FFV Four Job Fiesta - The End?

Things were going pretty well for my natural run of Knight, Mystic Knight, Geomancer, and Dancer. A bit squishy, but the Dancer could rip off a series of Sword Dances for massive damage (25% chance though) and the Geomancer in the right location could dominate.

And yet here I am. Giving up. Stuck at World 2's Exdeath.

FFV Four Job Fiesta! - Embrace the Random

Played some at lunch today, and gotta say... Geomancer and Dancer aren't the most reliable classes, but when they hit, they hit HARD.

 Just fought Gilgamesh on King Xezat's fleet east of Exdeath's island, and ripped him apart. Lenna the Mystic Knight was using Drain to have her attacks keep herself alive. Faris's Geomancer kept nailing these Tsunamis, Big Waves, and Waterfalls for massive damage. And Galuf, poor dancing Galuf, got off a few astoundingly powerful Sword Dances. Just obliterated Gilgamesh.

 For Faris especially, a lot depends on the zone. Her Gaia attacks in forests are pretty mediocre, but in caves she dominates with Cave In for thousands of damage. For grinding in swamp areas, she often one-shot kills many monsters with a quicksand type deal.

Even if they're not the most reliable bunch, it's fun as hell when it works. :)

FFV Four Job Fiesta! - Dancing into Galuf's World

Got the final earth crystal: Dancer.  Ugh.

I mean, it's not AWFUL, but my line-up is now Knight, Mystic Knight, Geomancer, and Dancer.  And given that it's a #natural run, there's no job mixing.  Faris is just a Geomancer, Galuf is just a Dancer, etc.  There's no healing, and two of the jobs (geo/dan) are heavily randomized.

Well.  It'll certainly be a unique play for me. :)

FFV Four Job Fiesta! - Wind, Water, Fire

Got rolling on the fiesta.  I've made it up through Castle Karnak, and am only posting now because this was my first real challenge: the Living Flame boss of Karnak.  (I'm playing this on my iPhone, so no screenshots - unless y'all know of a way to take screenshots on an iPhone?)

GilgaBot gave me some strong jobs so far in my natural run, but a dearth of healing.

Wind (Bartz): Knight
Water (Lenna): Mystic Knight
Fire (Faris): Geomancer
Earth (Galuf): Not yet there.  He's still freelancing.

This is only my second playthrough of FFV, so I am far from knowing all the tricks and gimmicks to make this an easy run.  I've mostly stuck to getting to a new town, grinding up until I can buy all the magic and armor and weapons I need from the town, and then continuing through the story.

First part of the game has been smooth sailing (no pun intended, Faris) so far.  The Siren was a bit tricky, but not TOO bad.  The forests around Karnak with packs of wolves were nice for gil grinding.  Potion healing is... not great, and the controls on iPhone are not great either, but passable.

Living Flame nearly killed me because I wasn't keeping everyone topped up with potions, but eventually ran her out of mana and won in a battle of attrition.  Escaped the castle, tweeted at Gilgabot, and got my next job.

@Coldrun_MN can now use the Fire Job 'Geomancer'. YES! NO MORE TILE DAMAGE!!!!

— FF5ForFutures (@FF5ForFutures) June 26, 2015

FFV Four Job Fiesta! - Introduction

The Final Fantasy V Four Job Fiesta is underway!  I'll be trying my hand at a natural run.  More on what the hell I'm talking about inside. :)

FFV – Part 61: Final Thoughts

Summary: Some last thoughts as we depart Final Fantasy V.

FFV – Part 60: A Realm Reborn

Summary: Our party floats in the Void. They relinquish their hold on the crystals, which then reform to once again gift their power to the world. Hiryu is reborn. The Dawn Warriors bid goodbye to the Light Warriors. Krile updates us on the party’s doings one year later. They remember Galuf, and ride into the sunset. Beautiful.

FFV – Part 59: Tree of Strife

Summary: Showdown with Exdeath. He morphs from human form to evil tree monster form, and then to his final form, a mish-mosh of monster similar to the Creator of FFIV:TAY. A tough fight, but we eventually take him down. With a little help from our friends, that is.

FFV – Part 58: The Winning Spirit

Summary: We meet Shinryu, nee Nova Dragon. The Rift gets more woodsy. Mind Flayers. We fight Necrophobe, and are saved by the sacrifice of Gilgamesh, of all people.

FFV – Part 57: Coasting a Terrace, Approaching a Rift

Summary: We finish off Dimension Castle, taking down Halicarnassus and Twintania. Enter the Rift. We again meet the peerless Gilgamesh, and the world is a pretty good place sometimes.

FFV – Part 56: My Name is Legion

Summary: Deeper into the Rift. Omega thoroughly whomps us, so we push on to fight a Not!Panda. We move into Dimension Castle, where we fight Exdeath’s Legion of Doom.

FFV – Part 55: Doomsayer

Summary: I finish the piano quest, then move into the Rift. We fight our way through a diverse array of locations within the Rift, including desert, ruins, forest, and cave. Krile tries the oracle job, and sees doom wherever she looks.

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Piano 3: The Reckoning

-More piano exploration in the world.

PHANTOM VILLAGE: Already done.

CRESCENT: Already done.

TULE: Already done.

REGOLE: SUCCESS!!

I didn’t see the hidden passage that led here before, but found the last piano. So… hurray, I guess?

-I think I’m done here. Onto the Rift.

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The Rift – Desert

-Some quake worms and the brutal Landcrawler, but nothing too new.

-A tomb.

-OH SHIT IT’S THE LEGION OF DOOM.

Not that Legion of Doom.

THIS Legion of Doom!

-They threaten us, then blink away. I think they were just a vision/illusion/projection.

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The Rift – Ruins

-Ronkan ruins. More high-tech enemies, like a reskin of the evil fan.

-Oracle is a really fascinating job. It seems to be random. I can use !Condemn to put a countdown timer on the enemy. W hen it counts down, the enemy gets hit by that spell. Cannoneer I don’t really understand yet.

-Exit…

-…huh?

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The Rift – Phantom Village

-I pop out of the previously inaccessible basement room in the Phantom Village.

-Is this an illusion? Is this real? Am I real?

-The answer is maybe. Nobody in town is talking or moving. It’s frozen in time. This is some creepy-ass langoliers bullshit right here.

-Seriously. I have nightmares about this kind of thing.

-We leave the town…

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The Rift – Forest

-…and enter a low-visibility forest.

-LOL – Krile used !Predict, rank 3. It summoned a rockslide that KILLED THREE OF US LOLOL

-Ok, fuck Oracle. Her next !Predict is “Pestilence,” which kills the whole party after five seconds with over 4,000 damage to us.

-A tree with a hole in it opened to the next area.

-Oops! No, it didn’t. A tentacle lady, Calofisteri, came out to kill me. I try Rank 1 !Predict for the heck of it. Krile predicts Pestilence again. Five seconds later, we die.

The damage we’re taking? Yeah, it’s not from Calofisteri. *stares at Krile*

-HEY KRILE, STOP SEEING THE GRIM EVERYWHERE. Trelawney taught you poorly. Should’ve learned from the centaurs instead.

-Attemt #2: Success. My strategy of having Krile sit on her ass and predict nothing was a rousing success.

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The Rift – Cave

-We encounter a Great Dragon as our first random enemy. This does not bode well.

Some tough Rift Cave baddies.

-I give Krile one last chance to prove her oracling worth. She rises to the challenge by calling down another pox on our house.

-Ok, Krile. Let’s give you a nice relaxing beastmaster job.

-Eyeball mounds from FFII! Missed u guyz.

-Aaand I ran into Omega. Guess who got destroyed?

---

Next time: Omega.

FFV – Part 54: Art and Music

Summary: New jobs. World exploration to find out what’s up with the pianos, which led us to Odin in the basement of Bal.

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Sea

-Something erupted in the south.

-“Feels like time and space are twisting.” Poetic, Bartz.

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???

-I’m not just saying I don’t know where this cave is; “???” is the actual name I see.

-Where is this?

-NEW JOBS!!! WOO HOO!!! Oracle, gladiator, cannoneer.

-A mysterious merchant pops in. Really? Oh, he’s an exposition dump, explaining the new jobs.

Oracle: Predicts stuff. It can backfire.
Gladiator: Weapon specialist with “finishers.” I guess these are things that do more damage to a monster below a certain percentage, but not sure.
Cannoneer: Can combine ammunition with other stuff.

-Let’s try Bartz on cannoneer, Krile on oracle, Faris on gladiator.

-LOL – Bartz’s cannoneer sprite.

He looks like he’s ready to fight off the redcoats.

-Faris’s gladiator looks badass.

-The cave we’re in has three doors and a switch. One door is where we came in, the switch doesn’t work, one toor is too dark to see inside, and one door is magically sealed. Um. Okay.

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Under the Sea

-There are four blinking lights on the underwater map. I’ve been to three of them. One left.

-Oh, I was wrong. The one I thought was new is just the Great Sea Trench, where I got a tablet.

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Exploring

-The next step for me is probably the Rift, but I want to try solving this Piano thing first. Not sure which pianos I’ve missed or done. It’s possible this is impossible at this point, that the pianos I need were sucked into the Void, but I’m going to try.

KARNAK: Already done.

SURGATE: Really, game?

Really? Just… argh. No words. I hope Lone Wolf is a random encounter down the line so we can kill him and loot all this stuff.

No piano.

MOORE: Already done.

QUELB: No piano.

BAL: Krile’s wind drake is here, and rideable. Basement still locked. No piano.

JACHOL: Already done.

JACHOL CAVE: I’d forgotten to explore this cave earlier. And by “forgot,” I mean “really didn’t want to face Skull Eaters again.” But beating the Shield Dragon felt so good that it’s VENGEANCE TIME.

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Jachol Cave

-Yes. Vengeance on the Skull Eaters. (Decent xp too, for 5 ABP per kill.)

Eat !Gaia, Skull Eaters. Mwa-ha-ha!

-WHAT

-IT GOT ME INSIDE THE BASEMENT OF BAL

-HAHHAHAHAHAHHA

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Bal – Basement

-Really long hallway. Builds tension well.

-The monsters here with petrify, “Objet d’Art,” give great xp but are still pretty nasty.

-Prediction: the boss here will be some uber-Objet d’Art, like a ginormous soldier statue or something.

-And I’m dead wrong. It’s ODIN! He’s gonna give us a one minute timer. Time to break out my highest damage group.

-Have I mentioned my hatred of timers?

-And beat him in under 30 seconds. Go team! Dualcast + Thundaga = dead Odin. Or rather, defeated Odin, since we get him as a summon now.

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Next time: piano practice.

FFV – Part 53: Behind Istory Falls

Summary: Some travel and then onto Istory Falls. A hard dungeon that contains the fourth tablet. 

FFV – Part 52: Phoenix Rising

Summary: We take down Bahamut on North Mountain, then proceed to Phoenix Tower. After one of the most messed-up flashbacks ever, Hiryu (who was on the top of the tower) expends his remaining life to become a phoenix. 

FFV – Part 51: Gogo

Summary: Some new legendary weapons. World travel on Boko, and a reunion with Syldra! Sort of. We then pick up a new job from the Sunken Tower of Walse, courtesy of the strange and dramatic mimic, Gogo.

FFV – Part 50: Three Little Pigs

Summary: The Great Sea Trench. We meet dwarves, and fight off a family of evil pig monsters to get the third tablet. We then head to the surface and find the Phantom Village.

FFV – Part 49: I Am Legend

Summary: Some world travel, checking out different towns in the merged world. We get a submarine. The Sealed Castle opens up for us, and we get a few legendary weapons.

FFV – Part 48: Fork in the Road

Summary: Some town hopping, then Crescent and the Fork Towers. Our party splits and heads up each tower, the might tower and the magic tower. They face down two really nasty bosses at the top and eventually defeat them, winning the Flare and Holy spells.

FFV – Part 47: Always the Water Levels

Summary: Exdeath cranks the Void up to 11, swallowing half the world. We find the next tablet’s hiding place, the Island Shrine. It’s tons of fun, because I love getting confused, debuffed, and insta-killed as often as possible. We beat the guardian (a Wendigo) and get the second tablet.