the RNG:
4. Argy-2. More frustrating than hard, Argy-2's ability to throw out unblockable instant death at any point in the battle wasn't very fun, but it did challenge me to optimise my damage to a large degree.
5. Owner?. Stupid name, but essentially the same problem as Argy-2, as Break was unblockable and fatal. Not as durable at least, also made me optimise his damage.
6. Vata 1. Fortunately no other Vata, or boss in general, was cruel enough to combine Tornado doubleacted with other things. The mercy of this fight was that he had a much lower HP range where he could use the egregious move, and that he could be slowed, but that's not much of a consolation.
Other major worries:
7. Lieutenant. With his Ensigns support he could just output way too much damage. Fortunately he was fought early when grinding was both quick and effective, but I did pretty much have to do that and then find a way to efficiently take down one of his support.
8. Green Keeper: Big regen is not fun for solos, especially when you cast Haste to make it happen more often. I had to optimise a blitz to have a chance here; a rare early fight where Sylph wasn't worth it.
9. Tobikage: More ID cheese, but this time it's actually manageable. Shockingly high damage from a spiritual successor to Wendigo though, it made me use an unusual strategy based around Summon.
10. Styx 2: Lots of offence and necessitated a very specific set of statusblockers. As with Green Keeper, it turns out Haste on a boss is a bad time.
Honourable mentions: Hecatoncheir, Dundoth, Commander (1st), Elder, Revived Asmodai, Cocytus.
Fun times. File was around 56 hours, so probably 70+ in practice. Longer than I really had time for at the end of a busy school year, but the DL is all about poor life decisions.
