Team Goltanna at Fort Bessalat
-The Baron of Belmina stands here, recounting the war. Forty thousand casualties. Jesus.
-On top of this, there’s a drought.
-These guys are on Duke Goltanna’s side.
-One of the dudes at the tables is Count Cidolfus Orlandeau. Hi, Cid!
-Some have fled to Lesalia, under Larg’s control, but Zeltennia is not necessarily better off. Cidolfus wants to consider suing for peace.
-Duke Goltanna says no. Not yet. They’ll triple the tax rate and try to persist.
-Cidolfus seems like a reasonable voice at this table.
-It’s interesting that Duke Goltanna seems to care more about his people than Duke Larg. Larg cackled and mwa-ha-ha’d. Goltanna thinks he’s freeing Ivalice from the Crown’s tyranny.
-Cid has the nickname of “Thunder God.” Perhaps he built airships that thundered from the sky? Idk.
-Chapter three title card.
“The Valiant”
-Ramza (I assume) narrates. Delita once said he felt he were swimming against a current, like the current of war now in place. Ramza wants to fight that current.
His plan is to head to Lesalia and talk to his bro (Dycedaarg iirc) about his hunch that someone is orchestrating this war from the shadows. Perhaps someone fighting for the return of the Lucavi.
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Around the World
-Starting a world tour to see new gear, rumors, and errands.
-Cities have a new feature: a Poachers’ Den! That must be related to the thief’s Poach ability.
-Some new rumors:
“A Stalemate” – three months have passed since war started. 400,000 casualties. I seem to remember that casualties include wounded as well as dead. Small comfort.
”Princess Ovelia Saved” - Her kidnappers are now known as Chancellor Glevanne and Queen Louveria. (For me the jury’s still out on that.) They supposedly acted to put the queen’s son next in line ahead of Ovelia. But if so, why not just kill Ovelia and be done with it?
Queen Louveria denies all involvement. Delita was rewarded for “uncovering” the plot by being given leadership of the Blackram Knights.
”The Death of Cardinal Delacroix” - Rumors around his death are muddle. Illness? Assassination? Attack of an “otherworldly fiend.”
“Strangely enough, the slain appeared to have been crushed to death.”
”Drought and Flood” - Goltanna’s land has been hit by drought, and Larg’s has been his by flooding. Famine and refugees abound.
-I can now access a “Croakadile Bag” weapon. It’s female-only. Booooo. Gender-locked gear should eat a bag of hell.
-Trying out Mustadio’s “Arm Shot.” The disable seems to be 40-60% chance, which is reasonable. Disable is really powerful.
-I won’t report in on all the errands I do, since a lot of them seem pretty routine (“we salvaged a ship! We found bags of gil!” Great success!”), I’ll still note flavor stuff that appears along the way.
-Hee! I found a Zorro-themed errand.
-Some new artifacts. First, Mesa’s Musings, a novel about the life of the savior Mesa. Perhaps related to the weapon.
-Second, the Lance of Longibunne. It “slew a demon that had seized control of the mortal realm.” This must be a weapon that one of the Zodiac Braves used against a Lucavi.
-I also have the Taurus and Scorpio Zodiac Stones. The Taurus one was from beneath Goug, the one Mustadio gave us, and the Scorpio was taken from Delacroix.
-One errand cost me 10k gil to start. A frontier marathon of some sort. We found an ancient crystal tower!
Look extremely similar to the FFXIV Crystal Tower, the raid from “A Realm Reborn.”
Once the heart of the ancient kingdom of Baron… lolol. I like that they just toss in references to other FFs.
I’m now a level 1 adventurer, whatever that means.
-I’m also a level 2 treasure hunter.
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Recalibration
Every few sessions I recalibrate my party/job strat. Time to do it again.
I actively use 7-8 generic party members. I want to reduce that to about 5 to support Agrias, Ramza, and Mustadio, partly cause I assume I’ll get more named party members.
None of the three are casters, so hopefully the next I get will be a caster. Hoping Ovelia will join with the Princess job this chapter. I suppose it’d now be a Queen job.
-Simplicity matters here. The game’s mechanics elude me past the basics. I don’t understand how to make the most of Zodiac signs, and hadn’t watched Zodiac compatibility when adding characters. Same with bravery and faith.
This means that simpler jobs, like dragoon, monk, and black mage, get priority.
Other jobs like thief, orator, mystic, and summoner seem like they’d be awesome if I understood more about how they worked, how to make the most of positioning, which enemies have stuff worth stealing, etc. I’ll use them, but more as situational abilities than really devoting myself.
-One last reason to keep paring my party: the remaining jobs. I KNOW I have jobs a number of locked jobs, and if I raise a bunch of job combos on a small number of characters I’ll have more luck than if I spread those job levels out.
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Named Party
Ramza: Build around monk/martial arts. Huge melee damage, spot healing and mana regeneration. Spot healing. Some ranged poke.
Next: Finish martial arts. Then work on some of the utility from thief – move, jump, poach.
Agrias: Build around holy knight/holy sword. This is SUCH AN OVERPOWERED JOB! Solid damage, plus stop, and doom, and group confuse, and silence.
Next: She needs to be in kind of close range, so I think I’ll work on building her defensive skills. Monk for Counter, Black mage for Magick Counter and white mage for Arcane Defense are interesting options.
Mustadio: Build around machinist/aimed shot. A long-range crowd control job. It can hit things from looooong range.
Next: I like the idea of building him with archer for aim, since he can hit from seven million yards away, but mostly I want to build as a support character. After all, he can work from the back lines. Capitalize on that.
Let’s try Jump +1 on archer, then orator for some support tools, and then back to archer for Aim +3 and Archer’s Bane. Then hop back to orator.
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Top-Tier Generics
Millicent: Build around chemist. She already has most chemist abilities.
Next: Chemist is reactive, so for a more proactive support, I’ll build time mage. At some point, I’ll do mystic too for the dispel ability.
Josephine: Build around white mage. She already has a lot of abilities.
Next: White mage is mana-intensive, so I don’t think I want something like Summoner or Time Mage. First, mystic for Manafont. Then some orator abilities, then back to white mage for Curaja. Could even consider Chakra on monk to regen mana.
Randwulf: Build around black mage. He already has a lot of abilities, and I just got Flare. I doubt I’ll use it much. I mean, it’s probably just too slow and costs too much mana, but c’mon. It’s FLARE! How could I resist?
He’s made a lot of progress as a black mage already. I’ll finish it off, then try out Swiftness on time mage. That seems useful to shorten the charge time on some of the higher-end spells. It’d replace Arcane Strength though.
Then Summoner. I’ll skip the early stuff like Shiva, but the higher-end summons really interest me as a tool in his magic damaging toolbelt.
Lauda: I looove dragoon. Super high mobility and the polearm range can’t be countered.
[Non-rhetorical question: Can y’all help me understand the dragoon’s active abilities? Vertical Jump 8 for instance doesn’t seem like an active ability. If I get Horizontal Jump 8, does that just passively increase his jump range when he’s a dragoon?
If I get Vertical Jump 8 and Horizontal Jump 8, is there any benefit to getting the earlier abilities (e.g. Vertical Jump 5)?
Lastly, if I get “Ignore Elevation,” is there any point in getting the Vertical Jump abilities?]
[Other non-rhetorical question for y’all: is there a clear and obvious way in game to see which abilities are innate and which have to be purchased/equipped? Some are obvious, like how as a knight I can equip shields even without having bought Equip Shields, but many are not.]
Next: Finish off dragoon abilities, then move to knight. If I can combine some of the knight’s rend abilities with the distance of a polearm, I’ll be happy.
Eadbert: Build around archer for big ranged damage.
Next: I got most of what I want from archer and thief, so dragoon next for some utility. Then Knight. I like that the rend abilities work from range.
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To the BENCH!
Diamanda: Sorry, friend. She had built up knight and monk abilities. They’re good, just kind of redundant with Ramza and Agrias.
Guston: I’d been working on him as mystic, orator, summoner, but he just felt kind of weak.
Despite adorable moments like summoning a moogle.
There were frequently turns where he’d have nothing to do, or where he’d do something that felt like passing like draining a bit of HP or casting blind on an enemy.
I like the idea of support abilities. I’ll distribute them on other characters like Millicent and Mustadio.
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Next time: exploring the world of chapter 3, then heading to meet Dycedaarg.
