Zeromus Returns
-Sounds like another esper nearby! An acolyte on Bur-Omisace tells me of the Condemner, bound in the Stilshrine of Miriam.
-“A terrible wyrm rages near.” Perhaps another of those eight legendary wyrms.
-First, let’s check out the Stilshrine.
-I use the Stone of the Condemner at the Waypoint.
-The Condemner is a shelled, clawed creature. This will be tough – just like Cuchulainn’s room had a persistent damage effect, this room stops me from using magic. This sounds way worse.
-LOL ZEROMUS IS THE CONDEMNER?? He’s been absent from the series since FFIV. FFXII seems to be making a concerted effort to stay away from more common espers. First Mateus, now Zeromus. What’s next? Esper Seymour? Esper Ultimecia?
-He obliterates me. A Quickening takes out the various Dark Lords he summons, but he resummons them.
Some adjustments:
-Reflect
-Half-Dark
-Set-up an item healer with Pheasant Netsuke to boost those item uses
-Tried again, and it was just flat-out too much damage. The adds he summons are level 45. I’m level 35/36. I’ll come back in 10-15 levels. One or both of these would be nice too:
1) Holy weapon or holy magic.
2) A way to deal with Zeromus’s gravity-based attacks. An accessory maybe.
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Hunts: Feral Retriever, Vorpal Bunny, Mindflayer, Bloodwing
-I return to the Rabanastre hunt board. SO MANY NEW HUNTS! Plus a bunch of elite hunts from Montblanc, but I won’t worry about those just yet.
-First, a Feral Retriever. It’s been attacking pilgrims near the Paramina Rift.
-Pretty straight-forward fight. He tries to petrify me, but we kill him first.
-Got a Knight’s Monograph! Lets me get rare items from giants and insects. Still not sure why I get these. Usually, bazaar goods pop up because I sell certain loot, but the monographs seem unrelated to loot I sell. They’re just sometimes THERE when I go to a vendor. Maybe it’s time-locked, or kill-based, or something like that.
-Next up is the hunt for a Vorpal Bunny, a rare creature used in a ceremony by new viera salve-makers.
-This little guy is FAST. And annoying. He runs and runs, has a ton of health. I try immobilizing him, stopping him, nothing. So I slam him with Quickenings for 17k and finish him with a couple of melee hits.
-I return the dreamhare’s tail. This should allow one of the viera to become a salve-maker. A change in her path – she was injured as one of the viera guards.
-Next hunt, the Mindflayer in the caves near Jahara. It’s deceptively tough. Goes down quickly, but near death it heals a bunch, drains a bunch of health, and lasts a while.
Not an especially classic-looking Mindflayer.
-After killing the Mindflayer, Geomancer Yugelu hints at a powerful monster deep in the mines, but says I’m not ready yet.
“You first need gather about you the protection of many great beings.”
This must mean espers. I’ll bet once I kill a certain number of espers he’ll tell me about the monster.
-Someone else in the garif village talked about Catoblepas as the greatest hunt for the garif. I’ll bet that’s who Geomancer Yugelu is talking about.
-Next up is a Bloodwing. A prisoner escaped from Nalbina Dungeon, and this Bloodwing killed his friend. I’m to take revenge.
-Getting there is nasty. The Barheim Passage is full of tough undead. I’m now on-level with them in the mid-high 30s. Still gotta be careful to not pull too many monsters.
-Bloodwing herself isn’t too bad. The toughest part is that she’s surrounded by skeletons and wights.
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Esper: Zalera
-WHOA SURPRISE BOSS
-IT’S A GRIM REAPER AND HER BF, THEY’RE SO COOL
-The fight is timed. Yikes. Zalera is their name.
-They summon adds, but those aren’t too bad.
-Arg! Disable. Equipping Black Belts.
-After a certain point, she just starts spamming “Kill.” I’m thankfully immune to Level 5 Death. Same with Prime Level Death.
-COME ON COME ON
-HAHAHAHAHAHA YESSSSSS – With like 5 seconds to go or something. Hot damn.
-Who to give Zalera to?
Vaan: +435 HP, some new swords
Balthier: nothing
Fran: Traveler
Basch: nothing
Ashe: Steal, Poach
Penelo: Ether Lore 3
Nothing too exciting. Gonna give it to Penelo.
-Zalera was created in opposition to Emet-Selch, Angel of Truth and scion of light. Originally tasked to judge people when they died, but got tainted by everyone who raged against the gods. Held a shamaness who served the gods hostage and rebelled against his creators.
I assume Zalera is the skully-dude with the shamaness in his arms.
-There’s an exit west of Zalera’s room…
-NO WAY! This hooks up with the Garamsythe Waterways. This is some awesome, Dark Souls-esque connection.
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Esper: Cuchulainn
-While I’m here, going to take another crack at Cuchulainn.
-Back before the boss room. I don’t remember clearly what he does – I think disable and poison? Going to pop on Black Belts.
-I remember he has adds I want to kill, so an early Quickening.
-Died the first time. Slow was a huge problem for me, along with the titanic poison/sap damage.
OH MY GOD
OH MY GOOOOOFDUSFHDHIOFNFS I DID IT
SECOND TRY HOLFY DSUINSHIT
HE’S AN ESPER I DID IT ID DI TI
THAT WAS BY FAR THE HARDEST FIGHT IN THE GAME FOR ME SO FAR AND I DID IT
I HONESTLY DIDN’T THINK I WAS GONNA BE ABLE TO ONCE I SAW HOW LITTLE DAMAGE HE TOOK IN LAST STAND BUT ID ID IT HAHAAHAH
Here are the gambits I used:
Pre-buffed with Regen, Bubble, Protect, and Shell on everyone. Used a Dispel Mote immediately to take off Cuchulainn’s protect and shell.
My main strategy was to play super-defensively, having two party members using Cura pretty frequently. Since the group damage was so high I stayed away from Curaga. I used a quickening early to take out the Foobar pudding adds and killed the few that came out quickly.
During the fight, I usually kept on Tourmeline Rings to protect against poison and sap. As soon as I saw him start to cast Disablega, I swapped Black Belts onto my characters, and after the spell went off swapped back to Tourmeline Rings.
The final section of the fight was the hardest part. He took so little damage! I still had a Mist Charge available to me at that time, and got lucky. Was able to chain it into a lot more to bring him down to a sliver. And even that sliver took forever.
Y’all. I’m proud/ashamed of the squeaky victory noise I made after what must have been like 20-25 minutes of fighting this dude. I’m worn out right now. Gil Turtle was tough, but I could basically go AFK with my gambits during that fight and set it to double-speed.
Couldn’t do that with Cuchulainn. I had to stay on my toes for the whole fight. If he got off a single Disablega without me switching to Black Belts in time, I would’ve been fucked.
I’m shaking from adrenaline right now. I need a vacation. I keep saying I’ll wait until I’m on-level or over-level for some of these tougher fights, and I mean it. If I had died on this attempt I would’ve come back later. Still, glad I’m giving these the ol’ college try cause I get moments like this where I win a fight I had no business winning. Whew!
-Who to give Cuchulainn to? Who benefits?
Vaan: Stamp, Protectga, Shellga
Balthier: Magick Lore
Fran: Shades of Black
Basch: Wither
Ashe: nothing
Penelo: nothing
So… I know this is weird that he’s getting more espers, but Protectga and Shellga are huge. Vaan gets it.
-The bestiary for Cuchulainn: he was created to rid the world of impurities by swallowing them, “in opposition to Nabriales the Majestic, scion of light.”
I’m pretty confused on this whole “in opposition to” thing. Would Nabriales want him to help in that way? Maybe it just means “in conjunction with.”
-Unfortunately, there were more impurities in the world than the gods counted on. It transformed Cuchulainn, and he turned on his creators after he was transformed.
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The End of Bloodwing
-Turned in the Bloodwing hunt the escaped prisoner. He gives me a Hand-Bomb, and now feels free to go bury his friend.
-A nice, sad touch – he never even learned his friend’s real name. Just his prisoner number.
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Next time: Trying to finish off the non-elite hunts, and also getting a first look at the elite hunts. Not expecting to beat any of them yet, but I want to see their mechanics at least.
