Well, made a bit of progress. First I gave some dwarves some dynamite, which is always fun.


After a bit of grinding in the new world, it was off to the Earth Cave to get myself a Ruby. I'll be honest, it's pretty nice to not have to worry at all about going out of my way for treasure. There's a few later on that I will want (Ribbon, Bracelets, stuff like that) but none of it is tough to get and none of it is in the Earth Cave. The place itself isn't too hard until the dreaded third floor...but man, is THAT place a bitch! It's the main reason I have been stuck.

Floor 3 is crawling with undead packs that like to stun you. It has Coctrices (sic) that like to petrify you. And it has Wizard packs that just plain murder you (and you can't run). In fact, this was a very common scene:


And truth be told, so was this:

Yeah, that guy? Did you know he has a stunning move? I sure as heck didn't. And you see my HP there, that was ONE HIT from a max of 250-ish HP. I can see how this guy was supposed to be some sort of legit boss type, but he still just dies too easily. And the hard part of this Ruby gathering trip was never the Vampy, it was that you had to go through floor 3 essentially twice.

Eventually, though, I got it out:

...and immediately fed it to a Titan, so I could get a Rod from Sarda, and then go right back in again. It's not as hard though, you only need to go through Floor 3 once.

Here's what I look like now:

It's definitely grind time. Lich has 400 HP and a 40 defense, and since I don't have a Fast spell to stack on the hits for a better chance at a crit, I'm gonna need to add them the old fashioned way. I get 2 more hits at L21 (which will give me an attack of 42, which means every hit will do at least 2 damage), so that should do it, but I'd like to try it sooner than that if I can.

So, I grinded my way up to 18, and figured I'd take a shot at Lich for the hell of it.

...I probably shouldn't have worried so much.

He went down far easier than I expected.

Next up, I have the option between Kary, Ordeals, and the Ice Cave. Ordeals has the Zeus Gauntlet and Heal Staff, two effects that are very helpful but I can get them later. Still, I'll probably give it a shot.

Normally I go Ordeals, Ice Cave, Kary, but except for a Gold Bracer and ProRing there's not a lot up north I need. Then again, Gold bracer and ProRing...

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

slapolakinkaido wrote: I usually try to do the Ice cave first, so I can get the airship, however it's going to be a fuckin bitch with one black belt. Those mages on the 2nd floor will probably RUB you 60 times before you finally make it through. You know, the mages most certainly sucked, but the worst part about the Ice Cave when I did the solo black belt thing was the fucking undead. They're on almost all of the floors and that pale type can paralyze you. You get stunned once and it's over. You just get pummeled while you can't move and there's nothing you can do but watch your character slowly die. It's a problem for all solos, but BB has it harder than most because he can only take out one enemy at a time where a good Black or White Mage can clear an undead field like it's nothing. Normally, I get the airship, class upgrade, then hit the volcano, but I had to essentially reverse that for Solo BB. It helps that the BB gains jack shit from the upgrade, as it made it less a priority. The items in the Castle of Ordeals were still useful, though.

There's also the room with the fixed encounter of stundead you need to go through twice. You can still run from it though. And don't forget the Sorcerers guys, 8 hits for instant death chance AND a stun attack.

I'm not getting class change. Not only is it pointless, it actually makes the BB weaker - his magic defense goes from +4%/level to +1%/level. Gotta love bugs.

I'm not a grinder. I will only level up when I need to. usually in this game, that's before the Marsh Cave, and before going after Chaos.

So, I decided to hit up Ordeals first, mostly to get the Zeus Gauntlet and the Heal Staff. And a tail I'm just plain not gonna turn in. There was a pesky Zombie Dragon in my way. Two or three may have been an issue, but a single one...

...doesn't last long.

I then decided to take on the Volcano. That was a mistake. While I was able to breeze on down to Kary, she's still strong enough to destroy me in 2 hits. So, I decided to go to the dreaded Ice Cave.

Prepared to spend a good amount of resets on this, I surprisingly made it through on my second try. Wizards fell before my Zeus Gauntlet. Mages couldn't RUB me before I blasted them away. Even the dreaded Mind Flayers couldn't seem to touch me. And those undead? Well, every time but one (the one time I died), this happened:

This was a VASTLY different experience from my solo Fighter. He was being slammed left and right in here. Maybe part of it is the BB's natural magic resistance and evade helps him dodge the status attacks. Regardless, Chuk was up to the challenge, and when the Beholder showed up...

...one-hit kill. My luck continued on the return trip out of the Cave, and you know what happens next...


My first stop was to go snag a ProRing. My second was a trip behind the Waterfall. Again, my luck held out and I only met easily-escapable battles. So I got myself a treasure...



...just kidding. Here's the real reason to come back here:

The Ribbon! Plus the Defense sword, which casts Ruse in battle. I think Kary and I need to have another talk.

Here's where I stand.

Chuk is now doing 6 hits and pulling out some end-game Fighter damage against the wandering monsters, and he's gotten pretty tough too.

GPFontaine wrote:

Usa, how does the equipment work with the Blackbelt? Can you wear the ring and ribbon without losing your defense and attack?

Yes, and no. An unarmed blackbelt's attack power is equal to twice his level, and he hits twice as often. An unarmored blackbelt's armor is equal to his level. If you equip anything, you lose these benefits.

However, there's a bug. When you level up with an unarmed blackbelt, it sets your armor rating to your level regardless of what equipment you have. It stays this way until you visit the Armor screen. You keep the benefits of any armor you had on, so you could, in theory, put on a Ribbon, take a level up, and have a high natural armor rating and the benefits of the Ribbon.

It is unlikely I will exploit this, since equipment throughout the game will give me a better armor rating unless I grind like hell.

Syd Lexia wrote:

What does the Ribbon even do in this game? In Final Fantasy II, IV, and V, it was one of the best defense boosts for Mages. Also, do you run away a lot? I never run.

The Ribbon cuts all elemental damage by half, but gives minimal defense. And yeah, I'm running freaking constantly. You really have to when there's only one character, it's the only way to survive, particularly against large groups.

And Dawn of Souls fixed all of the bugs. You do want to class change in it.

Dawn of Souls did change things up. For one thing, the level cap is now 99. You also get a lot more magic. Honestly, though, except for some of the bonus bosses, I found the game to be a whole lot easier.

I bet you thought I forgot about this.

Well, you're right. I totally did. Luckily my sig reminded me of it.

Anyways, as promised last time, I paid a visit to Kary.

Things went better this time.

After that was taken care of, I decided to head to the Water Temple. I tell you, those Ghosts? They're not fun. They slam for about 100 HP a hit, you can't run, and apparently they can stun you. So it took a few tries to get this:

Particularly since I had to walk OUT of the Sea Shrine. I'm really not used to that.
Anyways, one Mirage Tower Lootin' Trip later, I head down to take on Kraken.

His 8-hit attack is killer, but a few uses of the Defense sword and he can't touch you, and he has nothing else. He goes down easy (he's a LOT harder in the Temple of Fiends). I refill the Water Orb and head on out. Then don't play for 2 weeks.

I picked things up right outside the Mirage Tower. I can't warp out to save any treasure in the Sky Castle, but on the other side there's no treasure I really want or need in there, so I ignore it all. Things go great and I'm on my way to...


FUCK

He got an ambush on me too. Well, maybe I can...

...FUCK!

Okay, let's try that again. This time, I manage to dodge WarMech and meet with the Queen of Dragons. This is the first time in a while I've taken her on without a Bane Sword, and the Ribbon cuts the damage on most of her attacks to about 60 damage or so, but it gets really close there at the end.

Still, I prevail.


Here's Chuk as he was when he took down Kraken and Tiamat. This is about the level you would be at if you were playing the game normally. It looks impressive, but keep in mind I am getting 4 times the experience, and running from 20 times the battles. And there isn't any way this will pass muster through the Temple of Fiends.


Here's a picture of the shiny orbs. That gold total isn't a result of collecting treasure or anything (except for the easily-snagged Mirage Tower and Sea Temple stuff), it's just because aside from Tents and Heal Potions, I really have nothing to buy.

I need a montage to train Chuk up a bit more, then I'll give the Temple a try.

I've actually been pretty busy and distracted by other stuff, but I will get to it, probably tonight since I officially got nagged.

UPDATE!

So yeah, I got all grinded up. The grinding didn't take too long, actually, though I didn't dare risk the Eye. I used the Waterfall Cave.


The reason this took so long is because the Temple of Fiends is such a pain in the ass. One random encounter you can't run from, and you're dead. Case in point:

This kind of thing tended to happen a lot. A whole lot of surviving is random chance and hoping you fight enemies that don't whittle away too much life so your Heal potion stock holds out.

The Fiend rematches went pretty well, at least the first two. Lich is just a race to hit him before the NUKE.

That's a one-hit kill, by the way. Kary is also pathetic.


The Water floor, however, is where things get serious. Water Elementals were perhaps the most dangerous random encounters I faced in here.


Kraken can be a serious problem. He can hit...well, about as hard as Chuk can. The Defense sword is a must here. Took a couple tries, but...I got him too


I actually had to face a lot of these guys multiple times. Each run started from the start of the Temple. That's why this took so long and why I put it down and forgot about it and tried again and got frustrated and such.

I didn't go for the Masmune, since it doesn't help the damage output much, and the Air floor is dangerous enough. Makes the trip to Tiamat nice and quick. She likes to pile the magic attacks on, which suits my ribbon-wearer just fine. If she did a physical attack, I'd probably be dead, but it never came up.


And, of course, Chaos himself. Quite simply, it's a damage race. You need to do enough damage to him before he does this:

Because you lose all your attack power, and you have maybe one chance at a lucky crit to finish him before he does this:

And that leads to a lot of this:


However, I picked it up today, made a run, and managed to finally accomplish...

...Chuk was Level 33 when he took Chaos out, and more levels really wouldn't have helped much. All in all the whole thing (except the killer end part) was easier than I expected...when I did this with a Fighter alone I had to push him near 50 to survive Chaos.

Thanks for following and watching, and waiting, and I hope you enjoyed it, or at least found it more educational than a thread about poo.